Shari says goodbye to Texas

23-DAY BREAK OVER

December 26, 2009 marked the first anniversary of John being a non-smoker. What a wonderful blessing. After trying numerous times to quit smoking, he has finally succeeded! If he could do it, anyone can. He has commented that contrary to what he had been told, food does not taste any different and he is not coughing up “black stuff” from his lungs. He does confirm that occasionally the urge to smoke is still as strong as ever, but it passes quickly.

We enjoyed the Christmas holidays with our daughter, but it was our mission to show her this area of Texas and pack in as much sightseeing as possible in 15 days. After returning to Beaumont, we went through a number of tanks of gas and ate out at every interesting place we could think of. She must have had 500 pictures on her new digital camera which she won at the P.A. Inn Christmas party! We toured downtown Beaumont, where the giant “Dalmation” fire hydrant is the focal point. One lovely sunny day, we also enjoyed Shangri La Botanical Gardens at Orange, which included a one hour swamp tour. (see previous pictures)

Shari flew back to Saskatoon from Houston on January 5th. She encountered much frustration on her trip home. First, her 7:40 a.m. flight from Houston was cancelled and re-scheduled for 3:15 p.m. We were fortunate in that although we had gotten up and dressed in our motel room at 4;30 a.m. to leave for the airport, we had brought along the laptop and checked for e-mails before leaving. We were able to just get back into bed and resume our sleep, enjoy the continental breakfast at the motel, and then tour around the area on our way to the airport. We left her as she entered the security gate at 1:00 p.m., and we returned to Beaumont, as there was no reason for us to stay. We later learned that due to staffing problems, her plane did not leave Houston until 4:30 p.m.! She had a short layover in Calgary and had difficulties getting her bearings as to finding the right gate for her flight to Saskatoon. In the end result, she arrived in Saskatoon just before midnight. We are just thankful she is home safely.

Texas is experiencing an Arctic front which has plunged temperatures to below freezing. We have had to leave our water running in our RV’s to prevent it from freezing. The local plumbers are extremely busy!

As long as the cold spell lasts, the Salvation Army in Beaumont is doing an admirable job of providing a 24 hour warming shelter complete with meals, beds, coats and blankets for anyone who is homeless or who has no power. We are aware that there are many homeless people in the south who are able to live on the street because of the weather. However, it is quite astounding how many people do not have power in their homes, either due to poverty or a result of the “storms”, a reference to hurricanes or tornados.

We just got word that my dear Aunt/Godmother, Helen Werschler, passed away in Langenburg on January 8th. She was 91 years old, suffering from Alzheimers, and had broken her hip and was having a lot of pain after her surgery. So it was a blessing to hear she was no longer having to suffer. Much as we would like to be at home with my family as they say their goodbyes, it is not possible since we have made this commitment to MDS.

The internet age certainly helps to keep us in touch with what’s happening back home as well. I often check the local paper and it was there I learned that a dear friend, Gertrude Rock, had also passed on in Prince Albert. When I worked downtown, I used to run into her on my lunch hours at the Sally Ann or simply out for a walk. She was a lovely gracious lady.

All six couples volunteering for January and February are now on the RV site. We have enjoyed a couple of days of visiting with our friends, Paul and Mary from Pennsylvania, before resuming work. There are two couples who returned who worked here November and December, as well as two new couples, our Project Director, Warren Siemens, and his wife Carol, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and office manager, Maryanne Sawatsky and her husband, Pete, from Winkler, Manitoba. All of them have worked with us previously and we are happy to be on the team with them. Our camp has been revamped in order to accommodate the extra RV’s. We are packed in, nice and cozy, a little closer than we were before.

After a 23 day “holiday”, all of us are ready to get back on the job. The homeowner will be happy to see us on his doorstep bright and early on Monday morning as well.

