Chaos

So tonight has been an pretty off the wall night. Our four new friends from Florida have left us, along with Eric from Denver and we already miss their company. But we have some new friends that have joined us tonight from Indianapolis (South Bend) who seem to have both high spirits and energy (which we're going to need). Tomorrow our friends from Chicago, Scott, Shannon, Cherise and Billy, along with Doug from Denver will be leaving us as well. We hope they all get home safely and find everything as they left it or better. We also hope that our new colleagues will find have an easy transition into our lifestyle down here and become as great friends to us as those who are leaving or have left already.



PS: Hi Grandma :]

Tim, Matt and Dave

This is to the family and friends of Tim, Matt and Dave.
This is Scott, the balding chubby guy you see in the pictures.
I have just spent 6 days with these guys and I feel very fortunate I was able to do so. You can surely be proud of them and what they are doing. They have been wonderful to work with. I do not know how they are at home but here they have worked unbelievebly hard. They have not only worked physically but they have shown compassion and love to all those in need. I will continue to pray that the wishes they have for their future will come into being, and then some.
I will miss them greatly and hope to see them in the near future.
~Scott
PS Cherise and Shannon will miss you too!!!

Day 6

So today was our 6th day on the job and I can say that fatigue is beginning to take ahold of me. I like to think that I've become quite a tree removal expert and I love my little Husqvarna 350 chain saw, which I've nicknamed "the fury." But cutting all day has become very taxing on the back and the feet and I think it was beginning to show today. At one point we were in a different neighborhood away from the church which had about 4 feet of water. Black mold was everywhere. We were working on an elderly woman's yard (I think she said she was 83 years young) and the smell there was terrible. It still hadn't even dried beneath her house. The mold and dust was tough on everyone and I think moral hit a low while on the job there. Our only defense against the sadness and severity of the situation is our ability to be light-hearted, and when we lose that the work becomes ten times harder.

Later, we came back to another job in the same neighborhood and you could feel some tension between us workers. It was only a brief moment though, and our spirits have risen again. Dave, Matt and myself, however, are due for a bit of a break I think, which we'll be getting this Sunday. The majority of our crew here with us will be leaving Friday and Saturday. We'll certainly miss our new friends but we anticipate the arrival of new compatriots. Just as when Pat left us and the groups from Chicago/Denver/Florida arrived our group dynamic changed and it will change again. I have to admit that this caused me a bit of anxiety the last time it happened, but that was dispelled quickly and I hope it will be again (not to mention we're going to miss the cooking).

Today more than ever my thoughts were of home and those that I miss, but I know the next weeks will slide by soon.

PS: We've added alot of photos of us working and posts about our gracious hosts and our fearless leader are soon to come. But I'm too tired, and Dave and Matt are lazy.

The Ehlerts

The motley crue pictured above (excluding Dave in the background) is Scott and his two daughters Shannon (left) and Cherise (right). Scott is a great guy and gets along well with all of us young guys (and man does he have some stories to tell). He's also the official driver of our little work van, and thus gets dragged along to every job we do. Shannon and Cherise work with us as well, when they're not cooking for the whole crew (they alternate with Marsha and Linda), a job at which they excel. They also work harder than Matt when they're with us (he's so lazy). Cherise is also our expert wildlife expert, she caught a lizard today and intends to bring it back to Chicago with her.

Dave and Bill

Dave and Bill are two of the five people who came down to help from Chicago. Dave is 22 and Bill is 19, and they are both workhorses - whether is hauling lumber or operating the saws. We're happy to have them spelling the rest of us. Its also nice to meet a couple of guys are our age down here. As much as we enjoy everyone's company, it really takes members of your own generation to relate to.

Doug and Eric

The two guys above are Doug and Eric from Denver, who drove Hans's truck all the way here to provide us with a second work vehicle (yikes, thats a long drive). They got here last night after driving straight through and were happy to have a beer or two and hit the sack. Today though, they were at the grind with the rest of us doing their part - Eric working with the crews all day, and Doug working with Joe on the chainsaws (dare I say he is even more of an expert?) and then joining us on the job.

