Tuesday July 24

Hello and Blessings to all you blog fans!  Let me assure you that God has continued to Bless Us today.  But first a big Shout Out to Reverend Alan Adams, the Executive Presbyter (i.e. EP) who recently celebrated his retirement. Congratulations, your work will be missed by all the congregations you served.   As far as our work here in Texas is concerned, today was pretty similar to yesterday.  A continuing story has to be the extreme heat and humidity, perhaps even for those residents who live there (or here, depending on your point of view.)  One of our team members even suffered a mild bout of heat exhaustion.  She fainted in the early afternoon, and several of us took her to the nearby co-host Refugio (Spanish for refuge) Presbyterian Church to cool off for a bit.  Thank God she recovered quickly once out of the brutal heat.

   The morning started off partly cloudy, and so was cooler to begin than yesterday.  But by 9 AM the sun came out and so did the heavy sweating and frequent water breaks (also known as shade breaks, since we naturally all gathered in what shade we could find.)   Some of the young ladies continued their paint projects, Katie gave herself a lovely arm cross with the paint, and Kyle once again donned the war paint on his cheeks, and the colorful head scarf reminded me of a fancy Native American head dress!  Others of us did more weed whacking (esp. Val and Merri Lee) and yard cleanup, like picking up trash and removing overgrown grass from the driveway. 

   And inside were our friends Carmen, Elvis, and Bob, hard at work on the flooring.  And today Rev. Peter met with Lee Ann, our site supervisor and a frequent visitor, and Dan the construction  coordinator, about our progress.  There he learned the good news, that the house we are working on is the first one to be completed by the Coastal Bend Disaster Recovery Group, and the opening day, Aug 10, is two weeks prior to the anniversary of when Hurricane Harvey first hit Texas.  Now on that day the local and national media will be there to celebrate this momentous occasion, and many corporate sponsors will be looking forward to see how their monies have been spent.  Hence Peter stated that no job is too small or demeaning, since everybody must do their part to make the house-opening a success, in order that we continue to have a revenue stream from donations so that other groups will be able to continue building long after we leave.   No Pressure There!  After all the Good Lord is on our side.

   Rev. Peter also learned that a 2^nd house is ready for us, so some of us will be going there tomorrow to install siding on the exterior.  Our trusted and multi-talented team member Carmen unfortunately won’t be with us tomorrow, as he will be catching an early morning flight back home in order to attend (and officiate) at a wedding.  And Merri Lee will be leaving later tomorrow for other commitments.  Good news is that tomorrow will be just a half day of work, with entertainment possibilities in the afternoon.  More on that tomorrow I’m sure.

   Upon returning to the host church Park, we took our much needed showers, then shared a hearty and popular meal of soft-shelled tacos (those who took too long a shower had to deal with a few less fixings.)  A little later we had a special Mission Team meeting led by Rev. Peter, where we talked about some of the things listed above.  Then (Pastor) Doug led the devotions, about the Bible’s New Testament parable of the “Talents.”  One thing I took away from it was we all have God-given talents, and we should not be afraid to let them shine, even though somebody else may be able to do it better.

   By the way, Happy Birthday tomorrow to my good friend Dena from work, whom it just so happens shares a birthday with me!  I hope you are following our progress.

   God Bless and keep reading!  Clark T.