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