More pictures

1. Shari overlooking the Gulf of Mexico (my favorite photo of the year)

2. John at Museum of the Gulf Coast

3. Shangri La is a wonderful place on a sunny day: Swamp Tour

New Years Eve, 2009

I notice that when I try to label my photos on the blog, the labels do not come out right. So I am going to itemize the photos here - from the bottom up because they still didn't come out right:

1. Linda with Miss Jessie (L) and Miss LaRue(R) from the Ben Rogers Welcome Centre
2. Penguin enclosure at Moody Gardens Aquarium
3. Shari enjoying a drink at the Rain Forest Cafe
4. Giant Dalmation fire hydrant in downtown Beaumont


I appear to have gotten lazy over our Christmas break, so I am using my newspaper article to share what we encountered:

What a lovely, memorable New Year’s Eve! First, we enjoyed a New Years’ Feast at the Golden Corral, which is the “buffet of all buffets”. Shari’s eyes bugged out when she saw all the food choices – the salad bar alone was phenomenal! Then there are different bars with your choice of Mexican, Chinese, Italian, Texas steak, pork, roast turkey, barbecued ribs, pot roast, catfish, shrimp, a dozen types of vegetables, pizza, various soups, buns, basically anything your little old heart desires by way of food! After you have your fill of any or all of the above, there is an area of desserts which is larger than most entire buffets. Not only ice cream, both hard and soft, but also pies, cakes, macaroons, cookies, fudge, several types of puddings, and cheese cakes - truly a dessert-lover’s paradise. All for the grand price of $10.95 per adult, seniors $9.95!

St. John’s Lutheran Church nearby had a sign out indicating there was a New Years Eve service at 7:00 p.m. and we attended that service. It was a lovely service and everyone was very friendly, in true Texas style. Afterwards, my husband was visiting with a gentleman at the door who was saying he had overhead we were staying at Ford Park. If we had no plans for the evening, he invited us to their New Years Eve party. We had nothing whatsoever planned, and as he just lived about 6 blocks from Ford Park, we graciously accepted the invitation.

Fred lives in a lovely home along the road we had traveled often. When we arrived, we were introduced to his wife, Rebecca, and five other couples, including the pastor and his wife from the church we had been to. There were also some immediate family including a few young’uns. The island in the kitchen was covered with food. We visited a bit and then our hosts advised it was time to play some games. One card table was set up for two couples to pay Pinochle, the large table was for dominoes [Shari and I and our hostess and others played there], and John was at the kitchen table with our host and another interesting gentleman playing “Oh Hell”. There was lots of teasing and laughing and visiting. The television was on and at the stroke of midnight, we toasted each other: “HAPPY NEW YEAR” with a glass of wine!! Another confirmation that strangers are just friends we haven’t met yet…

We spent a wonderful day at Shangri La Botanical Gardens. Although not in season, we could see the potential for a very beautiful colorful garden. We also purchased a ticket for a boat ride, which turned out to be a very informative one hour swamp tour. This attraction, even out of season, was well worth the total price of $8.00 for seniors. We will be certain to go back before we leave Texas in March, hoping to catch some spring buds and flowers.

On the way home from the gardens, we stopped at Vidor Flea Market for supper. It is a very small privately owned restaurant with excellent food and service. Our waitress, Maggie, had the time to stop and chat with us, and was interested in our work with MDS. As we were leaving, she informed us that our meals were taken care of! The hospitality and generosity of the people of Texas never fails to astound us.

On Shari’s last day, we took her to Galveston to see how much more of Hurricane Ike devastation had been rebuilt since we were there last. They are making great strides with reconstruction. We did learn some interesting details while we were there. Maggie had informed us, and it was confirmed by a local resident, that although the nation still believes there were very few casualties, over 3,000 people had been killed in the storm in Galveston. The resident advised that due to the touristy nature of Galveston, this large loss of life had been “kept under wraps”. He also advised that just this week, they had discovered the remains of one more casualty to add to the list.

Moody Gardens Aquarium in Galveston was very similar to the one we had been to in Tennessee, and for $13.00 for seniors, we spent all afternoon enjoying the absolutely fabulous marine life displayed. This venue put San Antonio Sea World totally to shame!

At the penguin enclosure, it appeared our little black and white Jughead puppy that disappeared in April last year, may be reincarnated as a penguin… We laughed as one particular penguin swam as fast as it could in the water, round and around, up and down, in and out of the water, for about 5 minutes, just having a gay old time, as our little puppy used to “fly” around our back yard!

