First newspaper article for P.A. Shopper Oct. 2010

Hello – we’re back to share our summer with you, before getting into our upcoming MDS experiences. We have greatly appreciated all the positive comments about our articles last winter and hope you enjoy coming to Texas with us in two weeks.

Aaah – summer in Saskatchewan. It started out like summer, but we soon wondered what happened to the good old summers we used to have!

I have always thought it would be neat to spend a week in Texas in summer, just to experience some nice HOT weather. It was always windy on the Gulf Coast. The residents informed us that the wind is a tremendous blessing down there; I had never considered that if it were not for the wind, they would not be able to tolerate the heat in summer. After a week, I probably would be plenty ready to go back to a Saskatchewan summer! Recently, we received an e-mail from MDS friends in California advising it was 103 degrees there. We could have used a day or two of that, at least…

After doing renovations to our home, which meant I could not have a garden last year, I was excited to be landscaping and getting ready in spring to plant a small garden again. That included bringing out all of the yard ornaments, and our two water fountains which did not get used last year.

Putting the clothesline back up was first on my agenda and to my great delight, John quickly had that task accomplished.

In May, our very beloved purebred Himalayan cat, Gizmo, insisted on being let outside after dark, never to return. He had been acting a bit strangely and it appears he had gone away to die in peace. We certainly miss his beautiful furry face at our patio door.

My mission this summer was to ensure our three grandchildren have some special holiday memories with Nana and Grampa from their childhood. Our family always spent most of the summer at Madge Lake where we had a cabin. Nowadays, young families have such hectic lives. Both parents are busy with their jobs and barely even get two days off at the same time to enjoy any kind of holiday with their kids.

We offered to take the grandchildren for 10 days to my Mom’s in Langenburg, Sk., as there were two sets of festivities scheduled. First was the goal of my cousin from Tennessee who comes up to his family farm every summer, to have 10 threshing machines running at one time in 2010. John was his “straw boss” for the occasion.

Over the years, Ken and Jaqueline have welcomed and entertained the local residents with a day of threshing, visiting and an old fashioned picnic several times during the summer. This weekend brought over 300 people to the farm to share in the old time festivities. Included in the roster of entertainment, our 12 year old granddaughter, Keely, sang two songs with my accompaniment and everyone said she was wonderful. Dressed in a pretty heritage dress complete with a hat, she sang “In the Highways In the Hedges” and “Let the Sun Shine In”. Bryton, who just turned 9 while we were on holidays, looked just like a young lad out of Wind at My Back, in his pair of overalls, striped T-shirt and a flat, brimmed tweed hat. Five year old Emily charmed all of the old-timers and captured Miss Jacqueline’s heart.

Everyone who attended tremendously enjoyed the day and not only did Ken achieve his goal of “10 in 2010”, but he also was proud to see the full page write up of the occasion in the Western Producer!

We then stayed the following week to take in Laff ‘n Linger Days, which only happens every 5 years in my home town. Great-Nana’s one bedroom senior duplex was hard-pressed to accommodate three extra adults, three children and a dog. John decided this “zoo” would be too much for him and there was work to do at home, so he left and came back for the weekend. The rest of us played “musical beds” with the hideabed and the tent and someone sleeping with Great-Nana. Keely wanted to see what Manitoba looked like, so we made the short trip to Russell. They spent many hours in the town pool and got a taste of living in small town Saskatchewan. Bryton slept over at Uncle Paul’s for a few nights, and would walk the three blocks back to Mom’s in the morning, with his pyjamas slung over his shoulder, just a singing away. It was neat to hear him comment “I love Langenburg”

Laff ‘N Linger Days included a very large heritage parade (for a small town of 1500 people). My cousin’s wife insisted she needed us to help her with the Mack Family Float. It was a large hay wagon pulled by an old tractor. John and I had made them a large sign for the entrance to their farm yard, as they did not have one. We put the sign on the back of the float and it looked wonderful! Miss Jacqueline, a cousin’s wife from B.C., and the children and I were all on the float, dressed in our heritage costumes. We were thrilled to win first prize in the heritage division! John and my Mom were “parade watchers”. All in all, our summer holiday with the kids was all we had hoped it would be and we have the pictures to prove it!!! Needless to say, it was also a summer holiday my 87 year old Mom will always cherish.

