Painting & Pulling Nails.

God knew we needed some fresh air for our lungs, so He provided that barn for us to paint today. The homeowners, John & DebLyn quickly became like family. Their neighbor Joe came over & helped with the project and Sonny & Larry left for about 2 hrs to unload a truck of food into a storage garage, but they returned just in time to sit down to a fantastic lunch that DebLyn made for all 7 of us.

About 2:00, Sonny & I went to Homeowner Steve's house (blue). We pulled nails out of the studs in the walls, ceiling & floor for almost 3 hrs . We only managed to do one room in that amount of time, but Steve was grateful to have whatever help we could give him. He hurt his back & couldn't work on his house like he wanted to. He was living in a small trailer beside his house for now.

Two of Steve's neighbors across the street had their foundation walls cave into the basements.

Here is a photo of one of them.

Ending our Day.

Joe, the next door neighbor that helped work on the barn, invited us to his house for dinner. He made us his special Iowa Pork Chops that are 1-1/2" thick & very tasty. His wife Mary Ann served us her homegrown raspberries w/ice cream & fudge sauce. We were overwhelmed by the great hospitality today...1st lunch then dinner, wow can't wait till tomorow.





When we got back to St. Paul's around 8pm, Larry & I replaced a bathroom faucet

Tomorrow we pack up after 1/2 a day's work...maybe, and head back to South Bend to get a good night's sleep for our long day home on Saturday.

What A Day !

Today we helped 3 homeowners, all in the Cedar Falls area. The 1st stop was a large basement that needed power washed & Cloroxed. See the photo of our homeowner Mary & some pics of us working. Larry & Charlotte started out by bagging up a mountain of clothing that the Mary was washing to be sold at a rummage sale.

We all were experiencing bad reactions to the gas fumes from the power washer today. Headaches, lightheaded, dizzy and even shaky. I thought we may even have to call it a day by lunchtime, but from the next photo you can see that despit our symptoms, we were all still able to enjoy some Mexican food for lunch. Check out Sonny's plate, then check out all 500 or so of the Marionettes (puppets) hanging from the ceiling.Next we did some odd jobs at Arlene's home. Here is her photo. The Lord knew we needed an easy job away from those fumes. Arlene had her basement under water & a few inches in her 1st floor. Another team from World Hope came to her rescue along with her family. Some paint, carpet & touch ups & she will be ready to move back in. From there we power washed a small barn that had a foot of water in the loft area. We will be there again tomorrow painting and repairing the sofit. We may also help unload a truck of food & other supplies at a local church.

Power Washing & Clorox

Today we finished up at Pat's house. She once again had lunch ready for us....we actually traded her our PB & Jelly for burgers & Pizza, what a deal. She said when she eats them, she would think of us.















I decided to go to Cedar Rapids to show the team the homes we mucked out when we were there in July. We went in the 2 homes of Mary's & nothing has been touched since. We drove up & down the streets to view the devastation. Here are a few pics.





























See those dirty stripes on the side of the home in the first picture, that is how high the water was.

From there we came back to Waterloo to power wash & Clorox Ida's home. Ida's husband is in a wheelchair & she is unable to go down the stairs due to bad knees. Her son already had the majority of the stuff out of the basement. They got about 4 foot of water in the basement.

Ida is bashful & didn't want her photo taken.

We are glad to have jobs here in Waterloo for the next few days. Less travel means we get to work longer, Yeah!

Larry & Sonny got to much gasoline fumes today so maybe Charlotte & I will do the Powerwashing tomorrow.



















Charlotte has been a real trooper, and does she ever know how to handle a shop vac.















Tomorrow we will give you some more info on what we get done. The guys are going to join a men's meeting here at St. Paul's, the women's group will also cook them all dinner. I guess I better get my apron ready.

Our first chance to bolg;

Saturday Night we arrived 9 pm at Broadway Christian Parish in South Bend Indiana. Pastor Nancy gave us a warm welcome. Here is Nancy (2nd from the left) and our team.


