Ian Relief Trip: Day 3

We spent our first two days traveling down to Ft. Myers for our mission trip. The trip was uneventful, but we did get to enjoy God’s beautiful creation as the leaves were changing. We also got to stop at a Buc-ee’s. It’s hard to describe, but it is certainly an experience.

The work week started today as we went to one street to help residents. Judy lost nearly everything in her house. We ended up tearing out drywall up 4 feet from the floor. While the water didn’t get that high, the moisture did so it had to come out. Judy’s daughter Jenna and her fiance Paul live up the street. Another group of our team worked there removing flooring, drywall up to 2 feet, and petting their dogs. A third group of our team worked with Gene and Jean. They were still trying to figure out what needed doing, but David Fabian walked with them and came up with a good plan to remove drywall and other belongings that were ruined. It’s hard to see your stuff go.

All three teams have a mix of First Trinity and others from around the country. There are people from New Jersey, North Carolina, Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, and here in Florida. Tomorrow we plan to return to our first round of residents to finish up some work and then start on another set of houses.

The Louisiana crew that arrived today will be providing meals out of St. Michael’s Lutheran here in Fort Myers. They expect to be able to cook 2,000 meals! Comfort dogs are arriving later this week as well as a chaplain from Lutheran Disaster Relief.

Prayer Requests

• Our residents: Judy, Jenna and Paul, Gene and Jean
• Our site leaders from LERT: Kathy and Joel. (It was Joel’s birthday today so we got to sing and have cake!)
• Those still traveling to our location for serving.
• Our new residents that we will begin serving tomorrow hopefully.
• The Zion Staff. Tim, their DCE, has not had a day off since the hurricane hit. He is here helping with stuff late into the evenings and in the early morning.
• The people of Zion. They are cooking breakfast and dinner for us each day. They are also providing lunches for us each night.