Pictures from summer 2010

Summer 2010

It looks like I must have been too busy to blog at the end of our last MDS tour, as there were none past the middle of February… I was still sending articles to the newspaper and it was too much.

We arrived home on March 11th, stopping in Brandon on the way. We were delighted to see John's brother Jake hale and healthy as when we last saw him.

I was excited to get back home to enjoy my new sun room, see the kids and grandchildren and Abby and Gizmo.

The end of April, we made a trip to Edmonton to see our old friend, Charlie Dixon, and his family. His wife, Joan had passed away suddenly from ovarian cancer in January and we had not been able to attend her funeral. My Mom agreed to travel with us, as we were also going to visit some of my relatives in Edmonton, and there was a new great grandchild she hadn’t met yet. We had a great trip! Also visited with relatives from Mom’s side of the family in Sylvan Lake where John’s sister Anne lives.

Unfortunately, John ended up in hospital at Red Deer with internal bleeding and Mom and I got to do most of the visiting! Thankfully, he was released in 2 days with the diagnosis of bleeding caused by taking Alleve for his arthritis. It may be that it was because he doesn’t eat breakfast and you can’t take Alleve on an empty stomach. It certainly did work for the arthritis pain though!!! More pills and he was on the mend.

We enjoyed having Jake and Rita spend a week with us in May. We joined Grace Mennonite Church in Prince Albert in May. We have enjoyed attending church there and decided we may as well become an official part of their congregation.

On May 19th, we were distraught to have our cat disappear. He had not been feeling that well, and because we know after 9 years, if he was alive, that little black face would be peering in our door in the morning, we did not make any efforts to find him. He was certainly an enjoyable addition to our family for that 9 years. Probably the nicest cat we ever had.

We made another trip to Manitoba in June for Jake and Rita’s anniversary and had a little visit with MDS friends Bert and Doreen in Winkler. Then when we got home, we enjoyed a visit from Andre and Suzette from St. Jerome, Quebec, for three days. It was interesting to see how well our two older grandchildren, who are in French Immersion, could converse with “real” French people!!

Jeanie’s Mom was hospitalized with cancer in mid June and passed away on June 24th. That same week, we learned that John’s brother Hank’s wife, May Braun, had passed away in Didsbury, so we attended her funeral along with Jake and Rita. It was nice to see some of the rest of the family for a change.

In between all this traveling, John was working on finishing the outside of the house and sundeck. I was very happy to see the original plan for the deck changed to accommodate the gazebo and lawn swing. What a lot of work though. The whole back of the house looks like a brand new gorgeous home, while the front and sides are still the old house.

We built a new fence on the west side of our property and revamped the back yard and I planted a small garden. The end of July was slated for holidays at Langenburg including my cousin Ken’s mission of having 10 antique threshing machines going at one time in 2010. Mission accomplished, and he was proud to have a full page dedicated to the event in the Western Producer!! Then there was Laff‘Linger Daze to stay for. We took our three grandchildren, as their babysitter was having surgery. John came back home for the week to get some things done and I stayed at my Mom’s with the kids. My goal was to make them some wonderful memories, and I think that goal was accomplished as well. We had a great time. Shari had holidays as well, so we got to take Abby too. Participating in the Mack family float in the Parade was a highlight for us all. We helped decorate the float, and it won first prize in the Heritage category. All three children were right “into” the whole process in their heritage costumes! John and I had made a yard sign for my cousin, Ken and his wife, and it was just perfect to put on the back of the float.


We certainly had our share of inclement weather and rain this summer, but thankfully there were enough hot sunny days to still get a nice sun tan,. The garden “took off” while we were in Langenburg and I have lots of peas, beans and cucumbers, and raspberries. The tomatoes are just coming now. And the Lavatera are gorgeous!! The grass seems to need cutting every third day…

So, that’s a catch up from the Brauns. I will send the pictures in the next post.