We had heavy rains for our 5 hour drive, which turned into 8 hours because the interstate was closed due to flooding. We finally got to St. Paul's in Waterloo, Iowa about 10:30 pm.

1at day of work was in Belle Plaine, Iowa an hour South of Waterloo. We mucked out a basement for Pat & Dick. They are both in their 80's and live so far out that we could see for miles & didn't see not even one other home. Here is a picture of Pat in her basement. She was so greatful that we came to help her.
It is a BIG basement, there are 4 rooms down there. Man was that floor slippery with the mud & water. It was funny to watch each other skate acrosss the floor but it was also very dangerous.
This is the back of Pat's house & that door leads down to the basement. Notice how high the water mark is on the door. There was 7-8 feet of water in her home.

That phone I'm using in that little dog box really works in case you wondered.

Here are a few pics from our day. We will finish up at Pat's by lunch time tomorrow & head back to a job that is waiting for us in Waterloo. Speak of lunch, Pat made us a great lunch today, Goulash.

Check out the video I've attached. It is some live footage of Sonny & Charlotte in the basement.

Charlotte, where did you get that lovely jumpsuit?

Stay tunned for tomorrows blog.

Leaving York

Three our of four team members got an early start today out of York. Chris, Larry and Charlotte met at Servants' office and hit the road to Iowa. along the way they were picking up Sonny to make four total. They were heading to South Bend to spend the night and plan to arrive in Iowa on Sunday.

TRIP #2 - SEPTEMBER 13-20, 2008

We are preparing for our 2nd trip to Waterloo, Iowa on September 13, 2008. Stay tuned for more posts!

TRIP #1 - JULY 19-25, 2008

Central Iowa is battling unprecedented flooding this spring caused by large winter snowfalls followed by record-breaking spring rains. Pastor Sheryl Campbell of St. Paul's United Methodist Church in Waterloo, is located in one of the hardest hit areas in Iowa. Waterloo is a community of 67,000 and is at the heart of the massive floods.

Our first Servants team leaves for Waterloo on Saturday, July 19th at 5:00 am. We have three eager team members that are ready to help in the beginning stages of flood recovery and demolition. Please pray for Chris, Gary and Dave as they journey to Iowa to serve.

Countdown 2 Days

Chris and Gary started gathering the tools, coolers, first aid kits, sun screen and other supplies on Thursday. Saturday morning will be here before you know it!!

The team arrived safely after driving straight through 15 hours on Saturday. They were able to attend worship on Sunday and listened to a great music group playing southern gospel music. The team will post pictures soon.

ONE LONG DRIVE approx 930 miles

Wow! It was one long drive. We finally arrive in Waterloo, Iowa at 11:30PM. Pastor Sheryl said she would meet us at the church & get us settled. We set us camp in a storage room & a little kids classroom. There was another team already asleep (several teens & 3 adults).

A Super Sunday

Sunday started at 5:30 for some of us. Gary forgot about the time change & was up an hour early.

There was a Gospel Quartet at the church today & also the "Christian Motorcycle Association".

It was a great way to start off our week here in Iowa.

The whole church stayed for desserts & fellowship afterward then Pastor Sheryl introduced us to Pam. We will never forget Pam. We worked in her Garage for 7 Hard hours sorting & organizing the entire garage. There were thousands of pounds of clothing and other item to be distributed to the flood victims and it all need organized. WHAT A JOB!

Day 2 - And The Drywall (or shall we say"Wetwall") Came Down!

Today we met James Bond from World Hope. He sent the three of us and two local gals, Mary & Jana (from the host church) to work at "Operation Threshold".
They are a nonprofit community action agency who service thousands of clients in the surrounding areas with help for housing, WIC, family planning & energy assistance. This agency literally lost ALL their records in the flood. Nothing was salvageable.

The 5 of us spent 8 hours using sledge hammers, crowbars, our hands & our sweat, to tear out drywall, drop ceiling, insulation, office furniture and glued carpet.

Check out the before (above) & after (below) pictures.

This is our debris pile. We pitched everything we could out the windows.