Life will get back to “normal” as Shari goes back home and we get back to work. We will be happy to be back to work instead of eating out and touring just about every day.

Blog 8 from Beaumont Dec. 28, 2009

This year is fast winding down. We picked Shari up at Houston airport on Dec. 22nd and spent Christmas with her at New Braunfels time share. It was a beautiful condo, exactly the same place we went for Valentines weekend, courtesy of sister-in-law Peggy and her husband Steve.

Although the weather did not co-operate as we had hoped, it was (almost) warm enough on Christmas Day to spend some time in the heated pool and hot tub.

I am certain the pots and pans in our unit had not seen as much use as they did in the four days we occupied it. We went out for several meals, but do enjoy a home-cooked meal even when on vacation. On Christmas Day, we feasted on a roast chicken with the stuffing made the way we like it, gravy, and mashed potatoes that we knew were not instant.

One of the nearby attractions in San Antonio is Sea World. John and I had been to Sea World in Tennessee a few years ago. The entrance fee was around $10 and we were amazed at what we saw. We were very excited that Shari would be able to visit Sea World as well. However, one really should check on prices on line so there are no surprises when you arrive at a tourist attraction. We choked when arriving to see the sign at the gate which said “Parking $15”. When we asked how much the actual tickets were and the gate attendant said, “$57 each”, they just about had to pick me up off the pavement! Suffice it to say, John and Shari spent the afternoon at Sea World while I took the truck and went for lunch, looked for some free WYFY and did some shopping, all the while trying to keep my bearings so as not to get lost in the “big city”, which is easily done. When I picked them up, John was quick to advise this tourist facility was a huge rip-off in every way. Children’s tickets were $46 each for a child over 10. Anyone taking a family should be prepared for a $150 per person day which is outrageous and definitely not worth it.

Now, the Snake Farm on I35 was another thing. For $9.95 per adult, you can spend all day looking at all kinds of caged reptiles, exotic animals and a petting zoo.

We also went on an African Safari adventure for $16 each which was extremely enjoyable and worth the entrance fee. You stay in your car and listen to a very informative CD as you drive through the 400 acre park and throw food out for the various exotic animals. It was awesome. The most social animals were the ostriches “with attitude” and the burros who just plain wanted close-up attention.

Shari and I spent an evening walking through the Schlitterbaun Christmas Display. In summer it is a huge water park, and in winter, they turn it into a Winter Wonderland of Christmas lights. The charge is $16.00, but well worth it. There are many activities for children and the lights alone are spectacular.

Eating out in the U.S.A. can be quite interesting. At Sea World, for lunch John and Shari had a turkey wrap for which they paid $8.00 each. John said the wrap itself would have made an excellent shoe sole. He was not impressed!

At the Safari, they had an excellent restaurant with excellent prices. However, John ordered his favorite: a “bacon and turkey club sandwich”. When it arrived, he asked, “What’s this??” What he got was a layer of bacon and turkey with lettuce, cheese and tomato in a soupy ranch dressing, between two pieces of grilled panini bread the thickness of a pizza crust. Oh for a Canadian club house sandwich!

Since we have been parked at Ford Centre, we have been complaining about the noise of the nearby interstate highway. On our trip to New Braunfels, we encountered an RV park that has this one beat for traffic noise. This one has RV’s parked UNDER and BETWEEN the interstate highways. It is unfathomable who would ever want to park underneath such a busy highway!!

We have found an absolutely wonderful FM radio station in the area. It is Country Legends 101.2 and plays all of the old favorites, both country and western and hits of the 50’s and 60’s. No sense turning to any other radio station!

I decided to use the above text from my article for the newspaper instead of having to re-do it. It gives the whole story…

We had a good trip back from New Braunfels to Beaumont. Have a list of things to keep Shari occupied and have crossed a bunch of them off already! Today we took her to meet Mr. John and Miss Jane, as well as Miss Tiffany from SETIO. Went to Gator Country, a tourist attraction just up the road, but it is only open on Saturday and Sunday in winter. So she and I went and played a round of Mini Golf at Colorado Canyon Fun Centre, then to the Lunch Buffet at Ryans and to the Parkland Mall for a couple of hours. Hope we can find something neat to do for New Years Eve.

