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I finally finished! Sorry it took me so long, but I had a lot of pictures...
Ok, my Trip to Slidell, Louisana for the hurricane relief:
Ok, first let me introduce you to the team:
From left to right: Will, Paul, Gail, Jimmy (Paul and Jimmy are trey [my best friend in the navy]'s brothers, and Gail is his mother), William, April, Billy, Alex, and myself.
We left on a saturday, and we finished the drive up on a Sunday, so we stopped at a church by Tallahassee.
This was the first day that they held service in this building, and they had the whole ribbon cutting thing and all...
It was really cute because everyone would greet you with a "howdy!"
We got to talk to the pastor and some of the elders there, and they said a prayer for us before we went on our way.
I love Gail's smile...
We got to talk to some of the people after the service, and I absolutely loved listening to the country accents...
We left there, and we finished our drive all the way to Slidell, Louisana.
Faith Bible Church was where we stayed. They provided us with meals and beds to sleep in. They also "assigned" us where to work at. There was a lot of teams coming and going, so there was always new people to talk to from all over.
This is where we ate dinner and breakfast:
And where we slept:
My bed is on the right of April. The tarp in the background is what seperated the guys from the girls.
Will dead alseep. :)
Where we washed our clothes.
After arriving at Faith Bible Church, we took a drive to Trinity, which was another church that we were going to be helping out. No one was there, so we got to take a look around and talk about what exactly we were going to be doing.
Day one: Our team was assigned to work in a duplex. We decided that we would do one side the first day, and the other side the second day.
The duplex. We started on the right side.
These are some of the things that we saw when we first looked around:
We saw a lot of pictures destroyed. I think this was about the point when I cried a little. I saw lots of baby pictures and stuff like that, and it really pushed me into the reality that this is someone's life. All the material things that they had were gone, and that kinda made me sad.
All that brown is mud. A lot of asty, smelly mud.
This picture was taken after we moved most of the big stuff out, and we're beginning to pull out the carpet.
The kitchen.
One of the bedrooms in the back. There was about a foot of mud in most places, and you can see the water line on the wall.
The other back room. You can see how mold was a big problem, so we had to wear masks the majority of the time that we were moving stuff.
Will picking up the last of the things in the room.
We took out as much as we could, and shoveled the majority of the mud out, and then just rolled up the carpet with whatever was left inside.
Keith (the owner of the property) helped us by using a tractor, so we could just load the stuff in, and he would move all the stuff into a big pile of garbage.
Us moving the carpet in.
This house actually floated here. Its behing the duplex that we were working in.
This is where the house was.
The Red Cross came by and provided us with hot lunches, so we were fed very well.
On the property, there was a goose and duck that we "made friends with". We named the goose "Miss Daisy", and the duck "Pato". They came right up to us, and let us pet them and feed them. It was cute.
They were both so cute...
Now, back to work...
April's shirt. Me and her both went to the Dominican Republic to work down there, and that was the shirt that we got...
Keith and his tractor.
We're begginning to make a lot of progress. The sheet rock is being torn down, and we're rolling up the fiber glass. Basically, our task was to gut the entire house.
Will.
Rolling fiberglass.
April in the front room after all of the sheet rock is down.
Billy pulling out the base boards and the door frames.
So, day one went well...
Before.
After.
Day two: The left side of the duplex.
I had to pull out electrical cords and telephone cords, and I got the bejesus shocked out of me a few times.
I found a flask in this room with the name "Shannon" engraved on it. It was pretty cool.
This is from the left side looking into the right side of the duplex.
Gotta love the red cross...
I have a lot less pictures of day two, but this is pretty much us finishing up...
Paul pulling nails.
When we finished, we got to take a tour around the property and see some of the other houses.
This was another house that floated off...
The inside where the floor was raised.
Another house on the property.
On the right of the house in the roof that completely collapsed.
One thing we found out is that its illegal to take a tree (like this one) off of a roof. Somethin about a safety hazard. A professional has to come and cut it down, but a lot of people can't pay for that...
So, day two went well.
Day three: We went to work with some of the people at Trinity, and they assigned us to work at a counsil woman's house.
The guys from Trinity: Brian is on the left-he's a missionary that's been down there for a while. And Adam on the right-he's going into the marines in November, and he's been there for about a month helping out.
These are just pictures taken when we got there and as we were working:
The backyard.
The water went all the way up into the attic, that's why the fan blades are bent that way. Directly over my head is a hole in the roof, and I pulled branches out and swept up the leaves from that.
The front room.
The house was really big, and it was a pain to pick up stuff and walk it all the way to the front, so we just opened the window and tossed stuff out.
The view from the front door.
I really liked this painting that we managed to save.
Taking down the sheet rock was actually a lot of fun...
Me pulling out nails and Gail shoveling up the stuff on the floor.
This is the one part of the trip that I did not like: cockroaches the size of madagascar.
Billy had fun taking out the tubs with a sledge hammer.
Alex being...well...Alex.
The refrigerator smelled so bad, so we dragged it out with Alex's truck.
So, day three went well.
Day four: Trinity took us to another house to work in, but there was another team there, so we only worked for half a day there. It was really interesting, because the other team was Menonites...yea...they looked at me and April really weird when we walked in with hammers and our sleeves rolled up ready to work... :)
The lady we worked for, and her husband in the background.
The backyard.
Our group and the Menonites. Notice how Gail, April, and myself are the only women...It was definently interesting...
The last thing we did was do yard work for this older couple. All the trees behind us is everything we moved.
After we finished, we went to go take a look around Lake Ponchartrain. This is what we saw:
The pier.
Those numbers in that X are all around. The number on the left is the date they searched the house, and the number below is how many bodies were found.
This was all that was left of this woman's house.
This was a F250. Bummer.
For those who know me and April, you know that me and her do this on every working trip we go on.
I know this is a lot, but its continued in the next entry...