On our way home...

Yesterday, Saturday the 21th of November, we stepped into our trusty Honda CR-V again homeward bound. We got up around 6 am. The night before we hugged everyone said goodbye to most people. However, 2 men had to wait for their flight to Boston on Saturday. They volunteered to ferry a number early birds to the airport and were hanging around until mid afternoon when their flight left. We said goodbye to them, grabbed some fruit and set off for home. The weather was around 15 deg C and it rained. Fortunately, just when New Orleans disappeared from our rearview mirrors, the rain stopped and as we got further along I10, the clouds started to disappear slowly. The further north we travelled, the sunnier it got. As I write this on Sunday evening, we encountered nothing but great weather. All along the sun was out and the temperatures in the mid to high teens, even in Indiana and Michigan (God is good!!). Our trusty GPS allows us to sail smoothly along the Interstates and through the big cities. Once we went wrong because I thought better and then of course we had to make a U-turn to get back on track. Oh well, another lesson learned. BTW, we're taking a slightly different route home. When we went to NO, we went down I75 to Cincinnatti and then took I71 to Louisville, KT. On the way back, in Louisville we continued on I65 to Indianapolis, IN and then took I69 direction Lansing and Flint MI and will continue on I69 to Port Huron where we'll cross the border into Canada again. This way won't have to go through Cincinnatti, Toledo and Detroit. All these cities are very busy and often have bad roads. Besides, we've never been in Indiana before :-) Talking about Indiana, it could be Ontario you're driving in, it just about looks identical, flat with lots and lots of farms. It looks like a prosperous state, lots of new construction in the cities and neat farms everywhere. Yesterday we made good time and stayed overnight in Franklin, Tennessee. The wireless system in the hotel didn't work so we could not get into our email. Today we are in Coldwater, Michigan and are staying in a nice place that does have a working wireless. We're a little later getting to our hotel because we found that the hotels in Indiana and Michigan are quite expensive.  They wanted around $70-80 per night in the La Quita and Super-8 motels. So, we decided to travel a little further and since we obtained a coupon for the Red Roof Inn in Coldwater, MI for $45.99 we decided to check that out. It turned out that this is a brand new hotel with all the amenities and it's clean so here we are for the night.







This is likely my final blog since we're hoping to arrive home tomorrow afternoon. It has been a great experience working with great people and for great people. Thank you for following Annie and I via this blog. We hope that is was of interest to you and that you have better idea what your CRWRC dollars are doing when they're spend on DRS work. It sure gave us an eye opener. Be assured that the people on the receiving end of your faithful donations to CRWRC-DRS are profoundly thankfull for helping them get their homes back. Moreover, we thank our faithful Father for the opportunities we have to extend His loving care to people in need.

The end is near...

It's Friday today and as I'm writing this blog, we've completed our assignment (hoorah!!). On Thursday evening we had a fun time together to celebrate the completion of our tour. Tom and Grace made it a fun evening with lots of sharing of our experiences and some fun games. I produced a set of DVD's with a photo slide presentation that Tom handed out to all the couples and single guys. Also, us first timers received our CRWRC pins and a Kenner pin. We worked only 4 hours this morning and then cleaned up the work site and handed in our tools. After cleaning the work trucks thoroughly we took our showers. We were pleased with the amount of work we have accomplished in the past three weeks. In my particular house, we put on the siding and got the house 80% insulated. We also completed drywalling the master bedroom and about 50% of the kitchen. The next DRS crew should be able to complete the drywalling, mudding and painting. The lady that owns the house will come over next week for Thanksgiving and have a look at how far we've come. I think she'll be very pleased. The other teams have also accomplished a lot of work. I have to say, these old guys and galls can work!!! It was hard for me as one of the youngest to keep up with them. The oldest guy was Peter Faber at 76 years. When you see him, he looks like 68-69 and he's one of the hardest workers. I hope to be in as good a shape as he is now when I'm 76.

