The new MDS Senior RV project crew for January is in place. Maurice and Sue Eby from Michigan remain on site, as well as Project Managers, Jake and Verna Martens, from Portage La Prairie, Man.John and Linda Braun arrived from Prince Albert, Sask., as well as Paul and Mary Stoltzfus, from Gap, PA, Bert and Doreen Warms, from Winkler, Man. and Len and Nettie Hiebert, from Gruenthal, Man. That makes 6 couples for this site, 2 from the U.S.A. and 4 from Canada. Again, we are blessed with a great group of volunteers, including a building contractor and a drywaller, aka sheet rock worker. We had a few days to settle in, and started working on January 7th.
During this time, we were happy to meet Jake and Verna’s daughter, Daphne, and husband, David Dyck, and 4 children from Belize, who came to visit our site and spend some time with their parents/grandparents.
The following was the status of our projects when we started:
Project 1 - Archie's house - the interior needs to be completed: flooring, installation of bathroom, installation of kitchen cabinets and baseboards.
Project 2 - Completion of siding and soffiting - at this point, that is all we are committed to do.
Project 3 - The RV crew prepared footings and installed 6 ft.pillars in Nov-Dec. Last week, a group of volunteers from Winnipeg, Man, framed the house on the pillars, including floor, walls, roof completely shingled, wiring and house wrap. WOW! The rest is up to us to complete, beginning with stairs so we can get up and down.
Project 4 - Part of the Winnipeg crew poured footings and pillars.
During the first week, our volunteers accomplished the following:
Project 1 - the ladies painted the baseboards. Several of our men prepared the floors for flooring and installed some of the light fixtures.
Project 2 - Paul finished the soffit framing and John and Maurice were working on the siding.
Project 3 - Jake, Bert and Len worked with the Winnipeg crew for the transition for us to carry on with the building on this house.
It is necessary for us to travel a fair distance to shop for groceries and do laundry. Port Arthur is 30 miles to the west, Sulfur is 45 miles NE and Lake Charles 50 miles N. There is a very busy little "corner store" on the highway a block from our RV Park for "essentials". Our first Sunday here, we attended the local Baptist Church as a group. The congregation warmly welcomed our presence in their community. There are several generations of families who have lived in this community all of their lives. They are all pulling together to get life back to normal after their common experience of devastation. Some have lost their complete homes, some just have to renovate, and many had to help rebuild their workplaces before they could start rebuilding their homes.
Everyone welcomes us into their homes and lives with great southern hospitality. We are also very thankful to the Catholic Church which has been very generous in offering a room for our morning devotions and social evening.
We have encountered all kinds of weather during this week - from very cold, to pouring rain, to wind, extreme fog and finally a perfectly lovely summer day where we could put up our awnings and have our brunch outdoors... the kind of day we northerners had been looking forward to.
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