Night’all.

Blog 7 - Christmas is around the corner

Things have been moving right along here on our new project. We have started on Mr. John Batiste’s house. We had driven past the house several times before realizing that we would be renovating it. I have to plead guilty to feeling pity for the two “pathetic souls” who appeared to inhabit the place. The wizened old man often sat in his chair in the carport just watching the world go by. A very unkempt thin woman in a ball cap would trudge from the burning pile just back of the house, or be sweeping, looking up as traffic went by. Both appeared very wary of strangers.

Mr. John is a 76 year old gentleman whose wife passed away one year ago in November. His home was damaged in Hurricane Rita (2005) and suffers from drastic disrepair. He had worked until he was electrocuted in midlife and only has a nub of a thumb left on one of his hands. Later, he had a stroke and he has lost the use of his other arm and hand. He manages to hold a cigarillo with his left nub. The only way he can light it himself is to leave his burner on the stove on all day, and light it from there.

John's sister, Miss Jane, is 73, and lives four houses down the road from John’s house, by herself. She often sleeps at John’s house, as her house was also damaged by Hurricane Rita and she has been without power since then. If she does sleep at her house, she walks over to John’s house every morning and spends most of the day there, sweeping and making sure he gets fed. She promised his late wife that she would look after him.

From the outside, Miss Jane’s house looks undamaged and is quite a pretty home. She keeps her yard immaculate. However, upon walking inside, it is evident extensive repairs are required for it to be liveable. Unlike Mr. John’s house with a concrete floor, hers has a wood floor and the wood is rotten. The SETIO people have advised that it has been condemned and the Power company will not hook the power back up. They have offered to build her a new house but she has refused.

None of our volunteers could understand this refusal until Miss Tiffany explained it to us. She was raised in Cheek, which is also known as “Cheeks” to the locals. The ancestors of the people of Cheek had been slaves. When slavery was abolished, they were either given land or worked for it and this land and these homes are all they had to hand down from generation to generation. If their home is renovated by volunteers, they own it and can hand it down with no strings. If they are built a new home, the government has a lien on it and when the owner dies, it goes back to the government.

Miss Jane is still hopeful that someone will come along and fix her house for her, and of course, the renovation happening at her brother’s home gives her a great deal of hope in that regard.

We are finding it a great blessing to be working in the house with Mr. John and Miss Jane there, giving us an opportunity to get to know them. These folks are wonderful people and just plain lonesome for company. Once they knew we were there to complete the job and not rip them off, they welcomed us with open arms and are totally enjoying having us around. John’s grandson helped us tremendously since we started, and he will benefit from our work in the long run. Miss Jane is an absolute delight and we love having her around. She was totally surprised and delighted when our volunteers helped her celebrate her birthday last week with flowers and other gifts.

So far, we have renovated the master bedroom. Our goal is to get it painted so that we can move Mr. John’s bed back in and he can sleep there for the three weeks we are shut down. I think we’ll be able to meet our goal.

It was a dirty job taking the walls out as well as an old tiled shower enclosure in the en suite which hadn’t been used in years. There was a lot of termite damage, and a couple of cockroaches and other insect inhabitants who had to vacate. Some of the 2 x 4’s were eaten totally away and had to be replaced before the gyproc could be put up. The new acrylic shower enclosure will not be installed before the new year, but it is out in the carport waiting its turn.

The whole house is required to be re-wired as well. That will le a big job in itself.

I drove to Newton last Saturday to spend the day with my friend, Patty. She was sure happy to see me. Spent several hours with her and then headed back to Beaumont. John was already starting to worry by the time I got home in the dark. It is a 2 hour drive, but I made some other stops along the way. I enjoyed driving and listening to my Country Legends radio station.

We attended Cowboy Church in Bridge City again last Sunday. It sure is an awesome church. There was one immersion baptism of an 11 year old boy last time we went, and three adult baptisms this week. They are doing a fabulous ministry there. The new church is bulging at the seams already!

