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Day 2 was a half day on
Sunday.
We went looking for somebody
who needed help with removing their dry wall. The street signs were blown down
so we had to stop and get directions. That’s a hard thing for a man to
do.
We found the house and
determined that there wasn’t enough work for our crew. This was a
combined crew from the day before. Crazy Joe and his crew went back to
Once we were through with
that house we went to another one next door and tackled that tree. The neighbor
behind that house needed some help so we went over there as well.
Finally, there wasn’t
much to do so, the majority of the group went on looking for other places to
work. Ian and I stayed with Steve and two other guys to continue working on the
dry wall. This was more satisfying work because we could talk with the home
owner more than when we were cutting down trees.
This person was a single mom
with two daughters in college, I believe. She’d been divorced since they
were about 5 years old. She had a terrier that she kept in locked up in a room.
It barked most of the time. It turns out that she has 3 brothers as well. After
the hurricane she discussed what they should do to take care of each other. Her
father and brothers didn’t like her suggestion so, that got
‘attitude’. Her father hadn’t spoken to her since the
hurricane. He showed up when we were there. She said it didn’t go well.
But, I pointed out it was a start.
She was recommended to the
church by a state trooper, I believe. They had a birthday party for her at one
of the local restaurants and sang happy birthday to her… it kinda made up
for her family not being there… but, of course, it was not the same.
As we drove away I was
impressed to stop and say something to her. But, I didn’t. As we drove
down the street that stuck in my head… but, I still didn’t. We went
back to the church and found Rob and Brandon in their ‘beds’ nice
and clean and refreshed.
Rob wanted to go somewhere to
see an area reported on the news as being hit hardest. I drove around for
awhile and actually found it without a map and without asking for directions.
Hah!!! As we were checking out that location I got a voice mail from one of the
guys on the crew. We’d left his tools behind at … guess who’s
house. I took that as a sign. We went back to get them.
Ian wanted to get out of the
car and go with me. I wanted to be alone to talk with her. Things worked out to
where Ian found what we were looking for and went back to the car.
The thing that impressed me
that I had to say to her was simply this… Dr. Vines mentioned something a
while back that just stuck with me because I found it was so true. I told her
that she can continue doing what she’s doing. But, she’s going to
get to the point where she’s going to find that she can’t do
‘it’ anymore. I told her that when she get’s to that point
she needs to get down on her knees and tell God that… and, then let him
start doing things. That seemed to touch her heart. I had to give her an
example… so, I told her about having prostate cancer last year, about having
the surgery, about mother dieing and my grandmother dieing. It’s just
simply… if you try to face things that you can’t really
handle… then, you have to go to God. That was it.