Today we said farewell to 4 couples. It's a bit sad to part ways after being together for 3 weeks, 24-7 but on the other hand it's also nice to be going home again. Annie and I miss our kids, grand-kids and friends by now. Three week assignments are just about the right number of days to be gone. We are thankfull to God that no one got into an accident or seriously hurt themselves. I think it's a miracle because the work sites are often clutterred even though we try to keep them organized. Also, the traffic here in New Orleans is crazy. It's like the 401 in Toronto. So, tomorrow, Saturday, we'll be heading back home again. We hope to stay over near Nashville, Tennessee on Saturday night and on Sunday night we're planning to overnight near Fort Wayne, Indiana. We hope to arrive back in Acton on Monday afternoon DV. Please pray for a safe trip for us.

Well, we've got most of our big suitcase packed and we'll relax for the rest of the afternoon. Till we meet again, either in the flesh, blog, email, Skype, etc.

It's getting a little colder....

This morning we woke to brilliant sunshine but colder temperatures. A cold front went through last night with some rain and high winds. This morning it was only 50 deg F and and it never went higher than 64 deg F. I have been working in shorts and t-shirt so far but this morning I put my jeans on and wore a light jacket until about noon. By then the temperature was warm enough to work in a t-shirt. We're getting close to having the house covered with siding. Today we had to do a lot of repairs before we could put any siding on. About 30ft of fascia board was missing and we to worry new boards under the drip rails along roof line. These drip lines are like spring steel and it was very difficult to get the 1X6 boards underneath. Finally we got it done and after putting to last sheets of siding at the top of the outside walls, we went inside to fix the holes the plumber had cut. This house is like a cottage. It is build on concrete blocks. Drains and pipes run everywhere, including under the house. When the plumber replaced all plumbing, he had to cut 4X4ft and larger holes in the floor to get the new drains in. We spend the whole afternoon fitting the cut-out sections (3) back and replacing the new subfloor to cover them. All in all it was a good day with a lot of hard but satisfying work.

Annie worked in housekeeping again today and will do this job until we go home. We have a few more days here and then we go home again. On the one hand it will be nice to get some rest but on the other hand, we are going to miss the people we chummed around with.

Tom and Grace took us out to "Cafe Du Monde". This is place that serves beignets which are a New Orleans delicacy. They are like a doughnut covered in icing sugar. They were nice, but not really all that special in my humble opinion. Apparently when you visit New Orleans, you have to try these.

So far, God has been good and has spared us from any accidents which is amazing in that on construction sites it is so easy to twist ankle or get an injury. There are 21 of us here with 16 people working on construction sites. On the right is our offical group photo. Standing from the left: Tom Silvis (on site manager), Bill Lafleur, Don Koopman (in back) Dan Wubben, Ed Buisman (construction manager) Sjoukje Buisman (CM assistant), Jogn Schuitema, Judy Warners, Doug Warners, John Tjaarsa, Peter Faber, Harry Kerkhof, Lawrence De Raaf, Harris Rotman and Donna Rotman. Sitting from left: Grace Silvis (on site manager), Gerda Wubben, Carol Schuitema, Audrey Tjaarda, Annie Kerkhof and Boukje De Raaf. What a nice bunch of people eh?

Well, I hope that everyone is doing well back home. Good night and till the next blog.

Yesterday we went into New Orleans again on our day off. We went downtown New Orleans with another couple, John and Audrey Tjaarda. They're from Chino, California. Annie has worked with Audry and I've worked with John so far. We first went to see the WWII National Museum. This was very interesting and well done. We started out with having a coffee first (of course you have to have coffee in the morning before doing anything).

We got tickets for the museum as well as a multi-media movie about WWII. This movie has been made just for this museum and took longer than the Americans were in the war, i.e. it took 5 years to make. It is directed by Tom Hanks and was very well done. It showed a mixture of actual film footage, computer generated scenes, flashing lights, sounds and real props that appeared and disappeared. In one scene about the Battle of the Bulge, it actually snowed (simulated of corse) in the theatre. The seats rumbled when artillery strikes hit or tanks drove by. All in all quite impressive. The museum itself has a good collection of material about the war in Europe and the Pacific. A lot of information on D-Day is being displayed. It is amazing how much of a struggle it was to overturn the evil empire of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. We could have spend most of the day learning about all the exhibits, but since we wanted to do some other things as well, we quit at around 2 o'clock.