We have discovered the “Cheddars” Restaurant and I have to say it is my favorite. The prices are reasonable and the food is delicious. There is WAY too much food, but you can always take a doggie bag. I wouldn’t mind taking a picture of their “onion rings appetizer” which is the hugest pile of onion rings I have ever seen; as well as the deep fried chicken tenders – a plate of monumental proportions which is quickly gaining more candidates for the World’s Biggest Loser!!! And their Potato Soup is out of this world.

It has been quite cool and rainy here. At least it isn’t 40 below!!!

Sunday evening we attended a choir concert at North End Baptist Church in Beaumont and on the list of people in the choir, it was very interesting to see the name “Linda Mack”. What a surprise. That of course was my maiden name. John was talking to an older gentleman when I found this name, and he went and located “Linda Mack” for me. She was just as excited as I to share the name. We had our picture taken together and exchanged addresses.

Our youngest granddaughter, Emily, turned 5 last week. How time flies!

Needless to say, we are especially missing Christmas preparations with our children and grandchildren, the concerts and other Christmas excitement at home. Only one more week until we pick Shari up at Houston Airport. I wish she could smuggle Abby and Gizmo into her bags… We are very much looking forward to her joining us for Christmas holidays. We will be spending Christmas in New Braunfels at Peggy and Steve’s time share and then bringing her back to Beaumont and Cheek to see what we are doing here. She is quite excited to be coming to Texas!

Well, I could go on here for another hour, but it’s time to got to bed. I have a large closet to tape in the morning. Warren and Carole Siemens are arriving tomorrow for a couple of days to get oriented for his stint as Project Manager in the new year. We look forward to seeing them again.

Good night.

Beaumont Blog 6 - December 1, 2009

Well, the 2009 Grey Cup game is history. Desvastating history for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. How humiliating it was to HEAR the occurrences of the last minute of play.

We did go out and buy a new television set. It is “only” a 26 inch T.V., but it has a built-in DVD player and it fits just nicely into the entertainment centre in the R.V. We found we did not require a new antenna or anything else to be able to get the local channels.

However, we do not have the knowledge to hook it up to the computer, even though we had the cord. So we were quite satisfied to be able to obtain the Grey Cup Game on CHED T.V. out of Edmonton and our whole crew was over for a Grey Cup Party. That last minute of play, don’t you know, our lap top cut out briefly. Only afterwards did we find that the field goal had actually been missed and the Roughriders would have won; but there were too many players on the field so Montreal had the chance to do it again, and won. UNBELIEVABLE!!!! Ancient history now…

This week, we ladies have stayed at home so far because it is raining and the men can do all the indoor work there is to do. We don’t mind that a bit. We understand it is snowing in some parts of Texas, as well as on the prairies. Jim and Annette have e-mailed that they arrived home in Steinbach mid afternoon on Nov. 30th and the roads were like summer driving all the way. That is very unusual for the end of November.

John and I learned that our dear friend, Helene Epp, is finally at her final rest and we are so thankful for that. It would be nice to be able to go to her funeral this Friday, but that is not feasible. I have sent my public tribute to Helene and her husband, David, to my publisher to be put in the P.A. Shopper. I hope people will enjoy the article.

We had a “Hootenanny” at our house last Thursday evening and finally enjoyed some music. Carl plays a mean guitar and we all really enjoyed the singing.

We went to a different Baptist Church this past Sunday. We enjoyed the service, the people and the pastor so much that we will certainly go back. Their pastor used to be a running back for a professional football team – he’s just a short guy and although his sermon was longer than most, he was so interesting, the time went by quickly. It is a very vibrant congregation and the lady behind me referred to their pastor as a “real pistol”. He has only been at this church for 4 months, so that is quite a compliment.

I am attaching a picture of our whole group taken at Ryan’s Buffet Thanksgiving Day. There’s entirely too much good food happening down here!!

This week we had a little gathering at Miss Loretta’s to acknowledge completion of her renovation. What a blessing to all of us. Six representatives of SETIO were in attendance as well as all of our group. Miss Loretta provided coffee and donuts and we spent an enjoyable time showing the SETIO group the improvements and sharing our common goal in helping people get their homes back in good shape after the storms. They are as thankful as we are that the Lord is using all of us in this very important mission. Although Miss Loretta was still feeling a bit under the weather with her cold, she expressed her gratitude and delight with the upgrades in her new newly renovated home. Our little friend, Destiny, was not able to be there and we all missed her.