The Floridians!

Here are Linda and Joe, and Marsha and Roy, who are all from Florida. Roy is an Evangelist and Joe is a Rector. Linda and Marsha made us all a fabulous dinner of chicken and broccoli, with rice and veggies this evening. And when they're not cooking they're out working hard with us hauling wood. Joe has become our resident saw expert and often finds himself in the church sharpening our chains - he also seems to have a never ending supply of wisecracks. Roy is out there each day working side by side with all of us young guys and does an impressive job of keeping up (he can supply some decent quips as well). We're all greatful for there company (and food) and will probably miss them once they've returned home (but not too much).

Another day, another tree

Hello everyone, we've just returned from dinner (which was fantastic) at Sister Ruth's house - compliments of our chefs Marsha and Linda. We've got pictures, finally, of our newest team members which we will try to post as expediently as possible (including pictures of our hosts Ruth and Jim, and of our fearless leader Hans). Things are going well - with our full crew we are able to knock out 3 or 4 jobs a day. Most importantly, we're able to get to different people's home and hopefully bring them some hope. Keep checking our pictures page on the right because we will be updating frequently. For now we'll make some posts about our newer teammates.

Pictures!

We've finally found a way to post mutliple pictures in one place. This includes all of our photos, of us locally here in Slidell and of our trip to to the Mississippi Gulf coast. Click here to see our photos.

We'll have images of the new team members probably by tomorrow night. Right now, off to dinner.

A tomb

This tomb was carried away from the graveyard in Slidell and deposited in a drainage ditch on the side of the road, with two others.

its pat

So Pat left us today, to return to his bar and crazy life in Denver, we'll miss ya buddy. Heres a pciture of him with us, in Alma Louise's yard. Pat also cooked us a ridiculous burrito dinner with home-made guacamole, pico de gaio, salsa, rice, etc. Dave, who is a monster, ate 3 of them.

Hi Everyone!

So we're still here - Rita landed much further west and left us almost completely unscathed. So we got right down to work (although we slept in this morning waiting for some of the wind to pass). Today consisted of: more cutting and moving trees. The house we've been working on belongs to one Alma Louise who is, perhaps, the sweetest lady one will ever meet. She would come out periodically and apologize for not having anything to give us, but that she prayed for us. There were easily 20 downed trees and in her yard, and Rita blew in a sheet metal shed from the neighbors yard (which dave quickly folded into a small pile, well done sir). The sun was out and strong today, and we've all got awful farmer tans now. And other than that there isn't much new news, though we've got alot of pictures to post, so I'll try to get some of them in there now.

A long day..

So its been a very long day, its now 9:30 (10:30 EST) and we've been up for many an hour. After we arrived in Baton Rouge we met our ride, Hans (the District Evangelist of Denver) who treated us all to a crackerbarrel lunch. He is retired and plans on retiring from his ministry in a year or two, though he is in very good health and very good shape. On the long ride down interstate 12 east, we got to know a little about him. He immigrated from Switzerland in his early 20s and never looked back. He currently has his ministry in Denver, where he has resided the majority of his stay in the United States.

Also on the long ride down we saw a progression of devestation, from a few trees down, to many trees down, destroyed billboards, coffins/tombs washed up on the side of the road, destroyed houses, etc. When we arrived in Slidell at the church we quickly disembarked, got into our work gear and headed over to a small lot with around 10 trees down. There we met Pat who was already working hard. Pat is a member of the church from the same congregation has Hans. He seems like a nice guy that the three of us can relate to in some degree, being as he is only in his 30s. So we got to work, cutting up and piling the trees on the side of the road. That went on for quite awhile before we returned home, ate, talked, drank, etc. We are staying at a man named Jim Dykes (spelling probably incorrect) who I believe is the minister for the local congregation. Its a beautiful home in a pretty affluent neighborhood, which is indeed in much better shape than the neighborhood near the church.

