A day of distant celebrations (March 18)

After our return to Pascagoula I found out some additional information about Dauphin Island (see my post for March 17) It may have been Ivan in 2004 rather than Katrina in 2005 that did the damage there. This would explain the amount of completed new construction (that did seem a little puzzling although there is still a lot of damage and a lot of construction underway) -- Also it is a long narrow”spit” of land and apparently a big chunk was washed away that left a bunch of houses on a “new” island that is no longer accessible.

Today was my brother Rob’s birthday. Best wishes Rob – hope you had a good day.

Also to-day we missed the creation of a new family. My niece Megan married John. Her three children and his three constituted the wedding party - she was escorted down the aisle by her 2 sons. So in this case 1 plus equals 8 in the new family.

Both Megan and John had lost their spouses several years ago and we rejoice that they have come together. We hated to miss this wedding since it was in Sault Ste. Marie. The one positive was that Megan’s brother and family and other out-of-town guests were able to stay at our house Thanks to my brother Rob for forwarding pictures taken by his daughter Trishia – another niece

We got an email from Linda’s sister Arliss this a.m. giving us the news from that side of the family – Thanks Arliss.

We took the day off to clean and do some things around “home” today. Linda spent most of the afternoon cleaning up and washing towels, etc. in the area that is used for showers. She started by going to do some of our laundry but couldn’t stand the mess. I vacuumed the BBB and did some notes on the computer for tomorrow.

The people from Tennessee along with John Sanders worked at the house again today and the tearing out so I guess we’ll be looking for another project on Monday. We will probably have to leave Wednesday or Thursday to make the connections we want to make before going to San Antonio to meet with Chris, Tammye and Hunter in San Antonio on March 29.

In closing I’ll mention that things don’t always go well for people who are committed showing God’s love through service to others. David Baker who is one of the coordinator’s had his vehicle wrecked a few days ago because a lady ran a red light. She was taking meds and wasn’t supposed to be driving and ended up being arrested. Fortunately he wasn't (seriously) injured and I think he was more concerned about the lady being arrested than anything else.

Another volunteer from Pennsylvania (I think) hit her head while getting into a vehicle (back seat of a truck) and ended up with a concussion and had to be flown home.

I don’t know why these things happen but I do trust that God can and will work good regardless. I did want to say that I so much appreciated David’s attitude that he wasn’t going to let a small thing like the loss of his vehicle interfere with his commitment to serve.