Red Lake, MN – May 5-11, 2024

Long-term volunteers this week were Dottie and Tim Weber from Pennsylvania as head and assistant cook; David King from Virginia as construction supervisor; John Stutzman from Montana as crew leader; Don and Rachel Horst from Kansas as project director and office manager.   The rest of our team included eleven Goshen College students and their two leaders, Luke Kreider and Dale Klassen, bringing the total volunteers this week to 19.

The week began with half the team working on the Brown house, removing the old siding, painting and installing new siding and windows.  The other half of our team worked on the Graves house, removing, and replacing the bottom 2 rows of siding, painting and installing windows.  By the end of the week, work at Grave’s house was completed.

The students had the opportunity to take in some cultural things latter part of last week including visiting the tribal council, the Nation’s radio station and meeting with Floyd “Buck” Jourdain, who teaches at the Red Lake Nation College.  Several sightings of bears occurred, including a mamma bear and her two cubs that crossed the road on one trip to the job site.  Evenings were laced with games and dashing off to take in the splendor of the sun setting over Red Lake as well as the magnificent display of Northern Lights.  A team of concrete workers began the task of making the opening for the new door to be installed in our dining area.  The inconvenience of this work in progress will be well worth it when it’s all finished!

Next week repairs will continue at the Brown’s house as well as replacement of the siding on the Kingbird house.

 We continue to learn more about the Ojibwe nation.   A big thank you to all the volunteers who are bringing hope to the families living in damaged houses.

Rachel Horst for the Red Lake team.