Second week of February at Cheek

Looks like I'm getting lazy here. I am attaching my latest newspaper article for our blog as well. Am having trouble finding the pictures so will attach them when I can find them...

We can see the light at the end of the tunnel on Mr. John’s house. John and I have been working on this house finishing the baseboards and window trim. There are so many finishing details to do yet. Thankfully we have one couple who has experience at laying floors, and they have completed all the flooring that needed to be done.

The King house was a major disaster when our crew arrived. I did not see it until most of the clean-up had been done, and apparently only pictures can do justice as to how bad it was! Our men have been cutting out the bottom of the gyproc so that the house can be re-wired. Re-wiring not been in the work order, but when they checked out the electrical, they found a very sad state of aluminum wiring. SETIO “found” sufficient funds to provide the material to wire the house. Our Office Manager, Mary Ann, took on the task of painting KILZ on the top half of the walls. New kitchen cabinets were also not in the plan for the King house. However, when our ladies saw what a huge difference there was with the drastic improvements in the rest of the house, it was unanimously decided we had to go back to the organization to beg for funds for new cabinets. These old cabinets simply would not do. We had saved SETIO a substantial amount of money by re-boarding only the bottom half of the walls and salvaging 95% of the ceilings. In the end result, they did agree that they would provide new cabinets. The homeowners, Miss Mable, Miss Mary and Mable’s adult son, Chris, will certainly feel they are living in the lap of luxury to have practically a whole new house (we hope). Thankfully, the general construction of the house is very sound and it is practical to make all these improvements. We can only hope that Chris will take the initiative to have some pride in their newly renovated home and ensure that it is maintained.

We had been so looking forward to seeing our new friends from Quebec, Andreˊ and Suzette, with whom we worked last year in Marble Falls, Texas. They are working at an MDS site at New Iberia, about 5 hours away from us. Several of our couples were also interested in getting together with other friends who are stationed there. As a result, it was arranged that their group and ours would meet half way, at Lake Charles, Louisiana, for a meal and visiting. As of the first of February, there is also an MDS R.V. group at Johnson Bayou, and when they learned of this, they said, “We want to come too”. So, all said and done, we were 33 people, and called it the “Second Annual MDS RV Reunion”. The first Annual MDS RV Reunion was held at Newton, Texas, in February last year and it came about in precisely the same way – totally unplanned. We would have preferred to spend a lot more time visiting with our French friends, but greatly enjoyed our brief visit with everyone. We were very surprised to see Bruce and Martha Isaak from Medstead, Sk. were in New Iberia for February. We have to come all the way to Texas to visit with them!

Ironically, that same weekend, our good friends, Don Buller, the designer and head of the Senior R.V. Program and his wife, Marilyn, along with our friends, Walt and Pat Willems, all from California, were in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, attending the Annual All-Unit MDS Meeting. By e-mail to them, I was lamenting first of all that we could not be there to welcome them to Saskatchewan (neither couple had ever been there before) and that they didn’t get to experience some REAL Saskatchewan weather! After all, -18 degrees is hardly what we call frigid…

The group at Johnson Bayou is headed by a first-time R.V. Project Director who was a worker with us on two previous occasions. They have three couples working with them, none of whom have been MDS volunteers before. We are told they are very hard workers and their job is to do the finishing on a new house which has been built by the regular MDS crew stationed at Cameron, LA.

Our group attended Church at Johnson Bayou last week, while their group enjoyed the Cowboy Church at Orange! It’s a good thing we were not all there together, as the church service is held in the Pastor’s double wide trailer livingroom since Hurricane Ike took out their lovely big church, and there would not have been enough seating room! We learned that morning that 92 year old Mr. Archie, the old original Louisiana cowboy, whose home we had renovated on our second tour of duty, had passed away two months ago. We regret we were not able to attend his funeral, but know he is “up there” riding into the sunset on a fine Louisiana Appaloosa.

