What's next David? (March 15)

Well, we finished at the house to-day (Wednesday). 11 days of work – 13 gallons of paint (Linda sang the Hallelujah chorus!! Or at least the start of it!!! ) I told John (Kelly) –“Nothing personal but I sure am glad we aren’t coming back here tomorrow”.

David (Kelly) was back at the house finishing the electrical work and that is also pretty well done. All it needs is carpet and its’ ready to move in.

We didn’t take our lunch because we expected to be finished by noon or shortly there after. However, we were delayed by several conversations with John and his brother David related to how we could help get the place ready for their parents when they came in on Monday night. We also heard more of their story. There are 3 brothers who live in Pascagoula (plus the sister in California). All 3 of them had their homes flooded. The oldest brother was rescued from a tree limb and he is virtually incapacitated by the trauma of it all. He had moved back to Pascagoula from Florida because he had rode out 2 hurricanes there in consecutive years – and was just getting some confidence back when Katrina hit.

All the painting was done by noon but there was still the cleanup –sweeping floors, etc that we wanted to do to get the rooms ready for the carpet. John went out and bought us shrimp “Po-boy” sandwiches for lunch – never had one before but it was delicious. He is doing much better and is able to get around without grimacing in pain the way he did when we first met him.

We had hoped that the carpet would be installed tomorrow or Friday and we could organize a work crew of the college kids to go in Saturday and set up some of the furniture. However, John found out that the carpet is back ordered at Lowe’s and probably won’t get here until next Tuesday. Mr. & Mrs. Kelly are flyng into Mobile next Monday – I mentioned before that they wanted to drive and John was trying to talk them out of it -- From what I’ve heard of their determination, I think it was nothing short of a miracle that he was successful

John was talking to his mother this morning explaining the situation and she decided that they would stay in a room – originally the a family room -- that wasn’t redone (yet). It was being used as a bedroom for a while when they were staying there after the flood and it has 2 beds in it. This was better than putting beds in and then having to take them out again when the carpet came. When Linda found out about that she spent most of the afternoon cleaning that room, making up the beds and getting it set up so they could walk in and go to bed when they arrive late Monday night. I spent the afternoon going through the rooms we had painted making sure that the floors were carpet ready lean and ready for the carpet and doing other minor things like removing masking tape from door hinges. I also scrubbed the tile floor in the foyer to be sure we got all the paint drops off. It was a good feeling to walk out knowing it was ready for them and that it looked good.

When we were ready to go I called John Dobbs on his cell to ask him to arrange a pickup in about 30 minutes.. He was at Lowes loading a trailer of material for his house (which was flooded as well and they are in the final stages of repairing it having lived in a camper in their driveway for several months. He said he would contact someone to come get us. About forty-five minutes later John (Kelly) and his girlfriend Tammy came to the house and said they were going to come to the church to eat with us tonight. So we decided to ride back with them(and come back later to pickup our load of ladders, etc.). – and hoping that we would get here before any one was dispatched to pick us up. Turns out John had forgotten. I saw him after services tonight and he looked me and said – Oh, oh – Did you get a ride. I gave him a bit of a hard time about forgetting but as it worked out we had a good visit with John (Kelly) and Tammy. John took his truck back to the house after eating and got the stuff. When he returned we had them come in to the motorhome and showed them some pictures of the house while we were working there as well as pictures of our family -- which of course took a lot of persuasion to get us to do – NOT!!

(Note to John Dobbs—you are forgiven because as usual God worked it out in a better way – and besides it gave me a reason to mention you today so you won’t have to complain about being ignored like you did yesterday !! (just kidding)

Well its getting late and I want to put some pictures in this. So I’ll close (Actually it is now Thursday a.m. and there aren't anypictures -forsomereason I'velost my wirelessconnection and I've hadto comein and hook up directly to thenetwork-- soI'll do some pictures next time when I have a better setup (and more time)