Another Awesome Day

With the sun shining and the temperature in the 60s today was another awesome day! Our house has come sooo far. The Trusses were placed on the roof and about a quarter of them were put up. All the sheathing is put up on the outside, almost all the windows are cut out and we have started blocking the inside. It really looks a house now. Our team has been working so well together and it is all just so exciting.
This morning I got the opportunity to speak with Eugene. He is the brother of the homeowner. I got to briefily speak with him about evacuating and how people treated him. He also told me about how the area had 9 schools and was now down to 2. He also shared with me that most of the kids in the area drop out in the 9th grade and so the parish is going to be building a school just for 9th graders because there are so many 9th graders. I asked him what most of them did afterwards and he said they either go to work or just hang out. Eugene is going to community college to get his general education requirements so that he can then transfer to Loyola and then go to grad school. It was really nice to hear that. He sat in a metal chair watching us most of the day and we ended up eating lunch with him. Eugene also told me about his evacuation during the storm and what it was like to live in Houston for months. He said that the people were so not compassionate and he said that he couldn't get out of there faster.
After lunch, Julius, Eugenes brother came by the house. He is the homeowner. My heart was really touched. He wanted to make sure that we were fed and had more than enough water. He wanted to make sure that he met the team and all he kept saying is thank you. Eugene had told me that there would be four children and Julius and his fiance living in the house. Julius brought the four year old with him today and she was soo cute. There is just something so powerful about the whole experience. I spent a lot of time on the chopsaw today which is always a whole lot of fun and used the saws-all to cut holes for the 2 by 4s in the tresses.
The progress each day provides so much motivation to keep going the next day. While we know that we will not be done with the whole house by the end of the week, we will definitely be that much closer to the end. We have come so far in just 2 days. It is going to be sad to leave on Saturday.
Megan G.