Beamont Blog 5 - Thanksgiving weekend

New garden door

Crew at Miss Loretta's with Destiny supervising

Lois and Jack

Beaumont Blog 5

Miss Loretta’s renovations are complete after some final finishing touches. There is a certain amount of satisfaction for the volunteers to have one job completed, especially since there were many more improvements done than were initially approved.

The new garden door is absolutely beautiful and the new flooring will be so much easier for her to clean. The many upgraded items will certainly make her life more comfortable, and that is a blessing to us.

We enjoyed the company of Miss Loretta’s 4 year old granddaughter, Destiny, for two days while we worked there. Loretta’s 15 year old nephew, Will, was babysitting Destiny, as there was no school. He mainly stayed in his bedroom watching T.V. Little Destiny shyly came out of her room at first, but in a short time, she was talking the ear off Lois and I, and entertaining us as only a 4 year old can! She’s a little cutie. It was somewhat difficult to understand what she was saying sometimes, because she has that “drawl”, but we managed to communicate quite well. John always stays there for lunch to babysit the tool trailer, and he shared his lunch with Destiny the one day.

The crew at Darcy’s did the last wall of siding. Lois and I helped do the caulking on the last wall so Agnes and Annette could stay home. The men had stabilized the front porch and then they were finishing it off with aluminum fascia and putting up two big posts. The whole exterior of the house will look 100% better than it did, even though painting it is not on our agenda.

The third project started is Miss Orma’s. This is a house trailer up on pillars which FEMA provided to the elderly Miss Orma and her blind husband when their home was destroyed in Hurricane Ike. It is barely liveable, but SETIO is providing funds for some minor renovations. John fixed the plumbing under the sink and a bank of drawers that was falling apart, as well as fixing her commode. He was quite happy that there was no further interior work we were committed to do, as she has a cockroach infestation! We certainly hope SETIO will look after getting an exterminator in to help them with that situation!!

What will keep John and Bernie busy next week is finishing the 30 feet of handicap ramp which was started on Friday. There was a lot of heavy bull work getting the beams set up and ready, so they were very tired when they got home from work. We are told the girls can screw down the boards and put up the spindle railing next week…

Our highlight of last weekend was driving to Johnson Bayou where we had built homes after Hurricane Rita, to attend church there. Since Hurricane Ike destroyed their lovely church building, the Baptist Church has been holding Sunday services in the Pastor’s home. Their small congregation was also having a pre-Thanksgiving feast after the service and our entire MDS group was invited and greeted as long-lost family. We learned that Miss FloraBelle’s husband, Mr. Alvin, had passed away this summer. He had been an old Louisiana cowboy with Mr. Archie. We had gotten to know them a bit, as they were the first house beside our campground and their son, Tim Trahan, owned the campground.

The Pastor advised us that MDS regular unit in Cameron is building a new house for Miss FloraBelle, and later in the week, we learned that Gerry Sapinsky, one of our MDS RV Program friends, will be heading up an RV unit there in February to finish that house and another one for one of the ladies who was at the church service. That was very heartwarming to hear.

Jim and Annette are going home to Steinbach for December and will be returning for January and February. We will certainly miss them, as they are both hard workers.

We will probably be going out shopping for Black Friday to see what kind of specials they have out there. Our 15.4 inch HD Widescreen LCD was sufficient when we first bought it, but we think we’d like to find about a 29-32 inch. Would like to have one with a built-in DVD player, but it seems like there are none of those on the Black Friday sales we’ve seen so far.

Then if we buy an antenna, MAYBE we will be able to get some TV reception here!! John is sick of reading books already.

The traffic on our highway about doubled with the Thanksgiving holiday starting on November 26th. The Americans REALLY celebrate Thanksgiving! Food, family and football, they say here.

We are looking forward to Sunday with the Grey Cup game between the Riders and Stampeders. Will be watching it on the web site that Darren gave us to use (maybe on our brand new 32 inch T.V.???). GO RIDERS GO!!!!