After visiting the museum, we went on a 2 hour excursion on the Nachez, which is a replica of a Mississppi sternwheeler steam boat. This ship can entertain up to a 1000 people and is, up to this point, the fasted sternwheeler on the Mississppi. We had beautiful weather again, sunny and around 74 deg F. We took the tour around the harbour sites and Naval station along the Mississippi. The guide had a running commentary on the sites along the river and the ships that we encountered. We had a great time. We also met Tom and Grace on the boat. We had planned to get on a different river boat, the Creole Queen. However, just when we came to the dock after visiting the museum, we saw our boat go around a bend in the river. In other words, we missed it. It was supposed to leave at 3pm according to a brochure we obtained (which later appeared to be out of date). However, when we got to the dock at 2:20, it was already gone (it left a little after 2). We just made it to the next boat, the Sanchez, which was supposed to leave at 2:30 and we were just about the last to board. Anyway, it all worked out and it was about 5 o'clock when finished the excursion and stepped into our Honda agian and motored back home to get ready to go out for supper.

On Sunday we slept in until 7:20am and then got some breakfast and got ready for church. We went to the First Baptist church again and had the opportunity to worship our God in a very meaningful way.

In the afternoon, Annie and I took a leisurely drive along the Mississippi. We had hoped to see some nice countryside. However, what we saw most was lots of refineries, factories and industrial sites interspersed with sugar cane fields. We had hoped to visit a plantation house but the only one we saw had a big festival going on. There were lots of people and lots of stands like a flea market. We didn't really feel like joining another large crowd of people. It was nice though to just get away with the two of us.

Annie will be working in the kitchen for the rest of our stay here which she doesn't mind at all. That's it again for now. Till next time.

Friday the 13th..but we don't worry :-)

I'm back again. Last night I didn't have too much to report and I just wanted to veg. We started the morning again with an excellent breakfast (see left). Yesterday I did more siding and we got a good amount of wall covered. Today, we're much slower again because we had to fix a number of areas. For instance, the front fascia backer board was all rotted away and we had to cut the rotten section out and replace it with new wood. Because there was a large tree just in front of the house with branches hanging over the roof line, I had to do a lot of tree trimming before I could reach the fascia properly. These are just some examples of what we're up against when we continue to rebuilt this old house. John Tjaarda, one of our crew, spend a lot of time putting up soffits and fascia cladding. This is also a "fiddly" job. We still have to rebuild a large section of fascia at one side of the house. We all think that they made a big mistake in trying to rebuilt this old house. It would have been cheaper and a lot quicker to have torn it down and rebuilt from the ground up. But that's all water under the bridge now and we just do the very best we can to make sure that we end up with a house that is safe and looks good. One of the problems is that not only are we fixing water and storm damage from Katrina, but also neglect and lack of proper maintenance. The house is basically totally rebuilt with new electrical wiring, new plumbing, new A/C and heating, new bathroom, new kitchen, new hot water tank, new flooring, new and better insulation and list goes on. The lady that owns this house is an 85 year old single lady. She's presently living with family somewhere in Texas. It's too bad that we haven't been able to meet her. The other houses we work on have their owners or family members drop in regularly and they have some nice times of fellowship with them. On the other hand, the neighbour across the street is a good friend and she comes over from time to time and takes pictures that she sends to the owner. She's a very nice lady as well. All in all, we find that the people around are very nice and easy to talk to (as long as you can understand their southern accent).

Annie was assigned to cooking and cleaning duties yesterday and she thoroughly enjoyed doing that. It's a lot easier on her and the kitchen staff consists of some great ladies. In the afternoon when the kitchen staff had a couple of hours free time, they walked to the Mississippi river, which is only about 10 minutes walking from here. The ladies are standing on the levee on the north shore of the river. The Mississippi is about one mile across here and flows quite fast. Even here, you can notice the influence of the tides. During flood tide, you see a cross-current going upstream which is interesting. On the picture, you can see that area at the foot of the levee on the riverside is flooded. This is the after affect of the storm surge of hurricane Ida, the only visible sign here that we had a hurricane in the area. Large sea going ship go right up the port of New Orleans and barges are going up and downstream all the time loaded with raw materials.

