Bumper cars

Hi everyone,

I have not written due to busyness and not being sure of what our plan was.

We have spent the last 2 weeks building Kathleen's house. It is a simple 3 room house 768 square feet. We started hanging drywall on the 13th, and the home is mostly complete. The boys have been awesome. Samuel and Andrew installed 360 square feet of laminate floor mostly by themselves this week. Each boy contributed to the progress of this project.
Kathleen is a handicapped lady and this home will be a huge blessing to her.

We have been "discovered" by several non-profit groups this month. Many agencies have monies available for recovery efforts, but dollars do not help people, materials and laborers do.
They especially are willing to help handicapped and elderly people. We have been basically begged to help in some situations.

As we are completing Kathleen's house, a Salvation army director named Carol has hooked us up with another handicapped lady named Joan. She lives in Bay St. Louis right on the Bayou.
She has 4 yacht spaces in her backyard. Her home was flooded into the second floor.
We did not think we would be candidates to work on her home as obtaining permits in flooded areas has been difficult for most. She will be be converting her home to make the upper floor the primary living space. An elevator will be installed. To our amazement, she walked into city hall, paid her fee and walked out with her permit. We have accepted the project as turning her down would not be right. She has had others make promises and break them. We realize this delays our return and for those who this affect, we are very sorry :-( We will not be accepting any more work here and anxiously are looking forward to returning to our "normal" lives.

We are especially excited about the wonderful progress with our new church North Ridge of Colby. Pastor Gayland has an exciting vision of moving forward and great things are happening. We know that God is going to use this church family to bring many in our community to salvation and discipleship.

On Wed. afternoon, Charlotte tryed playing Bumper Cars for real. Only a couple of blocks from where we are staying, She was looking at new shrubs that were just planted. They are carved into dolphins. She did not see a light change yellow. She braked too late and rear ended a Chevrolet Suburban.

Charlotte had Rosa, Ethan, Andrew, and Samuel. All are fine. All have been checked by a chiropractor. Charlotte and Samuel will receive some adjustments.

Our van, however did not fare as well. It is a 1998 with 144,000 miles it is only worth about $4000.00. The damage will likely be about $3000.00. The Suburban had a trailer hitch and it projected through the bumper, grille, radiator,AC condensor, dual electric fan and tranny cooler.
The hood is unrepairable. We are waiting for our insurance to decide what to do. It will be a close call on repair vs totalling it out.

The need for a rental vehicle was a challenge. Since we have 4 vehicles at home, we do not carry much insurance for a rental vehicle. We are only allowed $20.00 per day. This is only about one half of what would be needed. Our friends Hamp and Susan offered for us to borrow a Chevy conversion van that they do not use often. To my amazement, our adjuster let us rent if from them for the $20.oo per day. They are thrilled to get the rent money.

Charlotte and the boys will be on heavy duty this week at the Katrina Kitchen. They may stay in a cabin there as they need to report to work at 5:30 A.M. We will move the camper to Joan's house as this will allow me to work 11 to 12 hours per day. We are going to try to make this remodel the most amazing fast project we have ever done, we want to make it home. I did manage to learn how to use drywall stilts. It is amazing how the right tools make you more efficient.

Rosa and Ethan have become beach-aholics. We have had them there numerous times lately.
Rosa will have her birthday party upon our return.
We love and miss you all.
Thank you for giving us the grace to do what we need to do.

Brian, Charlotte and the kids.