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| It was a girl, now it's a boy. Okay, that's a
confusing headline, so let me explain. Mocha didn't quite work
out. She was friendly enough at the rescue center, but never
overcame her apprehensive state here at home. She's been
extremely anxious and nervous for the past 2 days, is fearful of
anybody that enters the house, hasn't been eating and has grown a
little aggressive towards Melissa. This is certainly not typical
Boxer behavior, and is not something we desire in a dog, so we have no
choice but to take her back and give her a 2nd chance at a new home.
We regret that, and will certainly miss her, but it's for the
best. She will be leaving here in just a
couple of hours. However, we do have another Boxer to replace
her with. We picked up a "puppy" last night from
another rescue organization. I say "puppy" because
while he is certainly a puppy in terms of age and behavior, he is a
big boy. He's already just a little larger than
Mocha.....Mocha's 2 years old and the puppy is about 5 months
old. He'll probably top out between 21-25 inches high at the
shoulder and weigh around 60 pounds. We have named him Bojeador
(Spanish for Boxer) and just call him Bo. He's the world's biggest
dork right now. He's extremely energetic and playful and loves
everyone. He also has no problems eating and is very eager to
please and learn. He's already learned his name fairly well, and
has begun to sit, stay and heel much better...all since last
night. Now, we just need to get him housebroken....fortunately
this is supposed to be very easy with Boxers. So, one pooch did
not work out, unfortunately, but the Lord provided another in her
place. In other news, we did receive notification that two
groups will be sending love offerings to help with the cost of
repairs/losses due to the recent flooding we experienced. That
is quite a blessing. We don't have a dollar figure on what it
will eventually cost us, but it will be several hundred dollars.
The biggest expense will be in the casita, which will need to have
drywall replaced due to mold growth, which is already about 2-3 feet
up the wall. The vinyl floor has also curled up and needs to be
removed, and we need to check the doors more, as they were soaked and
have swelled as a result. More on that as we know more.
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| Bo
checks out the camera as I try to get a photo of him. |
Bo
and Mocha lying together on the floor. |
Mocha
and Bo in their cage, getting ready for bed. They both like to chew
(Bo is still a puppy after all), and Bo is also not housetrained, so they
can't be out all night. |
Bo
wasted no time lying down. Mocha tries to figure out why he gave up
so easily. |
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| It's a girl! No, you didn't miss the announcement
that Melissa was expecting. I'm talking about our new dog.
We've been planning to get a dog as part of our home security system,
and were finally able to accomplish this task today. We adopted
Mocha, a 26-month old Boxer. She is a brindle boxer, very
affectionate and very friendly, yet also calm and considerate around
others. She's still trying to get used to her new home, but
trust that she'll open up even more over the coming days. She is
in very good health, despite a rather sad history of neglect (thus the
reason she was up for adoption). In
other news, we are continuing the unpacking process, and things are
*almost* done. We've reached the point were we could get photos
up on the walls, so this house is definitely a home now.
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| Mocha
and Missy having a little conversation with one another. |
Mocha
poses with the kiddos. Even August is doing well with her, and he's
not overly fond of any type of dog. |
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| We are officially TEXANS now. As of this past week
all of our vehicles have undergone Texas State inspections, received
Texas registrations and plates, and now Melissa and I have Texas
drivers licenses. So, we are Texans. We were also able to
open a local bank account, so most of our "move in" stuff
(besides unpacking) is now done. We are continuing to make
progress, and the house is beginning to feel a lot more like
home. As of yesterday we also now have high speed
internet. During deputation we were using a Verizon wireless
card, which had good speed and most importantly could be used
anywhere. Unfortunately, here in Rio Grande City the signal was
horrible, and our connection speeds were very low (around 30k).
So, we signed up with Charter to receive a cable internet modem.
It now has us connecting at speeds up to 4,000k. That's a little
better! I wish there was DSL available here in the valley (since
it costs less), but unfortunately it's not made it to this area
yet. On the flooding front, problems continue. Yesterday
parts of our area received another 6 inches of rain, and we remain
under a Flood Watch as rains are expected to continue throughout the
day today. One corner of our garage was flooded again last
night, but that was not as much due to "rising water" as it
is to a need to do some drainage work on that corner. Not much
more to report at this time.
