Crisfield, MD – March 19-25, 2023

Two men from Pennsylvania, seven young ladies from Missouri and one teenage lad from New York arrived in Crisfield Sunday evening. Crew leader Maynard Hostetter from Maryland also joined the long-term team since David Norris from New York completed his term as crew leader the previous week.

The new group continued work on the two new builds, #8 and #9. They painted trim, installed trim and baseboard, framed windows and installed door jambs and closet doors at house #8. There was only a little hitch with the closet doors. A volunteer pointed out that one of the doors was being hung upside down! After a restart, the closet door was installed successfully. The homeowner treated the volunteers to a delicious fish dinner one day.

The group made exciting progress on house #9. They put the house partially under roof. They installed roof paper over the entire roof and put on shingles over the back part of the roof. They finished up sheathing, framing and blocking. They put in joists and posts, framed the porch roof, worked on the deck, and put on house wrap, all in a week’s time.

Glen, a volunteer from Virginia, traveled to Crisfield one day this week to take down a tree and part of the stump at house #4. A couple of our weekly volunteers cleaned up the branches and debris.

Many of this week’s volunteers enjoyed being able to walk out to the beach area in the evening. They enjoyed the fish dinner provided by one of the homeowners and thought it was exciting to work on the roof! One of the men commented he enjoyed being able to work hard, and another joked about the mild-mannered crew leader cracking the whip!

Thursday evening, the mayor of Crisfield, Darlene Taylor, spoke to our group. She shared her testimony of how God called her to be the mayor. It was God’s idea, not hers, she notes. Lois Wenger reports on the mayor’s visit: “Her priorities are to provide affordable housing to Crisfield’s citizens and to revitalize Main Street. She expressed much appreciation for the work MDS is doing to help accomplish her goal.”

We said good-bye to our cook, Lois Wenger, who served us delicious meals the past three weeks. We welcomed Barb and Randall Schieck from Pennsylvania who will serve as head cook and crew worker the last week of March.