I am home!

Well I am home and this semester flew by! It was bitter sweet to leave. I loved being in Mississippi, but missed my family and Daniel! To finish out, we had a week without volunteers so Leah and I worked hard on the church. We then had a week of volunteers, who almost finished roofing the house, but unfortunately ran out of shingles, and they also almost finished siding the Smith house! For my last week in Mississippi, we did a little bit of work, but my Mom came on Wednesday, to help me pack and drive, and then Thursday we went to Ocean Springs, which was just a fun little downtown place. Thursday night we went to a restaurant where they had a fireplace and we got s’mores!! Being in Mississippi was great; I learned so much and grew up some too! Thank you everyone for all your prayer and support!

In His Name

~Sarah

Leah, Matt, Me, Jesse, Annette (The McBrides)

Volunteers on the roof

S'mores!!!!

Sorry it has been so long!

So I haven’t updated in a very long time! Sorry about that! Well what has happened since I did last update? First I went home for a week and got to see everybody, which was great and the break was needed! The week that I came back, Leah and I just worked on the church and some other small projects. It has been cool to be able to be in the field and at a desk as much as I have! The next week we had a group of volunteers from Pennsylvania working on both sites, oh and Leah had gone to Virginia, to work on things for the design build studio, the first of that week so I was running both sites. Thank goodness for Annette! She really helped the first day because I couldn’t be at both sites at once! It was a crazy couple of day, but good and it is good to know that I am prepared for this when it comes my turn to run it all. Then my parents came on Wednesday! We got to build a deck of the back of the Smith’s house. It was so much fun to work with them, so now next summer when they want to build something I can design it and tell them how to build it. Ha ha just kidding mom and dad. But they had to leave and go back to the real world. So the Saturday they left, the McBride’s had a small thank you party for the people who had helped build their house. I made a fruit creation, see picture!

The next week the same volunteers were here, which made it very easy! They got a lot of work done on both houses; it was exciting to see both houses getting worked on! As I had mentioned earlier Leah and I are working on designing a church, Trinity Episcopal Church. This past Sunday, since Leah left me again, I presented our design proposal to the church. I was very surprised to not get nervous! I felt that the presentation went very well, and the church body is just excited to get back in their church after 3 years. Oh and a side note. Jesse, Leah’s brother, got a puppy because he just got a new house. So there is a picture of Sadie here too! Well I think that catches everyone up! I have less than three weeks, but I will be coming back for Spring Break with Daniel, and the BCM!

In His Name,

~Sarah

Volunteers!!!

The deck! It only two and half days!

My fruit creation!

SADIE!!!

Nothing much

I just wanted to to post and say that nothing much happened this week. I did office work since we didn't have any volunteers. Although one cool thing that is going on is that Leah and I are working on a church down here. It has been fun to go to the meetings with the building committee and then put what they want into plans. It is a rehab, so we are using what was left after Katrina. Well I go home on Tuesday for a week to see my family and Daniel. I am super excited, so pray for safe travels.

In His Name
~Sarah

Week at the Spa, Kinda

This was a great week! I spent all week in a bathroom, tiling! I had never tiled before and so it was good to learn and it was a lot of fun. The volunteers this week were great! I have to commend them! Even though they didn’t have a lot of construction experience they got a lot of work done. They got the whole house wrapped, the window put in, the felt on the roof, and started on the shingles! So Leah has a 1989 truck and it seems as though it is on its last leg, well Thursday I took it Lowes to go get some supplies. Well it needed gas, so I stopped to get gas and it wouldn’t start. I called Leah to come help. We decided the battery was dead and tried to jump it with my car. That didn’t work and since it is a standard we realized that if the truck go enough speed then you could just pop the clutch and it would start. These guys tried to help us get it going fast enough. The funny part to the story is that the only problem is that the battery cable was loose. Philip and Jeanine left this week, which is sad! Well that is really all for this week. I go home for a week, next Tuesday and I am super excited to see everyone!

In His Name,

~Sarah

The guys pushing the truck

Yak-a-Du

This Saturday I competed in a duathalon, with Jocelyn another volunteer coordinator down here. It was a 2 mile run, 2 mile kayak, 2 mile run. It was a lot of fun and my official time was 1:06:24. I was very happy with that time! So for the houses this week, we got so much done! All the OSB is on the roof, and the interior walls are all framed in. The volunteers this week were great, because they were all skilled and so I just observed what was being done. Although I did help Philip and Jeanine with the stairs this week! The stairs are just OSB covered and so the first time that we nailed some of them down they were done wrong, the squeaked really badly. So I had to take them up and redo them, but when they were redone they didn’t squeak at all! The other house got painted and whole house got bamboo floors put in!! After the race on Saturday I went to the Hardrock café for dessert. It was so cool seeing all the famous people’s guitars, clothes and stuff! I am well rested and ready for another week to start!

In His Name

~Sarah

Jocelyn and I on the Kayaks before the race, we borrowed

Our Stairs!!!


Interior walls!!!!

Wind and Waves!!

We got a lot done this week despite the hurricane. The group that came in to work on the house was from Maryland and they were a group of 4 guys and so it was great to have them because we needed the sheathing put on the roof. And it is almost all done, they would have finished if Ike didn’t come through. So when Ike came through the waves in the Gulf were huge! Usually the Gulf is really calm, but the waves were big because of the wind, and there was lots of flooding. I was on my way to Leah’s house on Thursday morning and I see a sign that says road closed because of flooding. I think to myself, it is not raining why would there be flooding, so I ignored the sign and lo and behold there really was water on the road. Leah and her family actually spent the night in the house I am staying in on Thursday night because they were worried about there cars more than anything. They did end up with a little water under the house, but nothing bad at all. I have been having a lot of fun actually doing office work, because I now understand how everything works together that I can figure things out and I actually have fun drawing on CAD. Well hopefully there will be no more hurricanes!

In His Name,

~Sarah

Here is a video of the crazy wind and waves from Ike!

Back, for now

I made it back to Mississippi and there was very minimal damage. The house that we had put on 5 trusses on, all of them stayed up! One of the other houses that is complete now, had a small tree fall on it, but it ended up putting a hole in the roof and there was some water damage from that. You can see though that some boats came ashore. Other than the hurricane, it was a nice week. I worked on getting some plans ready for a job and it was just a slow, short week. Oh, I did run into a ditch, because I was losing a load of lumber that I had on the back of Leah’s truck and my goal was to keep the wood out the road so I ended up in a ditch. Saturday we got all the rest of the trusses put up on the Smith’s house, which was really exciting! That was pretty much the whole week, but I ask for prayers again as we brace to see where the next storm, Ike, will hit.

In His Name,

~Sarah

Here are the boats that washed ashore

Me in the ditch with the lumber

Sam and Jesse, Leah's brother, working on the trusses

All of us piled in Leah's truck to go to a Mexican place, it was very fitting

The trusses all done!!