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| Yesterday and today we have continued to make progress on
the problems associated with the flooding, as well as settling in here
in Texas. At the height of the flooding we estimate that there
was at least 3,700 gallons of water inside the garage, 1,000 gallons
inside the casita and a total of at least 37,000 gallons on the
property overall. All of that water has now receded, and no new
rain has occured (despite the weather predicitions, which so far have
been 100% wrong). Yesterday we ventured into the garage and
casita. Every box in the garage (that was not on the new
shelving built by Jetersville Baptist Church) originally had water in
them up to about 4 inches. During the flooding we were in the
garage getting those boxes onto metal chairs and out of the water,
which probably helped save some of the contents. However, many
paper and cloth type products were ruined. We are attempting to
air dry many other items and will know more later. All of the
boxes have been emptied and the only thing left in the garage are
those things we're trying to dry. The smell was starting to get
pretty bad, so we're glad to have those soggy boxes gone. The
casita was definitely flooded, but since it was empty the only real
damage was to the drywall. We'll have to "wait and
see" what needs to be done there. My (future) office in the
garage is apparently very well sealed, because some of the water that
flowed in didn't flow back out and didn't drain into the ground.
I went in with a wet-vac today and vacuumed out around 75 gallons of
water, which leaves me with just a damp concrete floor now. Also
yesterday we made it out to get our vehicles inspected here in
Texas. That process took about 3 hours, but at least it's
done. I also made it by the local government office and was able
to get the titles for the vehicles transferred and also get our Texas
plates. Today we will be getting our Texas driver's
licenses. This all has to be done within 30 days of moving into
the state, so we're getting very close to that deadline. We also
got all of the window treatments up in the house, and Melissa was able
to get about 50% of her material organized for homeschooling
(unfortunately a few books were flooded in the garage) , which starts
in less than 2 weeks. We continue to appreciate your support
through prayer, and will keep you updated as we move forward.
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| Things are improving slightly. Right now the flood
waters are starting to recede....little by little. We still have
a couple of inches of water on 3 sides of the house, but the back is
now water free. This is certainly a better situation than when
it was lapping at the kitchen door and still rising! Weather
reports still call for additional rain over the next 4 days, so please
continue to keep us in your prayers. I spoke with one of my
neighbors this afternoon and he said that we brought this with us,
because this has never happened here before. I can at least take
comfort in knowing that our main house can survive the worst flooding
in memory for this area! I watched the weather and they said
that our area received between 9-12 inches of rain since yesterday
evening, so this is certainly not a normal occurence (given that
annual rainfall is usually around 22 inches). We thank God for
His protection this far, and trust Him to bring us through the rest of
this week without any further problems. We don't necessarily
look forward to seeing everything that was ruined in the garage and
casita, but those are merely possessions and can be replaced in
time. We also wanted to say a special THANK YOU to all of you
who have been praying for us today. It means a lot to us to know
of the hundreds of individuals that are behind us in this ministry.
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| URGENT! Please continue to pray for us regarding our
current housing situation. The rain has stopped, and things were
starting to look good, but then we were hit with flash flooding.
We have water 4-6 inches deep all the way around the house, and it is
still slowly rising. If it rises another 2-3 inches it will be
inside the house. The garage is completely flooded, as is the
casita. Unfortunately, we had a number of boxes on the floor in
the garage which all got wet (in 4 inches or more of water).
Even more unfortunate is that some of these boxes contained photos and
other irreplaceable items. News reports indicate that Arroyo
Quiote (the riverbed near our house) has completely flooded the
interstate and neighborhoods closer to the river are under 2 feet of
water. Please pray that God will keep our home dry. We
have taken every step we can to protect items inside the home and now
wait to see what the Lord will do in this situation. Also,
please keep us in prayer regarding creepy crawly critters. As
the water started rising I saw a tarantula crawling across the back
yard, trying to escape. We can expect to see tarantulas,
scorpions, fire ants, giant cockroaches and rattlesnakes, as they all
try to find a dry place to ride out the storm...which right now is our
house.
