Sunday April 30

The last leg of our journey has begun. ETA back in Livonia between 3 and 4.

  ¶ 9:25 AM

  So long to Good Earth Village And Houma

730 Sat and we are off on what will be our longest travel day 822
miles. We had a Great final work day. All 3 work sites exceeded
expectations and churned out a lot of work. More from the road.

Special Thanks to Louis and Christopher for their interest in this mission and for providing our team with a weather radio which became invaluable throughout the week. Photo of John Cargill listening to the weather radio at Good Earth Village  ¶ 9:05 AM

  Wednesday April 26 We had several thunderstorms over night and on into the day today. This forced us to change workplans. Because it wasn't feasible to work outside the workcrews at all 3 sites were reduced to about 1/2 strength. The others spent the day doing work around the camp. Building shelves and tables for the mess tent, digging trenches to get rid of standing water, buying supplies for other projects and some took part of the day to rest a little. PDA has made a committment to be on the ground for 8-10 years at Camp Earth and while the devastation doesn't appear to be as dramatic as New Orleans or Biloxi, virtually every homeowner around Houma was affected in some way by Katrina and/or Rita. Hurricanes are a way of life down here and most recognize that and pick themselves up after every weather event and carry on with life in the Bayou. And most will tell you the Bayou is HOME and want to live nowhere else. With each of the 3 current work projects Team Michigan is involved in much of the work that the 19 who went to Biloxi ---mucking out houses- has already been done by the homeowner. In some cases their insurance or FEMA supplied some of the monies to do these repairs, the balance has been done by volunteers like our group. The talent we have in our group...contractors...specialists and jacks of trades allows the labor component of the repairs to be donated. Labor is always the biggest component on any construction job and for some like Mrs Henry or Gary or Patty to get someone with talents of a Ron Hively or Terry Deming or Larry Blanchard, or Rick Oliver or Mike Koelzer, and many whom I don't know yet to come in and donate thousands of dollars of labor and literally millions of dollars of experience and expertises is simply priceless. That doesn't undermine those who may not have the skill level of the aforementioned but come in with enthusiam and a geniune willingness to be the construction site grunt. There are no unimportant jobs here and working as a team makes it all possible.

There are still more pictures on the photo album http://photos.yahoo.com/rosedalemsmission and we'll add more as time allows. Thank you to the many who have sent along their best wishes or have visited this site daily. This like everything we're doing down here is ongoing ..so stayed tuned and God Bless All of you  ¶ 4:33 PM

  Tuesday April 25 Day 2 Recap


Many new pictures have been uploaded onto the photo album

http://photos.yahoo.com/rosedalemsmission

Today we had 3 work groups working on 3 different Homes.

Pelican Team has been working on Mr Nick's House. Mr Nick is an 70 something man who built most of his house by himself. It is a small place...about 400 square ft and the group has spent the first two days reenforcing the floors, laying tile and numerous other things including plumbingn the entire house and doing the finish work in the whole house. They will likely be there the rest of the week.



Crawfish and Cyprus, Teams are working on the Home of Gary and Peggy. This house is a 14X60 manufactured home that Gary and friends gutted out and now the teams from Michigan will be creating a whole new living space for this family of 5---husband wife and 3 children--including 3 bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, laundry room and bathroom. The team framed all the walls today and will be doing plumbing, electrical, heating, all the finish work..indoor and outdoor. This group will also be at this site for the balance of the week.

Alligator, Magnolia and Bear teams are at the home still at the home of Mrs Henry. Today we continued work on the exterior siding, we'll also be painting the exterior and putting a new roof on the building. This team will likely be there the rest of the week.

Tomorrow's installment will include a little more Mr Nick, Gary, Peggy, and Mrs Henry. All have their own stories. All are grateful for the work we are doing and all of us are happy to be working with them. Until tomorrow....  ¶ 9:54 PM

  Day One Recap


End of a long day one.

We got our work assignments about 830AM ---initially all of us went to the home of Mrs Henry...a deightful Cajun woman who has lived in her home since 1971. Her house needed to have all of its siding and insulation removed and replace. By mid morning about half of team Michigan went ot other assignments and 20 or so remained at Mrs Henry's house. It was HOT today--89 degrees with 70% humidity. The Sun was intense and more than one of use have an April sunburn to show for We managed to get all of the removal done by mid afternoon, new insulation and Tyvek in place. The siding arrived about 3PM and we spent the last hour siding one side of the house. Tomorrow we'll finish the siding and then do some other construction work at that house.

We had a pleasant surprise for dinner tonight. A homeowner who is having work done at his house by Team PA showed up with 25 lbs of Shrimp and proceeded to boil them up and put out a Cajun Spread fit for Royalty. As the picture above shows...We stood around a large table and just picked at the shrimp




There are about 60 new pictures up on the Photo Album


http://photos.yahoo.com/rosedalemsmission


http://photos.yahoo.com/rosedalemsmission  ¶ 11:29 PM

  Good Night From Camp Good Earth Village

Long Day...All are safe and well. Tomorrow the real mission work begins  ¶ 12:45 AM

  Greetings From Good Earth Village. Everyone from Team Michigan has arrived. Dinner time ...will update later.  ¶ 9:00 PM

