Monday and Tuesday

Althouth we have no pics to post at the moment (they'll be posted soon) rest assured we are getting some work done just the same. In your mind's eye, you'll have to picture Marilyn Swets, Amy and Rachel Eizenga getting up early each morning and heading to the kitchen to serve the work crews for their 6:30 a.m. breakfast.

(At the moment there are about 5 or 6 different work teams here, including our two groups from Lynwood and Redemer. All told, there's about 175 people mouths to food).

After breakfast, at about 7:00-7:15 a.m. the work teams head to their trucks to get the supplies for the day. Here at the Lagniappe compound they have a HUGE tool and supply shed, and each tool has to be checked out and checked in. So as you can imagine, Monday was a slow start for our work group because we had to wait in line to check out all our tools; and unfortunately, since they don't have an endless supply of tools, it can happen that the tool(s) you need has already been checked out by another work crew.

Our work crew consists of Josha Zylstra (team leader), Tom Kramer, Rev. Davis, Tim van der Woerd, Eric Eizenga, and Caleb and Josh Davis. We were assigned to work on two homes (which they call "the twins") that were built side by side in a neighboring town about 10 miles from the Lagniappe headquaters.

Since both of these homes are near completion, we were never gave a specific work order which described the nature of the work that we would be doing (the Redeemer team for example had a specific work order which detailed the kind of work they'd be doing so they knew which tools to take).

We were told, "You could be hanging light fixtures, doing some touch up, installing some appliances, putting in kitchen sinks." To top it all off, the Lagniappe foreman wasn't exactly sure how much work the former work team (from last week) got accomplished, so they told us to be ready for anything. So we proceeded to check out tools for every job imaginable.

When we finally rolled up to our work site on Monday morming, we spent the first 45 minutes just walking through both of the homes, taking inventory of the all the odd jobs that had to be done in order to complete the houses.

Let's just say there was no shortage of work, and the jobs were not so 'small'. Josh Zylstra (who has experience in electrical work) noticed that may of the ordinary outlets were not trimmed out and the outlets for the applicances were not finished either. Also there were great big bunches of wires hanging out of the walls inside and outside both houses, but thankfully Josh seemed to have at least an idea of what to do.

Tom Kramer had plenty of work to do as well. While one of the houses was closer to being finished, the other house was missing a lot of doors, some baseboard in various rooms, and shoe-molding (quater-round trim) throughout; in fact, both houses need shoe molding because they have laminate and tile flooring throughout.

Rev. Davis could not paint at first because the doors (which need to be painted as well as the rest of the wood trim) was still being installed by Tom most of the day on Monday. So Rev. Davis kept busy doing odds and ends and making trip to Lowes for necesary supplies. Due to the nature of this work (installing aplicances and electrical and plumbing work) there is more of a need to 'run out for parts' as you can imagine.

As of mid-morning Tuesday, the doors and trim were ready to be painted, and Rev. Davis was finally able to break out the paint. The four boys have just been an amazing help. Eric and Josh Davis have been good little carpenter's apprentices (assisting Tom with his work). Tim (who along with Caleb has also lent a hand to Tom) helped Josh install an electric range, a bathroom light fixture and an over the ranger microwave. Eric was also working on the refrigerator doors and getting the door handles installed, etc.

Caleb has been doing all kinds of work, and Tuesday he helped his dad putty nail holes and prime all the new doors and doorframes. It's already Wednesday tomorrow, and there's still a lot of work to do, but we feel confident that we can get most of this work accomplished by Friday.

Tomorrow we have the afternoon off (including Marilyn and the girls) and we're planning an outing to the Aubudon Aquarium in New Orleans. We also intend to enjoy supper at a local New Orleans restaurant.

That about sums it up for now. There's so much more to tell, but suffice it to say that the team is really enjoying our time here (the weather has been warm--high 70's even though it rained all afternoon here), and the young people are having a great time with each other and with the group from Redemmer. Even as this blog is being composed tonight (it's about 10:45 p.m. Tuesday night), the YP are still sitting around here in the cafeterian area playing games and talking.

It's time to sign off...maybe tomorrow we can add a few pics to help you get a better understanding of what it is that we're doing (and get a little idea of the fun we're having, too!). Well, good night, y'all!