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| A
group shot of the kids before service on Sunday morning. |
Our
house as of Monday afternoon around 3:00pm. Extremely heavy rains
have caused severe flash flooding in our area. Our garage and casita
are completely flooded and the house is about 2-3 inches from being under
water. |
Another
shot showing the vehicles. |
I
just moved the bus and van to higher ground, so they are safe. |
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| A
small river flowing between the house and garage. Water in this
walkway is about 4-6 inches deep. |
Inside
the garage their is already about 4 inches of water. Unfortunately
many of these boxes were on the floor. We raised everything up onto
metal chairs, but only after they got wet. |
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Just a quick update to give a prayer request. Please
pray for us and our housing situation. August is supposed
to be a dry month here in southern Texas, but someone forgot to tell
God that. He's once again proving the weather guys wrong by
giving us a great deluge of rain. It started yesterday evening
and is supposed to finish by sometime Friday (possibly). They
are calling for up to 6 inches (or more) of rain in our area.
Obviously that is a LOT of water. We've already sprung 3 leaks
and are working on correcting the problems. One leak is in the
boys room in the house and the other two are in the garage (which just
got the new roof). Actually, none are true
"leaks". The boys room is a result of shingles being
cut too short and water wicking into the soffit. The garage is
1.) a result of a leak around the chimney (somewhat expected) and a
floor leak around the door/washing machine (also somewhat
expected). Not sure what all it will take to fix these, but
please pray 1.) that not too much water will get in and 2.) we can get
these problems fixed as soon as the rain stops. We are at least
thankful that no other leaks have occured in the house, no leaks in my
(future) office in the garage and absolutely no leaks in the
casita! Thanks for your continued support!
Quick update. It's been about 50 minutes since the last update,
and things have changed somewhat. First, we put a 122 qt plastic
tub (one of the BIG storage tubs you can buy at Wal-Mart) outside of
the door to the garage, to help catch some of the rain and keep it out
of the garage. It's already overflowed once and is 1/2 full
again. It's definitely raining hard. I also put a 5-gallon
bucket under one of the leaks in the garage and it was 1/2 full, so I
emptied it. We've also sprung about 8 new leaks in the garage,
all on the workshop side (including 2-3 in my office area). So,
that's not looking real good. Unfortunately this also means the
leak is not at the chimney, but rather the entire roof is leaking
(it's in various places all over the roof). This is probably due
to the roof being almost flat, so the water is not running off fast
enough, but I'm not sure how we will fix that....yet. More as it
becomes available.
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| Time has been flying by, and when I went to do the update
today I was surprised to see that it had already been 9 days.
Sorry to keep you "in the dark" so long. Things have
not really slowed down since the last update. The majority of
our work group departed on the 7th, and the remaining two flew out on
the 9th. We were finally able to unload the entire trailer on
the 8th, so everything is at least in the process of being
unpacked. Unfortunately, much of our unpacking was put on hold
as I also flew out on the 9th to finish up our last two scheduled
meetings. The first meeting, with Gospel Baptist Church in
Greenville, South Carolina, went very well. The church was very
friendly and receptive of our ministry. I "lived" in
the basement of the church for a few days while I was in the area, and
spent the afternoon with the pastor and his family on Sunday.
Our scheduled Wednesday meeting was cancelled due to scheduling issues
(the pastor is working with me to reschedule for the fall of 2009), so
I took the opportunity for a walk-in meeting with Bible Baptist Church
in Savannah, Georgia. I was not expecting such a large church
(about 800 on Sunday mornings), but was pleased to receive a very
genuine welcome from everyone that I met. I flew back to Texas
on the 14th and we have all been busy for the last two days with
continuing progress on the house. As of today I have finished
the painting of the inside. The only thing remaining was the
bathrooms (ugh), but I finished those this afternoon. We also
have all the beds setup now. Last night was the first time in 20
days that Melissa and I have slept on a real bed! Much of the
furniture has found its way into the house, and is slowly being filled
from boxes. The roll-off dumpster has been removed, so the house
is looking much nicer from the road as well. We have hit a
hiccup with the installation of our cable internet (the only reliable
high speed option available in our area). They want to remove
the one and only semi-large tree in our back yard to make way for the
cable. We're working on that issue, but it is taking time.
The bus is doing remarkably well, and has not had any further
problems. We have begun the approval process to
"adopt" a boxer from the local animal rescue
organization. This will be not only a family pet, but also a
very real part of our security system, as he alerts us to unexpected
and unwanted visitors during the night. Temperatures remain
high, but we're getting used to it. When I arrived in Greenville
last week it was 92 and it felt wonderful. The people there
thought I was crazy. Today as I walked by the garage in Texas I
checked our temperature gauge and it was reading 112....and it felt
like 112. It's interesting to turn on the cold water and have it
come out hot, but that's something else we're getting used to down
here. We'll be attending Iglesia Bautista Betania again tomorrow
and are looking forward to getting to know these people better over
the coming months. Richard Freeman (our nephew) will be flying
back to Virginia on the 19th, and then it will be back to just the 5
of us. Language school has been pushed back to September 2nd to
give us more time to get settled, and it seems that was probably a
wise decision, as their is still much to be done in unpacking and
getting caught up on things. Not much more to report at this
time. Enjoy the photos and we'll let you know more in a few
days.