Although I am undoubtedly the most liberal person of the group everyone recognizes that we're performing a task that is more important than those sort of differences. Tomorrow we'll be getting an early start and doing more tree removal and helping some people board up for Rita as best we can, before the storm itself hits.

Unfortunately there is a lot more that happened today than can be quickly and concisely expressed in our little blog at the moment, but we will do our best to keep you updated and acquaint you with our coworkers. The rest were supposed to have arrived tomorrow, but have been delayed until either Sunday or Monday.

Oh and yeah, we'll be getting a bunch of pictures up soon- just not tonight. Because I'm tired.

Baton Rouge

Hey everyone, we've arrived safe and sound in Baton Rouge and are blogging to you from some ghetto computer terminal in the airport (which is still lightyears ahead of our sad little laptop). They've moved the storm track back east again into Louisiana again, so its not looking to hopeful. For now we're trying to get ahold of our ride and get down to Slidell

Peace

What the heck Rita?

So Rita has turned into a beast - a category 5 hurricane, and appears to be heading straight towards Texas. As terrible as its going to be for this thing to make landfall anywhere, we're crossing our fingers that it won't be anywhere near us. But as of right now it looks like we're going to get atleast alot of rain and some wind. All the talking heads on the weather channel say that once a storm becomes a category 5 its very difficult for it to maintain its strength unless the conditions are just right, so hopefully it'll weaken a bit before we have a second Katrina. Here's hoping FEMA won't screw this one up so much...

PS: We leave from Hartford tomorrow at 7 am (ugh) so our next post will be from down south, and it might take a day or two for us to get posting. Hopefully we'll see you soon.

ITS ALIVE!

So, I've managed to ressurect this old, piece of junk laptop from the dead (kindly donated by my cousin Brita). This thing is still running windows95 and I'm connected via a 33.6 kbps aol connection (scary). Its taken me about 15 minutes just to get to this website, but its better than nothing. I'm pretty sure we won't be able to upload pictures via this thing, but we might be able to find a place down there to do it from time to time. So with this glorious computer we're now completely prepared for our journey, and looking forward to leaving Thursday.

[victory is mine]

What We'll Be Doing:

Hey, I've been getting alot of questions about what we'll be doing down there. Here's a brief description from the church through which we'll be working (which can be found via the link):

"The next stage of the Hurricane relief effort is the cleanup stage. The Church will be sending teams of able-bodied and healthy members who are capable of working with chain saws and wheel barrels, hauling away heavy debris, assisting neighbors in getting rid of their drenched belongings and furniture. Each team will consist of 13 volunteers broken down into ten workers, two cooks and a minister. They will volunteer four to five days of their time, after which the team will be rotated with a fresh team of 13 volunteers. This effort will last for at least three to five weeks. At the same time, we will keep the church open for lunch and dinner for the neighborhood."

We're going to be leaving this Thursday, flying through Chicago down to Louisiana. Our return will likely not be until the second week of October, give or take, but thats not set in stone.

A picture

By the way, heres a ridiculous picture of the three of us at Uconn a year or so ago (its all I have at the moment so, hey, why not post it?) Thats Dave on the left, myself in the middle and Matt on the right.

getting ready...

Heyas-

So we're still ironing out details and getting ourselves together for our trip. We just got our hands on a laptop and will soon find out how internet ready we can make it. Hopefully it will cooperate and we will be all set to blog like crazy down there. Other than that, I thought it might be a good idea to provide some basic information about where we are going and who we'll be working with.

We're going via Dave's church, which has a congregation in the city of Slidell, Lousiana. If you're interested, information about the community can be found here. And information on the church can be found here (I will add these links to the bar on the side eventually).

And of course, our newest concern, is hurricane Rita (thanks jizzy), which, as of today, is predicted to make landfall along either the Texas or Louisiana coastline. Right now it supposedly won't fall east of New Orleans however, and Slidell is northeast of that. Soon I'll force Dave and Matt to make accounts and post as well and we'll have pictures of what we're doing down there so long as the laptop cooperates.