Day 6

We finally finished! We hadn’t expected that it would take us the whole week, but it did and we experienced a sense of accomplishment. For Fred and Fran, things are far from finished. The next step for them is to have the house inspected. If it passes inspection, it will undergo mold remediation and then the rebuilding process begins. If it doesn’t pass inspection, the house will be completely demolished. For Fred and Fran, and many others like them, there is much uncertainty regarding the decision of the insurance company—there seems to be a large variation in how claims are handled.

Fred and Fran drove down from Baton Rouge and arrived around 1:00 p.m. We gave them each a blue T-shirt that volunteers receive and we signed our names on the back of them. At least two times they thanked us profusely for what we had done for them and began to cry. When we said good-bye to them, there wasn’t a dry eye among us.

The whole experience has been powerful and humbling for all of us. In one way what we did feels like a drop in the bucket. We only worked on one home, and FISH has a backlog of 250-300 houses. And yet that “one drop”—Fred and Fran—is infinitely important in God’s eyes and was greatly appreciated by them.

As a team we are so grateful for God’s provision, not the least of which was incredibly gorgeous weather. Except for the day that we arrived, every day was beautiful and the humidity was low. Had the weather been humid and rainy, it would have made our time here much more difficult. We are thankful for your prayers and your support as well; we know that they made a difference.

We are all looking forward to going home, seeing our families and friends, and sleeping in our own beds. While we will experience a sense of closure, for those down here who have experienced the loss of their house and social lives, there is not a sense of closure at all. We need to keep these people in our prayers, and we ask that you will keep Fred and Fran in your prayers.