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| I
took the group from Jetersville Baptist Church to an area that overlooks
the border crossing in Roma on the 7th. |
A
view across the Rio Grande River into Mexico (looking slightly to the
left). |
A
look straight across. Their is apparently a small park there (with
grills and such) as well as a boat landing. |
A
closer look at the landing. Notice the two guys by the river. |
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| A
closer look at the guys. They rode up on bicycles and then hung out
by the bank. They looked like Jehova's Witnesses, but I couldn't be
sure. |
This
is to the right of where we were standing, looking across the river.
Allan Law, from Jetersville Baptist Church, went over to talk with the
officer for a few minutes. |
Tim
and Amanda Wade helped with some last minute moving in and law
cleanup. Here Tim is weedeating. |
Our
storage/moving trailer is finally empty. I'm somewhat surprised that
it survived the trip, but know that the Lord held it together for the 2000
mile journey. |
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| Things have been very busy around here for the last few
days. Our help group did arrive around 3:00am Saturday
morning. They have been doing a tremendous amount of work since
that time, and will be leaving here in about 2 hours (around 7:30pm
this evening). We have a lot of photos below, but the gist of
the story is that they completed every task that we needed them to,
plus a few extra! We were able to replace the roof on the garage
including adding 2 skylights, ran new water lines to the garage and
casita, installed a new water heater for those same two buildings,
closed off 2 doorways that are no longer being used, built a new wall
in the casita to create a foyer, moved a wall to enlarge the bathroom
in the casita, installed or replaced 8 doors (among the various
buildings), painted almost the entire inside of the house, removed the
fencing along the road, removed the plants blocking access to the
sideyard for the vehicles, got the yardwork under control, replaced or
fixed several outside light fixtures, installed two new inside light
fixtures, replaced a leaking pressure valve on the house water heater,
stabilized all of the fencing on the back of the property, did some
minor landscaping on the front of the property and have eaten a whole
lotta good food. We also managed to hold a home service on
Sunday morning, visit with Iglesia Bautista Betania in Mission, Texas
on Sunday evening and also visit the Museum of South Texas
History. One thing that the folks in our visiting group kept
commenting about was the friendliness of the people here in the
valley. Every single place we went they were amazed. For
an example of what I mean, go to Lowes and order something and have it
delivered to your home. When it arrives, try to give the Lowes
deliveryman a hug and see what happens. Here in the valley we
have received many heart handshakes as well as hugs from people in all
types of businesses. Its very strange to us, but also very much
appreciated. We still have a lot to do, but are thankful for how
far the Lord has brought us in this short time. More to come
soon...
