Monday, February 8, 2010
February 8, 2010 from Cheek, Texas
Photo: Casper the Friendly Ghost aka Agnes Martens
It’s February already!
It’s the beginning of our last month of service at Cheek, Texas. Much of the week we had heavy rain. We were very happy to see the sun by Thursday.
Painting and finishing is in progress. It is so difficult to believe the shape this house was in when we first started. It looks so much different! Mr. John has been back at home for much of the time, but with Miss Jane still away, he has no one to keep him company at night, to keep him fed, and to sweep his floor. We are trying to get him meals on wheels, but so far have been unsuccessful. WE are his meals on wheels for the time being. It’s not really part of the MDS program, but it is a need that we are meeting temporarily.
Our crew has had the go-ahead to do whatever renovation is required at the King house, keeping in mind that money is tight and they are relying on us not to overspend on anything. The house has been mostly emptied of contents which have been put into a “pod” storage container in the yard. The residents of the home have made arrangements to stay with relatives as their home is being fixed up. Two of our volunteers spent two days opening up the bottom half of the walls in preparation for re-wiring.
Agnes, in a white Tyvec full-piece suit, was out in the yard painting on a cool day. John came in and said, “You have to take a picture of Casper”. I didn’t know what he was talking about until I went out with my camera, and there I saw little Agnes, looking like Casper the Friendly Ghost, painting the baseboards. The suit was so big on her that she appeared just to float around…
In viewing our photos, we also came across one of our volunteers who appeared to have no head in the photo. Our first reaction was that someone had doctored the photo; however, he was just looking down to be sure he hit the step on the ladder…
SETIO (South East Texas Interfaith Organization) advised that there was a short-term group of MDS volunteers from Pennsylvania in the area for the strict purpose of doing roofs. As we drove by one of the houses in Cheek, we noticed a bunch of young people tearing shingles off, so we stopped by. They were indeed the group from Pennsylvania, which included about 15 young men, two young ladies (who were not up on the roof, but picking up the shingles as they were being thrown down), and one little 3 year old girl playing in the tool trailer. They had arrived at the house by 9:00 a.m. When we talked to the homeowner, he advised he couldn’t believe all those people were UP ON HIS ROOF. By the time we had stopped by at 10:30 a.m., about half of the shingles had already been removed. We are advised that the new shingles were not delivered until 2:00 p.m., by which time the shingles were removed, all of the debris had been cleaned up, and that by 4:00 p.m., the roof was totally shingled and they were gone. We know that the homeowner certainly felt blessed by that group. It doesn’t get any better than that!! Apparently the Pennsylvania group did 7 roofs in the week they were here.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment