A group of ten young people, six women and four men, arrived from Penn Yan, New York, and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on Sunday evening, November 9, to work on repairing houses. A second group of ten, all men from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania,...
An energetic group of teens from Eastern Mennonite High School in Harrisonburg, VA, along with three sponsors, joined us for the week. One team worked on house wrap, sheathing, foam, set interior walls, finished the deck, and leveled the ground for...
Given that this was the last week for the original four couples, we started out with a lot of determination. Finishing up at Robin’s was our absolute priority. The bathroom needed to be finished, including mudding and painting, installing a...
November’s theme seems to be “new.” Eight new long-term volunteers arrived for the month of November, and 15 two-week volunteers arrived from Arizona, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Iowa, Virginia, and Canada. We are all very grateful for the...
This week, seven weekly volunteers from Montana, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and California joined our three crew leaders to continue framing houses #1 and #2. By the end of the week, trusses were set on house #1, as well as the outside walls on house #2...
Sunday, November 2, we welcomed a group of eighteen men from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Except for one, most of them have served multiple times with Mennonite Disaster Service. Ten of the men worked on the houses, and eight worked on bridges....
Work continued this week at both Robin’s and Buster’s houses. We keep thinking we are nearing the finish line, but complications, conundrums, more questions, and even some drama arise. Buster’s house shifted about two feet during Hurricane...
By Week Three, we are really feeling like a team. We know each other better, and it is easier for Jim, our construction supervisor, to assign jobs. Plumbers, electricians, drywallers, painters — we fell into a rhythm and worked hard together. At...
Week One was discovery, finding out what we had to do. Week Two was moving forward slowly and steadily. By now, while our enthusiasm was not diminished, despite a good dose of reality having set in, we knew, or at least we thought we knew, what...
