Columbus Mission to Mandeville, Katrina Relief

Thursday was the culmination of several week of work for the team and for me in particular. Several people developed "special projects" to followup on. For the McGiffin's and their adhock crew it was getting 79 year old Mr. Alexander off his moldering couch and onto a new cot, cleaning up his house to the extent possible and hanging a flag for him from when his brother was in WWII. They were directed his way on Tuesday by some concerned neighbors when they were out delivering water. He had lain on his couch through the storm, floated up with it when his house flooded, and was still laying on it when they knocked on his door Tuesday. He was an old man thinking his time had come, but it didn't. He thought nobody cared about him with his wife gone and kids and grandkids living away, but Mark, Becky, and the crew loved on him Tuesday and Thursday and he'd been in a better humor when they left him. This is the kind of ministry we are doing there.

Aimee Fox from Reynoldsburg CofC and the girls found a new project for next week's crew. It's on the GetRDone Board. A whole neighborhood that was very needy and very bad off.

God has something special planned for the Robinson family we met this week. They've been several people's special project. Some have heard part of the story about the donated minivan, but here's the whole thing, from the source.

Renice and Ray Robinson, and 5 of their 7 kids, Sugar, Jackie, Smokey, Holly, and Magic (didn't meet Sunny or Shakay) fled the storm in their 1981 Olds Cutlas 4 door and were living out of it when they were found by someone from the community at the Mandeville post office. Renice was crying because she didn't know what to do. The woman asked what was wrong and took her to Tammany Oaks for help. Janet Hines talked with her and got them set up in the Red Cross shelter in the community Center in Folsom.

The Denny's from Dayton who were in our team had sent Brad a couple of emails about donating an Astro conversion van they had and he'd sent an email to Janet. She found it when she returned to her desk after talking with Renice. I met the family on Monday when I took clothes to them at the shelter while making my food run and she told me then she was the lady getting the van. It was a real pleasure to meet them after the story I already knew, but the real treat came on Thursday.

We picked up the Robinsons from the shelter and brought them to the church to eat breakfast before taking them home to Algiers. The Denny's pulled in from a short work detail and got to meet them and give them the van. While Ray drove their car home and led us to their house, I got the honor of driving Renice and the kids home in their van (she doesn't drive).

We cleared a tree top from their yard and cleaned it up. We also set up a trampoline that was upside down in the yard. Ray trimmed everything.

My heroes, the ladies with us, cleaned out the kitchen. Brett cleared out the refrigerator and deep freeze and we bleached these out. They can't afford to replace them. After that treatment, there was only very little smell left and it was not the noxious indescribable aroma that others have described. Better yet, nobody barfed in the process ;-) Eugene tarped their roof where the storm had ripped off shingles and let rain in.

You wouldn't believe the change in them coming home. They do not live in a neighborhood most of us would feel comfortable in. The house next door was falling in before the hurricane. But, they were so happy to be home and the kids were so happy to see the few friends that were there. They were telling us stories and taking pictures with my camera. They were home.

Robin took a crew down to Waveland Mississippi to drywall and spackle a house he'd been trying to sync up on all week. The Dayton contingent went back out Friday morning, leaving late to come home, in order to finish roofing a house they had started on Thursday.

Friday morning the rest of us headed out before 10:00. We all commented that it would be hard to leave so much work undone and to work on our normal "work" that was so much less important. Please pray with us for all those we met and helped this week and for the hundreds of thousands we did not who are hurt by this disaster. We're passing the torch to Team 4 till we can return.