Copy of article sent to Shopper for first week of the new year

January 11th was the first day of our new term at Cheek, Texas. Our crew consists of two couples who had been here in November and December, two new couples with whom we had worked on other projects, and ourselves. We were all anxious to get to work.

MDS volunteers are often called upon to attend to tasks which they would never expect. One of these greeted our volunteers on the first day of work. Shortly after Christmas, a very large pit bull dog was either run over on the road or shot, and it ended up deader than a door nail in Mr. John’s yard right by his carport. When my husband and I dropped by the first week in January, it was still laying there. Mr. John said his grandson had said he would remove it but had not done so. We made a trip to the nearby County Precinct to request them to remove it, and they said they would. However, upon arrival at the job site on Monday morning, the dog was still laying there. Bernie and Paul took matters into their own hands and buried the dog at the back of the property!

It was also distressing to learn that Miss Jane was in hospital. She required some medication adjustment and remained in hospital for the whole week. That left Mr. John without his chief cook and bottle washer. It was his adult grandson, Joe’s responsibility to ensure his Granddad got his meals; however, it was soon evident he was not eating on a regular basis. We ended up bringing him food just in case he hadn’t eaten, and often that was the case. His favorite is Fig Newtons…

There are three bedrooms which required removal of wallboard, installation of sheet rock, finishing and painting. One bedroom was to the painting stage when we left for Christmas. The new agenda was to remove all of the furniture from the second and third bedrooms (they were wall to wall and floor to ceiling packed full of beds, sofas, chairs, miscellaneous furniture, clothing and boxes) so that we could do all of the bedrooms at one time. The new volunteers emptied the rooms, putting everything under a tarp in the carport. They then removed the wallboard and cleaned up the debris. At that point it was ready for John to repair the termite eaten boards at the floor and begin putting up the sheet rock. Two volunteers familiar with electrical resumed rewiring the entire house. Two of the couples went to Miss Louanna’s home to do soffit and fascia.

We were happy with our progress by the end of the first week. John and I put up the sheet rock and I taped it while he started building a laundry closet to house the washer and dryer in the kitchen. The SETIO group had given us a box of one-time-use coveralls and since “mudding” is such a messy job, I decided to try one out. It didn’t look very fashionable, but saved my clothing from getting all full of mud. It’s a messy job!

Thursday is our weekly pot luck supper. There was plenty of various food again this week. Afterwards, we brought our new 26 inch flat screen T.V. over to the office trailer which will accommodate 10 people for seating, and watched a Ken Davis C.D. He is a Christian comedian and we laughed until our sides ached.

We had good weather until Friday, when the rain began. Obviously the mice didn’t like the rain either, as two of them moved into our R.V. Our traps are still set up, but so far there have only been two caught.

On Sunday, we attended Cowboy Church at Orange again, seeing as we have new people. They had three more baptisms and welcomed 13 new members. What an awesome church!

As we had previously had excellent meals at the Vidor Restaurant, we recommended that our group might want to eat there after church. Maggie was happy to see us again and the food was great. Before leaving, she presented us with a $10 complimentary gift certificate from the restaurant owner for bringing in more business. Wow! Of course we will be going back there again!!!