No more scraping!

Hi Y'all!

It is hard to believe that tomorrow will be our last day of working. Although some jobs seem to take forever to accomplish, at the end of the day you seem to forget.

Today was a beautiful day full of sunshine. I did lots of rounds with the sunscreen and water and some still managed to get a little burnt. A problem we don't mind having (especially hearing about the snow at home ;)

We finally finished the scraping! Cam was the last one going for awhile, taking it for the team, but we were all glad to put those scrapers away. Painting was very rewarding as we could see the progress immediately. Some of the youth actually went back from break time early to get things done!

Yesterday's competition winners were Ryan, Dan, Samantha and Natasha. They got break time with Craig and Eddy, Mrs. Henrietta's grandsons. Ryan and Dan flew a kite with them and the girls coloured some Spider Man art with them. It was neat to see their interactions!

The girls spent the morning painting inside the house. I think that they should advertise this summer as the "Singing Painters". Mrs. Henrietta enjoyed hearing their music.

Last night we spent some time thinking about gratitude and what we are thankful for. This experience has reminded how blessed we are! For large group talk I used a couple videos from Godtube. One of them was http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=170a05f1e3e95de3ea26 about Hurricane Katrina. It brought up some really neat discussion. Unfortunately in searching I wasn`t able to find a specific video on Hurricane Rita, but we know that Katrina was only 4 hours away from where we are, so it hits home. Rita is truly the forgotten storm, except for those still living with tarps on their homes.

I got a chance to meet many people who came by asking how they could get help. One elderly lady down the road told me how she has been living in her home with a hole in the roof since the storm and how she can only stay in one room of her house. It is heartbreaking to hear their stories.

We also had a lady come by and bring us cold water bottles with ice just because she saw what we were doing and wanted to help us like people helped her during the storm. Everyone is amazed when we tell them we`re from Canada. One lady said its nice to know that people from another part of the world care for them.

The most grateful is Mrs. Henrietta! She made us gumbo for lunch to thank us. She made a HUGE pot for everyone to have some. It was delicious.

Tomorrow is our last day. We hope to accomplish all of our goals. Tonight we have dessert at the CRC Disaster Relief headquarters.

Thanks for reading! Julie