Do you like our Monkey Suits? I (Chris) am the Chief Ape so I didn't have to wear one, but tomorrow we will be "mucking" out a house in Cedar Rapids and you can be sure even I will be wearing one. I saw a team come back tonight from that area and their suits were brown & their jeans underneath were wet up to their knees from mucking & then washing down walls & floors. Bet you can't wait to see our photos of tomorrows work.

Day 3 - Cedar Rapids "MUCK OUT".

We phoned Mary, the homeowner, to meet us at her home and give us some instructions on what she needs us to do. A crew from New York, 3 guys & 1 gal, met us there to help with mucking out. They are working with World Hope also.

Little did we know that Mary was at work when we called her, but she came to meet us and spent the entire day working along with us. Here's a picture of Mary chatting with Gary. Notice Gary's monkey suit around his ankles.


We had nominated our team member, Dave, and one of the guys from New York, James, as the ones to go to the basement. The door to this basement was an opening in the floor covered by a board with hinges. This is me standing on the stairs to the basement. They got me in the monkey suit and I was very grateful to have one for this job. If you look close, I have totes on too.


There was no electric, water, or a way to get light into this muddy, dark, storage filled space under the house. God Bless these brave souls for spending several hours grabbing soggy, muddy items they couldn't even see and handing them up to us to put out to the curb. Then to go back down there after that armed with shovels and 5 gallon buckets to shovel the mud up off the tile floor & hand those buckets up to us. We coined them as the "Muck Brothers". When that part of the mucking was over I gave them both a 5 min break. Now you know why Dave looked so relieved on his break as I snapped this photo.

Mary owned the house 2 doors away and part of our crew spent the day there tearing off drywall & lathe, ripping out cabinets, and clean out work. Mary's mother died last year & she needed to take care of that house as well. Mary lost everything in this flood. Here is a picture of a room inside her neighbors home to give you all an idea of what approx. 3,500 homeowners had to deal with after the flood.

At the end of the day it is amazing to look at the pile of debris that we removed from the home ... in this case 2 homes. Those big black blobs in the lower left of the photo below are some of the piles of mud that came out of the basement. I lost count after 32 buckets.

Stay tuned for tomorrows......"POWER WASHING". Same property, clean monkey suit.

Today was our last day in Cedar Rapids at Mary's house.

We finished power washing the 1st floor & the majority of the basement. I started doing the Clorox spray to kill the mold after the power wash. Not enough hours in our day.They will have to go back & finish it without us. Gary, where is your face mask?

Watching everyone work & taking pictures wore me out, so I took a break and sat down on the curb to eat a few chips.

On my trip down the block to the port-a-potty, I saw the "Big Claw" truck heading our way to pick up our pile of debris. This is them removing our pile.

Below is Mary's home without the pile.

That is Gary in the window on the right, using a squeegee on the floors.

Look at these 2 guys munching again.

Speak of eating, St. Paul's had a chicken dinner for us tonight. We we arrived, the local TV station had a reporters interview us ... before we ate or showered.

Tomorrow we will go back to Operation Threshold & tear out drywall. We may have a team of youth from "Group Work Camps" to join us.

Oh by the way, Mary's mothers house has all the drywall out now and they started tearing out the buckled hardwood floors. Still lots of work to do there.

Wanted to put our last day of "work in IOWA" photos on the blog, but we didn't have access to the Internet until now, so here it is.
Thursday morn we worked again at Operation Threshold. At around 10:00am a group of 25 youth arrived to help out & wow what a help they were.

They were part of a program called "Group Workcamps Foundation". This organization plans Summer work camps for teens, usually a week long. They have programs to choose from all across the USA. There were approx. 400 youth doing home repair type projects in the Waterloo area for the week. We were glad to have them work with us for the day.
This picture is of Tom & I. Tom is the coordinator of "From The Heart" ministry/organization which host the Group Workcamps.

Before we departed, we left our "we were here mark" on one of the walls. I'm pretty sure that this wall was torn down before those teens were finished for the day. They were amazing!


We were headed back to the church to shower and pack our bags for our 2 day journey home.