Getting out of the house -almost (March 14)

A few I “forgot to mention’s from the past couple of day’s
1. Linda called her mother last night and found out that her youngest sister Stephanie was home for a visit. She had a good visit with them on the phone.

2. I called Roger(- the preacher at Pinehill to catch upon how things were going at home. He was filling me in on the efforts to support a man who has just returned to the community from a prison sentence. The church is doing what they can to help him get settled in. We pray that the church there can be a blessing to him and that his journey can be enriched by a ever increasing relationship with Jesus.

3. I also found out from Roger that the Great Lakes chorus presentation planned for Sunday evening didn’t take place because their bus had mechanical problems and they didn’t arrive in Sault until after 10 p.m. Even though we aren't there our house was used to billet someofthe students --withmy sister-in-law Marilyn as the hostess. This coming weekend our house will be full again with guests in town for my niece Megan's wedding on Saturday. We are pleased that we can do this even though we aren't there.

4. David Baker who is one of the coordinators of “Operation Love Thy neighbor” here in Pascagoula had his vehicle demolished in an accident yesterday. Lady taking medications which meant she shouldn’t drive ran a red light and hit him. The good news is that he was not seriously injured – just some bumps and bruises. We know that God will work good from this but it does seem difficult to accept that someone who was here helping with one tragedy should be involved in something like this.

5. I have previously mentioned John Sanders from Rhode Island who is here working part0time on paid jobs and part time volunteer .Last evening in a conversation with him I discovered he is also very involved as Co-chair of with a missions effort in Ghana -- see Christ's Co-mission International -- his commitment to serving can be an example to us all.

6. We had learned from Melissa that she hurt her knee while in Connecticut. She waited until she was home to see a doctor because of the medical coverage she had. Anyhow, she was afraid it was a torn ACL (knee ligament) but she saw Dr. yesterday and he thought it was something else – and it could be treated by physiotherapy. She had X-rays this a.m. and once the Dr. has seen those he should be able to confirm (or I suppose change) his diagnosis – We are praying that it is not serious and that the physio will do the trick.

Well on to some "new business"

It was a windy but warm last night and I was sleeping with the window open. We are right beside a fairly busy street and there seemed to be more traffic than normal all through the night plus some thing that sounded like bowling with tin cans going on at the building across the street – as a result – I didn’t sleep all that well last night

Getting to the showers (only 2 for over 50 people) is difficult soI thought I would beat the crowd by going over at 6 (after all that is 7 by our clocks) but believe it or not the place was buzzing—and I had a minor wait before I could go ahead.

Well, we ALMOST finished the painting to-day. All of the walls are DONE!!! -- the trim in one room remains to be done. I’m finished- (I had thought of using the immortal words of Martin Luther King Jr. “Free at at last…” but I really can’t compare my situation to the one he was describing.) It was a great feeling to be washing up the brushes knowing it was DONE!!. I am willing to do anything else but paint for the rest of the time we are here.

Linda will finish the trim to-morrowmorning. I'll finishingcleaning the floors soit is "carpet ready". Probably would have finished the trim to-day but she ran out of paint. She had been talking to John (Kelly) this morning and he said he would like to plant some flowers for his mother--- Linda was excited about getting her hands into the dirt and said she would do that if he got the plants. She wasn’t going to start that until the painting was done but when she ran out of paint she diverted to that while waiting for John to get another gallon. Once he started she wanted to finish so we spent about 3 hours to-day outside – her planting flowers and I cleaned up the front entrance—there were leaves to sweep up as well moving a pile of old lumber & doors to the curb.

John’s brother David (another David!!) showed up today—he is an electrician and he came to reinstall the receptacles which had all be removed to allow replacement of the plaster. The carpet is supposed to be installed Thursday or Friday. Mr & Mrs. Kelly are flying home and will be here Monday. We are hoping to be able to send a crew on Saturday to help John put furniture in the house – it would be neat to have it ready for them to move in. Since we are staying until next week we will likely get to meet them before we leave.

Godnight& God Bless
Charlie& Linda