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| Addie
washing bottles for water. |
Addie
checks out the lime tree in the side yard. |
Our
work group has arrived and we are talking about all of the things that
need to be done. |
Sleeping
accomodations are somewhat tight. Four people are sleeping here in
the living room. |
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| Two
more are sleeping here in what will be Melissa's office/school room. |
Unloading
Allan "Gadget" Law's trailer. He sure can pack a lot in
there! |
I'm
not sure I'd want to travel 2,000 miles in this van towing a trailer, but
we're very thankful that they made the trip. |
Taking
out the old fencing along the road so we have somewhere to park the
bus/trailer. |
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| More
fence removal. I'm not looking forward to mowing that grass behind
the fence! |
Away
goes the fence into the roll-off. |
And
yet more fence removal. They actually took the entire fence down in
a very short time. |
Starting
on the removal of the old garage roof. |
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| More
roof removal. |
Another
view inside the "Gadgetmobile". |
Pastor
Paul Wade works with Mike to pull up brick. They will be laying a
new waterline to the casita and garage. |
Eddie
is a one-man demolition crew. Here he is removing old doors. |
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| Braden
and Richard are on kitchen duty. |
Now
they are installing our new mailbox. |
The
bricks are up and the trench is dug....they just need me to get back with
the pipe. |
Eddie
tries to get our weedeater working again. No one has had success so
far. |
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| Drilling
through the wall of the house to connect the water line. |
Piping
is roughed in for the trench. |
And
here the pipe is connecting through the rafters to the casita. |
This
is the old water heater from the casita. The bottom rusted out as we
tried to through it in the roll-off! |
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| The
roof tear off is complete, including the siding at the top edge where the
two buildings meet. |
Sunday
morning and time for church. The group from Jetersville joined us
for a "home" church service. |
After
lunch we headed into Edinburg for a visit at the Museum of South Texas
History. |
Braden
and Richard goofing off. |
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| A
mammoth at the museum. |
A
dog collar. I don't want to meet the dog that wore this! |
August
tries on some period clothing. |
And
so does Addie. |
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| An
old saddle. |
Addie
and August check out a bell. |
One
of many crucifixes. |
Prayer
beads. |
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| Braden
tries his hand at lassoing. |
Richard
and Addie check out the well. |
More
lasso attempts. |
Sign
for the museum. |
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| Noose
in the hanging room at the old city jail in Edinburg. |
For
the evening services we visited Iglesia Bautista Betania in Mission. |
Back
to work on Monday as additional tools are brought out. |
Preparing
to cut plywood for the roof. |
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| Larry
Wade (left top) poses for a shot. |
Larry
and Richard working on the roof. |
Eddie
goes dumpster diving. I'm not sure what he's looking for. |
Quite
a few sheets of plywood had to be replaced, along with all of the 2' x 6'
boards across the back of the garage. |
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| Another
view out of the top of the garage. |
Focus
turns to the casita during the hot afternoon hours. The entire
layout of this building will be changing. |
Allan
does a little tree trimming as he replaces boards along the back of the
garage. |
Larry
spent a couple days painting the entire inside of the house. He did
a great job!! |
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| We
enjoyed a varietey of fruits from the local street side vendor here in Rio
Grande City. |
Larry
continues painting. |
One
of the two doorways into the casita is being closed (the photo above was
taken from this doorway). |
A
new door is being installed going into the garage. |
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| Skylights
are in. We had these installed in the garage over the laundry area
to help reduce our electric bill (since the laundry is used daily).
These work perfectly! |
Richard
and Eddie measuring wood for more framing. |
Pastor
Wade begins removal of the old kitchen door. |
Larry
continues to make progress on the paint. |
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| Pastor
Wade and his son Tim continue removal of the kitchen door. |
The
front door of the casita is removed and framing has begun inside on the
new entry way wall. |
Another
shot of the new wall. |
Our
new mailbox. |
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| The
rear door of the garage was also closed. |
August
replaces switch covers after the painting is done. |
He
requires intense concentration. |
Addie
"vacuums" using a magnetic sweeper to find all of the loose
nails lying around. |
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| Braden
and Richard take apart the old fencing so that we can reuse the lumber
later. |
Eddie
and Amanda begin tearing out the rear bathroom wall for the new doorway. |
Pastor
Wade installs a new door in the casita. |
Pastor
Wade and Allan installing a water heater in the garage for the laundry and
also for the casita. |
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| The
wall is out for the bathroom in the casita. |
The
old fence is apart and stacked behind the casita. |
This
is a growing pile of yard debris. So far this is just aloe vera
plants that were removed along the front fence. |
August
is going to help paint his wall in the boy's room. |
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| Allan
and Tim running electrical wire for lighting in the new casita entryway. |
Addie
and August help me plant a plumeria tree in the front yard. |
The
tree is in, now we just need to fill the hole in. |
The
old casita bathroom door is closed in. |
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old casita side door is also closed in and drywall has begun. |
One
of many meals we enjoyed each day. |
Braden
helps out with the laying of the new roof on the garage. |
Our
windows have arrived from Ohio and we're unloading them from the
van. These will be installed at a later date. |
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| Allan
begins mudding the drywall in the casita. |
Amanda
helps him out. |
More
of the new windows that have arrived. |
Trees
across the road from our house. |
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| Braden
peers down at the walkway between the house and casita. |
Now
that the house is painted we are beginning to unload our "stuff"
from the trailer. |
Richard
is making quick work of the grass in the backyard. They also pruned
the trees, so it is looking much better now. |
Allan
installs the new front door on the casita. |
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| The
AC unit is installed in the casita. |
The
water heater is done. |
I'm
working on wiring a second light in the hallway, since our one light
doesn't shine around the corner next to the closet. |
Pastor
Wade and Eddie work on new storage shelving in the garage. |
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| Shelving
work continues. |
The
light is done and it actually works! |
The
shelving is almost done. |
One
of the new doors in the casita. |
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| We
had to replace the security door over the garage door, and that's complete
now as well. |
Addie's
new door into her room. |
Addie's
new closet door. |
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| This is our first official update from the field!
