Wednesday Jan 18

During the night, the area experienced thunderstorms. This morning, though, the storms had moved out and the day turned out beautiful with a high of around 60°. Our two teams each started out at their own project homes.

Can you find the 10 hard working members of our team?

Mudding is such exciting work, ask Connie.

The group at the Cuningham house found that the drywall compound they had applied the day below hadn't dried – probably because of the moisture and low temperatures. They sanded what they could and finished some seam taping, they headed over to the Fritz house where they joined our other team for lunch. Then the entire crew worked together at the Fritz house taping and mudding more seems, and sanding, sanding, sanding. This was one long day of work resulting in a lot of sore muscles.

Pastor Bob is experimenting with a new form of
baptism for crew mwmbers who do not follow OSHA rules.

For dessert tonight, we enjoyed the Van Cleave UMC's fantastic bread pudding – something we've been looking forward to since last year. We also got to hear the story of how the Van Cleave and Mt. Pleasant churches (they're a two point charge) got started hosting work teams from around the country. They did this for over two years before UMCOR established a presence here. Now, seven years after they started, approximately 100 of the church's 200 members still volunteer in some way to support the teams that come here to help rebuild the area.