Today however, Annie had to go back to do some real work again which consisted of sanding drywall (this one of the least liked work apparently). Luckily, it's now done and she only had to do it for one day. As you can see in the picture, the sanding crew got a little greyer than they already were before. They should get to the painting stage by Monday. However, I think that on Monday, she's working in the kitchen again though.

Today we completed our second week of work and are looking forward to some relaxing time on the weekend. We have plans to see and do a few thing on Saturday, but I'll write about that after we've done them. The best thing of these working trips is the fellowship with each other. We have really bonded as a group and appreciate each other's gifts and contributions. Our construction supervisors are Ed and Sonia Buisman. Ed has a lot of construction experience and can always be relied on to figure out any of the problems we can't. Sonia, or Sjoukje as she prefers to be called, is his wife and able assistant. In this picture, you see the ladies doing handcrafts. Last Wednesday, they had a special ladies night when the ladies did their crafts and the men got to do the dishes.

Well, I'm writing this blog before our supper and it's just about time to go down so I'm putting a period to this blog. BTW, I think tonight's supper includes brocolli salad, taco salad, banana bread and mystery desert. Good night (or good day depending where you are) to all of you.

Remembrance Day/Veterans Day

Yesterday, I just didn't have the oomph to write my blog. Also, because there was an AA meeting here, all the DRS people were crowded into the lounge.

Yesterday my crew finished tweaking the inside of the house to get it ready for drywalling. We were all very happy that this phase of the job was over because it was very finicky and at the end of day, you saw little or no progress after working your butt off. We also had to remove part of the front steps and when we did, hundreds of cockroaches rushed out and skittered off all over. Also, a large nest of ants was inside these steps. It's a good thing we didn't have any women in our crew :-) Annie did more mudding yesterday and today she had to sand. Sanding is a very dirty job but she's going to work in the kitchen for the rest of the week and possibly next week. I think she'll enjoy that more. It's not so physically exacting for her. Today my crew put on a lot of siding. We have about 40% of the house done now and it's starting to look so much better already. The electrician came today and we hope that by Friday, he's finished. Also, the heating and AC crew was in today. They removed all the old ducts and heating unit. They should also be done by the end of the week.

Today, the kitchen staff toured the three sites we are working on and handed out icecream sandwiches to all. Needless to say, in the hot weather that was appreciated very much. The weather is beautiful here today, 75 deg F and sunny with a bit of a cool breeze to prevent you from overheating too much. As I predicted, hurricane Ida was a real flash in the pan for us here in New Orleans. We never got any rain and the winds were moderate. The only thing noticable was that the temperature was just below 70 deg F and we had overcast skies.

After working all day, we usually quit around 4 o'clock. When we get back to base, we take a nice hot shower and relax before supper. Grace usually arranges "happy hour" in the "Cafe Lamour" (sic). This involves setting up an area in the dining hall with tables and chairs and serving grape juice and hors d'ouvres. This is of course well appreciated by all.  Yesterday Annie and I had to do the devotions. This is done a rotational basis. It is a real time of fellowship where we can share our concerns and blessings. We conclude with announcements and then we sing a number of songs together. After that, everyone is free to relax and do whatever they want. A lot of the guys watch sports, primarily football. Some play games and others do their email correspondence or read. By 10 o'clock, nearly all go to bed and try to get in a good amount of sleep to be ready for the next day.

We remembered our fallen soldiers and veterans today, it being Remembrance day in Canada and Veterans Day here in the US. Tom read the poem "In Flanders Fields..." and we had various stories of what this day meant for Canadian and Americans alike. Please click on this link to view the video Soldier's Song

Tonight, the kitchen staff had a night off and we had supper in the local Baptist church. It cost us $5.00 per person and was worth every penny. They put on an excellent meal and we talked to a number of people from their congregation. Everyone here is very friendly and makes us feel really welcome. This is about it for today, I hope this blog allows you to get an idea of what and how we're doing. Goodnight to all. We are always thankful for your prayers and keep you all in our prayers well.