First Thoughts

Finally a moment to sit and think about Pearlington…trying to form sentences about it is another matter!

There is still so much to do all along the Gulf Coast. Even when we were driving into New Orleans on our way home there were neighborhoods where every second or third house looked wrecked and abandoned.

Pearlington is getting there, but it seems that we get one family in to a new home, and you find 3 more still living in trailers…or what they call Katrina cottages, which is a single-wide mobile home.

Capt. John, who’s house we painted and did some electrical work on, is living in a small trailer with his son and two dogs. Here's before and after painting photos with the trailer in the foreground.

Fortunately, it looks like he might be in his new home by the end of January because of the work we did over those two weeks. They will probably have to install a lift since there are a lot of stairs and Capt. John is an older fellow. That’s another problem for the elderly residents and the building codes having to build the houses up on stilts. I think that’s why so many have not returned.

Here's Capt. John with my wife, Ellen, as we were saying goodbye on our way out of town. He lookes just like you'd expect someone name Capt. John to look. He was a sweetheart with lots of humor!

If you read Brittany’s blog, you know that the house I was working on for the first week was quite a challenge! They had put the wrong kind of flooring in this house and we had to remove all the peel an stick tiles. Every room, even the closets had this tile, and until it was up, they couldn’t put the right kind of flooring in….and that was really the only thing holding this family up. Mr. Pat is also an older fellow who is in the early stages of dementia, and his granddaughter, who is helping with some of the finances and who will be living with him, wants to get him in so that he can be in familiar surroundings. Right now he is in another town and he keeps trying to get back to Pearlington.

Mr. Pat's house...Regina gets to work!

Peeling those tiles was hard, the long handled tools they gave us didn’t really work, and after the first day I had only gotten about a dozen tiles up. Regina, one of the college kids on the trip (I like to refer to them as The Youts) gave up and just got down and used a hammer and a putty knife to scrape away the tiles. I don’t really do well sitting on the floor for long periods, or kneeling for any length of time (that’s why I stopped going to the Catholic church…ba-da-boom!) At dinner I was saying that if I could just be a short ways up off the floor…something with a cushion…maybe something with wheels like those things mechanics lay down on and roll under cars. That night Brittany and Douglas (another Yout) were at Walmart and Douglas found a 9 dollar skateboard and 6 dollar cushion and voila!

Ralphie has wheels! And let me tell you, once I had that I was all over that floor!!

We ended up getting about 2 thirds of the tiles off by Christmas Eve.

The second week another group from a church in San Jose was there, and they finished the tiles, and began putting in the new floor! So it looks like Mr. Pat will be in by the end of January too!

So who’s gonna finish the work? The Mennonites! They send groups down over a three month period, so two days after we left, they arrived, and the work continues!! Believe me, I would have stayed for another two weeks if I could have!

At the end of the trip some felt like we didn’t really get much done…Ohh, but we did!

Sure, we went there help physically, but even more, to bring these people hope!

These folks, many of whom have a strong faith in God, didn’t lose their faith, but they had lost a lot of their joy and much of their hope…and to see a bunch of strangers show up, many of them college age kids, and jump right in and do what needs to be done, to have people who would listen to your stories, or in Capt. John’s case, his silly jokes…to know that there are people who genuinely care about you and what you went through initially and what you are still going through four years later…that goes a long way my friends!

And everyone I talked to who I told about where I worked and how my listeners had donated to help get me there …they were, dare I say…blown away! They would get this look on there faces…this funny little smile…this twinkle that they didn’t even know they had in them anymore and they would say how awesome or amazing or wonderful y’all are (meaning you Piggies) and some got a little choked up....oh wait, that was me!

I’ve really only touched on the first week. My mind is reeling as I think of all this!

The second week 7 of us worked at Miss Donna’s house. She lost her home in Pearlington and moved to her families home in the northern part of the county. The homes further inland didn’t have the water damage, but they got the wind, and the tornados spawned by Katrina. It was a beautiful home in a rural farm-like setting…and she had this silly little wiener dog named Molly, so I got my wiener dog fix while I was away from Emma!

I will write about our work with Miss Donna later…right now, I need to shut my brain off, eat some dinner and go to bed! Or shut my bed off eat my brain and go to dinner…Or shut my dinner off, eat my bed and go to brain…

Thanks Piggies….The Team thanks you, the people of Pearlington thank you, and I thank you!

Ralphie