  Sunday on the Road Again


Greetings from I-40 heading towards Memphis. Its about 10 AM CDT and we've been on the road for about an hour. Saturday was a GREAT travel day. We arrived at camp NaCoMe around 6. Our hosts---the staff of Camp NaCoMe--a Presbyterian Camp affiliated with the Presbytery of Middle TN were most gracious feeding a delicious meal of Fried Chicken, Potatoes Brocolli and Salad. All 48 of us bunked down in one building--3 or 4 to a room. Plenty of Snoring from the men's wing. Prior to retiring for the evening many played Euchre, some took walks on the beautiful camp grounds...and a few---but no one over 25-- even ventured out for a swim in the lake. By 5 AM we many started getting ready for a long day on the road....Another delicious meal of Pancakes, Bacon, Sausage, cereal, Oatmeal and of course GRITS. We hit the road around 9 and have about 550 miles of travel today. This may be the only opportunity I'll have to update the Blog. We heard from Pastor Rick who is already in New Orleans. Rick had the opportunity to tour the 9th Ward of New Orleans --the area hardest hit by Katrina--and he said it was every bit as bad as the news reports....even 9 months after the fact. We're hoping to get a tour of the area later on this week if time permits.

I'm probably going to be losing my internet signal soon so I'll sign off for now. Above are a couple pictures of Camp NaCoMe...Until next time....  ¶ 10:57 AM

  Such is Life on the Road   ¶ 10:50 AM

  And we're off!!!!

Team Michigan At Church Before Departure  ¶ 9:47 AM

  We're TOO Excited to Sleep Travel Day Sat April 22 The day has arrived. In about 90 minutes we'll be departing from Rosedale en route to Camp Good Earth Village Houma LA

More from the Road!

Update: 8:15 AM

Greetings from the road. All arrived for departure 49 strong with two meeting us in Houma. Pictures from departure on Photo Album. Will update in an hour.  ¶ 5:59 AM

  Friday Night Pack   ¶ 8:22 PM

  Friday April 21 T-Minus 24 Hours and counting.   Let's get this show on the Road!   ¶ 7:04 AM

  Thursday April 20, 2006 Well as I write this we are just about 47 hours from departure. Its amazing how quickly this trip has come about and the amount of support we've received from our families and church family. Pause for a second and think about this: there were 600,000 homes affected by the Hurricanes....That's as if every single house in Wayne County were hit....all the apartments too. Its no wonder that the area we are going to --Houma LA--has received so little attention. Now also think about this...we are a congregation of about 800. In the 8 months post Katrina/Rita we will have sent 70 people to do mission work. I realize not all are "official" members of the church...at least ....not yet....70 people represent about 9% of the congregation doing mission work for this disaster and at least that many contributing in other ways be it monetarily or with important contributions such as blankets or Spring into giving contributions. That's 140 people from a 800 member church. That's AMAZING!! To put this in perspective if instead of 18% (18 out of 100) there were 18 people per 100,000 (1/1000 of our commitment) drawing from the entire population of Wayne County were to commit to some sort of effort that would be 380 people making a difference from Wayne County which has a population of 2.1 million. 140 people from 800...and 240 from the rest of the County. I'm probably not conveying this very well but suffice it to say The Rosedale Contribution is HUGE. And the impact we'll make on the lives of those affected will be equally huge. For the 30 new people going on this trip its going to make a huge impact on you too. Think about this: we sent 19 to Biloxi...18 are going back and I don't think I'd be out of line saying that if the 19th (Cherie Lessig) could go ...she'd be there. So to you 30 first timers I say this....hold onto your hats...get ready for a life changing 9 days and I KNOW I speak for the other 18 who have already been there we SO pleased to be sharing the experience with you  ¶ 8:23 AM

  Commissioned today! Happy Easter!
He is Risen, He is risen indeed!
By this time next week we will be in Good Earth Village. We were all commissioned this morning in front of a packed church, and so, outside of finishing up our packing, we are all set to leave next Saturday morning, very early. Our fearless leaders have done a great job of getting us all organized, well informed and prepped for whatever comes along, including making sure we all have contact information for our families in case of emergencies. The phone number and e-mail address are also posted on this site in the right hand column, along with some facts and other helpful information. I do hope that our friends and families can figure out how to leave their comments and messages on this site, or at least find our stories and pictures helpful.
Ellen Leigh  ¶ 8:15 PM

  Ready to Go! We had a terrific meeting this afternoon, with most of the group present. Forms are all filled out, payments were made, and questions were answered. It looks like this time around we will be doing construction as opposed to destruction. We all have our road trip vehicle assignments and our work team assignments too.
What an amazing group! Everyone is pumped up, positive and ready to go, especially me!
Ellen Leigh  ¶ 5:49 PM

  The packing process has begun! I've got an interesting pile of assorted tools, work clothing and toiletries in a pile in our guest room, and I add to it almost every day. Today, it was socks and a first aid kit, plus a few art supplies just for fun during our off time.
I was glad to see that I can post here under my own name, since I have a Blogger account- those of you who have also been invited to be a member of this blog can also post here by creating a blogger account- it's free and easy to do- (if I can do it, anyone can). Anyone who is not a member can comment on a post, or leave a message in the side bar. Don't be shy, we won't bite! This is just another way to communicate.
Ellen Leigh  ¶ 6:06 PM

    ¶ 9:28 AM