Missing picture

I finally found the picture of our "headless volunteer", Jim Martens,. We originally thought this photo had been digitally created; however, he was just looking down so as not to mis-step on the ladder!

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.

It worked! P.A. Shopper Article Feb. 1

Pictures not necessarily in the right order:

Paul the trencher
King house with garbage from one room on lawn

Cockroaches, lizards and mice

We are advised that Miss Jane will not be allowed to return home from the Nursing Home until such time as she is taking her medication as prescribed. Obviously she has not been doing this yet, as we have not seen anything of her all week. The other day, we went over to her house and picked the oranges that had fallen off her orange tree in her yard – they were not any good.

Mr. John is getting totally spoiled – now he holds his hand out for Fig Newtons when we arrive!

The work on his house is progressing slowly. Until the wiring is completed, we are unable to finish drywalling and painting the back bedroom. The electrical panel is installed on the inside back wall of that bedroom.

We have had great weather for working this week. Our friend, 74 year old Paul, dug a trench for the sewer line – 2 ½ feet deep and 80 feet long. It took 3 days. I was wondering if he was thinking as he was digging, “I am way too old for this!!” He said he took is slow and easy.

Our Project Manager had a couple of our ladies start scraping the ceiling on the next project, the King house. I believe I have referred to the term “culture shock” in one or two previous articles. Well, this house is many times worse than the house we are working on, and we thought this one was bad! An older lady, Mable, and her mentally challenged sister live there, along with Mable’s son, Chris. Chris is a friend of Joe’s (Mr. John’s grandson). The house is three blocks down Lowhorn Road and one block right on Bluebird Lane. On Thursday, John went over there to install two exterior doors – the front door was completely destroyed and the other one was badly burnt.

It appears this house should have been evaluated more closely by the SETIO authorities. Our work sheet indicated minor repairs. However, on closer scrutiny, it requires major renovation. It needs to be totally rewired (only two or three lights and plug-ins work now and the wiring is aluminum – not acceptable). All the gyproc should be removed and the house gutted in order to eliminate the extensive black mold. We now have to wait for SETIO to confirm that they have the funds for this major project.

The auntie is an avid hoarder, as seen on the T.V. show. When my husband first arrived to let them know we were coming to work there, she shrieked that NOBODY was supposed to go into her bedroom, they were not even to touch the door knob. The second day our ladies arrived to scrape the ceilings, the auntie was not there. When it appeared that the auntie could not tolerate our presence in the house to fix it, she was carted off to the hospital for a while to see if she could be calmed down. She has an “administrator” in charge of her affairs, and the decision was made by this person and other family members that they simply had to enter auntie’s room and clean it up while she was away.

What they found, in amongst her bedroom furniture, was clothing, boxes and bags of mice-infested toilet paper, laundry detergent and other “stuff” piled so high that she has had to sleep on one of the three livingroom couches, because there is no room for her in her bedroom. John was there as they were hauling out clothes on a blanket, and he saw mice hopping off, mouse droppings throughout, and bugs galore. By the end of Thursday, the family members had 5 pickup loads of garbage in the front yard out of that bedroom! This was done with a great feeling of guilt on the part of the relatives, knowing there will be repercussions when auntie returns, but with the knowledge that it was totally necessary in order to clean up and have a healthy environment rather than the hell-hole they have been living in.

In addition, Mable and Chris agreed that two of the three livingroom couches had to “go”. When they moved the couches, the insides just lay there, all eaten out by mice and full of bugs.

The first day our ladies were scraping the ceilings, they did it with very heavy hearts. The whole atmosphere was very depressing and intolerable. When they saw the action that was taking place the next day on behalf of the residents, there was a little ray of sunshine and hope that these people were in the right track to a better home.

The rest of us were attempting to see some progress on the other project. The carpet in the livingroom in Mr. John’s house was taken up on Thursday and we got a start on lifting some tiles in the hallway to be re-used where necessary.

We also now have a resident pony in the yard, the same one the child was riding in the picture in my last article. The neighbour brought it over to eat the grass. It gets its share of attention from our crew too.