Things are going "well" with the move, but there have
certainly been a number of surprises. But, first things
first. On July 27th we enjoyed our last "regular"
deputation meeting with the folks at Heavenbound Baptist Church in
Savannah, Georgia. It was a very good meeting and we enjoyed our
time together with them. Immediately after service we "hit
the road" bound for Texas. We managed to be on our way by
1:00pm and made some good time early on. We caught up with my
father in Louisianna (he had left 2 days earlier with our bus/trailer,
headed for our home in Texas) and stopped for a few minutes to
retrieve our small fire safe, which had papers we needed upon our
arrival. Other than a couple of bathroom breaks and a couple of
meal breaks (buying food, eating as we drove), we didn't stop and made
excellent time! We arrived in our driveway in Rio Grande City at
11:00am on Monday, making our total trip in just 22 hours. I
mentioned surprises above, and they were certainly plentiful as we
arrived. First, we found that our scattered clumps of low-lying
grass had grown somewhat in the past 4 months....to a total of about
5' tall. We also found that almost all of the lightbulbs in the
house had been removed, so we had no lights. We also found that
the papers we retrieved from my father in Louisianna were the wrong
ones, and therefore we were concerned about our ability to get the
water turned on. We also found a number of
"inhabitants" in the house, including numerous large dead
cockroaches and even a small lizard or gecko. Most of those
early surprises have all been taken care of though. My father
arrived with our bus/trailer on Tuesday morning, which was a welcome
relief since he had a variety of problems on his trip. The
biggest problem came in Louisiana when the muffler on the bus
exploded....literally. Raw fuel was leaking through the fuel
system and it exploded, blowing the top off the muffler and forcing
him to stop. Upon further inspection they found fuel all over
the bottom side of the bus, and also burn marks. The Lord was
certainly protecting both my father and our possessions in this
situation! When my father took the bus in to have the muffler
fixed they also found that the spark plugs needed replacing (they are
original and the bus has 225k miles on it) and also 8 of the coils
needed replaced. It was expensive, but the work was effective
and the bus ran better than it ever had before. As I said, my
father arrived Tuesday and parked the bus at the entrance to our
road. A couple hours later he went out to move the bus and the
serpentine belt broke! Again, the Lord was protecting and
ensuring that the bus would make it. We had to have the bus
towed in for service (we still have roadside assistance from when we
had the RV, so the towing was free). The dealer found that the
AC condenser had come apart and metal shavings from that are what had
sliced the serpentine belt. Again, not cheap, but we look
forward to the repairs all being completed and the bus being available
for futher service. Since our arrival on Monday we have remained
very busy. We now have all the lights in the house working, have
the water running and even have two operational bathrooms (we didn't
have a single bathroom working the first day, and the second was just
finished tonight at about 10:30pm). We've also got the
grass somewhat under control, have appliances installed and have even
begun to see a few pieces of furniture here and there. We've got
trash service setup, internet service scheduled, insurance in the
works and much more. We've also finished the replacement of the
carpet in the house. The old carpet was worn and very stained,
so we removed it and had new tile installed (tile work is very
affordable here in the valley). It was ironic that the tile was
selected had to be shipped up from Mexico and all of the workers spoke
only Spanish. It was certainly interesting. Because of the
tile, most of our home was inaccesible for the first 2 days, but
everything is completed now and we have full use once again.
