Monday, Monday

I have to agree with Garfield (the comic strip cat) - I'm not much of a Monday person. Monday's here tend to mean lots of new volunteers so there are lots of questions and lot of work, since I tend to not do much maintenance work on Sunday afternoons. Needless to say, by the end of Monday, I am exhausted.

Ruth Ann seemed to have one of those days as well. With rain in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow, everything at the distribution center had to be tarped this afternoon. That takes a lot of time and energy!

The best part of this Monday is that it will be our last one here as part of this trip. Next Monday, we'll be home and back in classes. As the days count down, we have mixed feelings - ready to go home, but knowing that we could stay and help and be able to do some good. One of the volunteers here, Jim, has been here for something like 3 months. He is leaving tomorrow to take 3 weeks off, then he is coming back. He is young and single, which makes this more possible, but it is still pretty amazing that he has been able to be here for so long. The continuity that Jim has brought to the volunteer coordination here is one of the reasons that Christus Victor Lutheran Church has had such success with volunteers. We talked to him in October and he was still here when we arrived in December.

Seems that several of the long term volunteers that we have gotten to know are either taking time off or winding up their stays. Of the dozen or so long term volunteers that we met our first couple of days, over half have gone home or taken extended time off. Only a couple are local and only 3 or 4 will be left by the time we leave. It is kind of like spending your summer working at camp or something where many of the people change each week, but a few core staff people are there all summer and at the end of the summer, you all hate to part company. The big difference here, is that "camp" won't be over when we leave; it will be going on for the next few years, in some form or other.

Seems that this week in particular, we are getting more into construction mode. Several people have had their houses cleaned out and gotten their building permits and either have insurance money or FEMA money to buy materials, so we are providing labor to hang sheet rock or shingle roofs. While we have plenty of tools for tearing things down, we are finding that we could use more construction type tools - especially power tools such as screw guns for drywall and roofing nail guns. If you still would like to help, send a tool or a Lowe's or HomeDepot gift card (see www.christusvictor.com) so these items are available for volunteers to use. I will probably be shopping for an air compressor tomorrow to run the one roofing nail gun that we have. Hopefully, we can come up with the funds to buy a complete second set (nail gun and compressor) so we can have two crews roofing this week. If you are experienced in hanging sheet rock, finishing sheet rock (tape and mud) or in roofing, bring your favorite tools and come help out for a week! There is plenty of work to go around.