We've also begun some work on the casita, primarily removing the old
carpet. One big dilema we are currently facing is the fact that
neither the casita nor the garage have running water. I spoke
with our neighbor (the former owner's brother) and he called his
sister who informed him that the water broke a while back and was
never fixed. We will definitely have to get that fixed
soon. One big problem that causes is that our laundry room is in
the garage. I have temporarily run a garden hose to the washing
machine, but that is certainly not a long term solution. We've
also got the phones working now. Apparently someone had cut the
phone lines in the main box, so I had to rewire those as well. A
group will be arriving sometime in the next hour or so (it is 1:29am
on Saturday morning as I write this) to help with additional
repairs. Our primary goals are to replace the roof (shingles and
wood) on the garage (it is in extremely poor condition) and also the
shingles on the casita. We will also be doing drywall repair and
painting the inside of the main house. As time permits we will
continue with the yard work and also begin the remodeling of the
casita for use as our primary ministry building. More updates
will be forthcoming, as time permits, but until then please enjoy the
photos we have provided below. One final note: we were informed
Thursday that we have a new supporting church! Berean Baptist
Church in Winchester, Kentucky becomes our 36th supporting church,
bringing us up to 58% total support!
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| Heavenbound
Baptist Church in Savannah, Georgia. |
Street
sign for HBC. |
A
street sign, welcoming us to Savannah, Georgia (as we exit). |
The
kid as we travel along on our way to Texas! |
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| The
first thing to greet us in our new home - giant dead cockroaches. |
More
of our little friends. |
We
were missing 28 lights in the house....those took a while to install! |
Pumping
up air mattresses. As of today (not the date of the photo) we've
been here for 5 nights and are still sleeping on these mattresses. |
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| Home's
a bit unorganized at this point, as we move in on the first day. |
Appliances
begin to arrive. We went shopping after we arrived on Monday and had
these delivered the next morning. |
Dad's
here with the trailer! We put him right to work installing the new
refrigerator. |
Addie
walks by our "pile of beds". We're limited to 3 rooms of
the house due to carpet removal and pending tile installation. |
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| Richard
(our nephew) cuts out and removes the old carpet. |
Braden
removes tack strips from the old carpet. |
Melissa
is busy scrubbing the house from top to bottom. |
Addie's
helping clean also! |
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| August
is supervising. |
Our
back yard. It's gotten a little overgrown. |
Our
side yard, with the orchard, is also overgrown. The fence (barely
visible in the background) is 5' tall. |
All
the old carpet and padding. |
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| Our
front yard is not so "out of control", but still needs to be
mowed. |
Even
our brick breezeway is overgrown. |
Our
poor overburdened bus waits for a tow to the shop. |
This
is how close he made it....the mailbox is ours and is directly in front of
our house. |
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| A
not-so-proud demonstration of broken parts. |
The
8' cactus lying on the ground was the only real casualty on our property
as a result of Hurricane Dolly. |
Another
view of our back yard. |
This
is our neighbors coop and fence....where it should be. |
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| This
is part of our neighbors fence as it is now, having been thrown through
our fence by Hurricane Dolly. Fortunately, we were planning to
remove this fencing anyways. |
After
22 hours of travel and then 10 hours of work, Braden's ready for
sleep....even without covers. |
August
doesn't even care about a bed, as he falls asleep on the dining room
chairs! |
On
the third day our dumpster arrives, giving us a place to dump all of the
construction debris. |
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| We
had a crew of 3 Hispanic men who installed all of the tile (just over 800
13" x 13" tiles). They did a terrific job! |
A
closer view of the tile, as they are laying it. |
Even
as they are in the process of laying the tile we are continuing to finish
up the prep work in adjoining rooms. |
Our
front entrance room as it awaits new tile. |
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| Our
front yard looks a little better as I have a chance to begin cutting the
grass. |
And
the back yard looks tremendously better. |
These
are just a few of the plants we're finding as we begin to cut the grass
back. |
Another
plant. |
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| And
another..... |
And
another..... |
And
another..... |
And
another..... |
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| The
second tow truck arrives to tow the bus. The first one was a
rollback which was too small. |
And
the bus prepares to depart. |
And
more plants.... |
Our
side yard begins to be mowed now as well. |
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| Progress
is slow with a 21" push lawn mower. |
One
of the lime trees on our property. |
And
one of our orange trees. |
Tile
work is all done! This is our new entrance room. |
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| Addies
room. |
Braden
and Augusts room. |
Our
master bedroom. |
One
of the closets. |
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| Time
for some more furniture. We've got one futon assembled and this will
be the second. It's nice to finally have a place to sit! |
The
carpet's now been removed from the casita, and we find that it has old
laminate tiles below that. This will be left temporarily, which we
take care of other problems with the structures. |
The
back room of the casita. |
A
better view of this concrete "patch" in the floor of the casita. |
