Day 7 - May 1, 2009 - Cedar Rapids

Dave led devotions this morning

Today Dave's crew returned once again to Della's house to finish their drywall project. In the afternoon they received a demolition project from the Flood Recovery Office. Dick's crew returned to Heather's where they had worked on Monday. Mary, Glenn, Kate and Callie painted much of the basement in the house. Bob and Dick worked on trimming doors and windows and doing other carpentry work. Pat prepared salmon and chicken Parmesan for dinner. Following dinner the team assembled in the sanctuary of Living Water Church for a church service. Mary prepared a short service and the Rev. Marty Schuhmacher, pastor of Living Water Church, served communion. Mary and Norma had prepared an awards program which followed the church service. Each team member was given a certificate of appreciation and a memento of the trip. Teams members then shared their thoughts about the trip. Everyone agreed that this was a wonderful trip. We had the opportunity to share our faith through our work and have an enjoyable time.

Day 6 - April 30, 2009 - Cedar Rapids

Today Dave and crew returned to Della's and continued their drywall project. Dick's crew started the morning at the Flood Recovery Office where they met Americorp volunteer Mike and then got their assignments for the day. The area in which we were working was near the river and was very hard hit by the flood. Many houses were vacant with only a few under repair. Part of the crew went to one house and started taping and mudding the walls and ceilings and spent the day there. There were some volunteers from Minnesota already working. The rest of the crew went to a house a few blocks away and also did drywall finishing. After lunch those people then went to another location and did demolition. They worked at "The White Elephant", the oldest building in Cedar Rapids. Dave's crew join the rest of us for lunch. They stayed and worked with the crew on the drywall project.

Day 5 - April 29, 2009 - Cedar Rapids

This afternoon we worked in one of the neighborhoods closer to the river that sustained major damaged. We carried debris that had been removed from a church and piled on the street to a dumpster. The church building is to become a community center although as you can see from the photos not many of the homes are occupied.

Day 4 - April 28, 2009 - Cedar Rapids

Norma led devotions this morning.

Dave’s crew returned to Della’s and continued to work on the drywall “mudding” and sanding.

Dick’s crew moved on to Frank’s and did a variety of jobs. Frank works at a community college and his wife is a special ed teacher. Their adult son left his job in Phoenix after the flood to return home and help his parents refurbish the house. The house has been in Frank’s family for three generations and is near the Czech neighborhood. Al, Kate and Mary worked at cleaning and arranging “Grandma’s” room in the morning. Grandma was very pleased with her room when everyone finished. Rick, Bob, and Dick did trim work, Glenn and Al did electrical work, Glenn organized the basement and Al painted a basement room. In the afternoon Mary and Kate cleaned the upstairs bedrooms after the guys had finished. Al worked on the workshop in the basement.

Dinner this evening was Beef Stroganoff and peas with Angle Food Cake with Pineapple and Cool Whip Filling.

After dinner most of the people went to see the Soloist at a local theater. Quite an emotional movie about a homeless musician. It was sad but very revealing about who and why people are homeless.

Day 3 - April 27, 2009 - Cedar Rapids

Everyone rose early this morning; we are still on Pittsburgh time. Callie led devotions – a discussion about love - and then we ate breakfast. While we ate breakfast, Pat made sandwiches for us to take to the work sites for lunch. Since we had gotten up early and could not arrive at the worksites until about 8:30 we had time to sit and talk about our trip to Cedar Rapids and other work camps on which we had been.

Dick’s crew consisted of Mary, Glenn, Kate, Bob, Al, and Rick S. The family at this house has not returned to their home yet. The father has lost his job and was taken to the cleaners by the person reconstructing the house. The wife is a dental hygienist. They have a 19-year-old daughter. The crew worked on the house that had been moved from its former location along Indian Creek to higher ground after the flood. They installed baseboard trim and primed several rooms in the basement. Two other volunteer teams were at the house from Iowa so there were about 22 people working at this location.

Dave’s crew consisted of Callie, Norma, Rick B., Sandy and Ron. They worked at Della’s “mudding” (applying drywall compound) to some rooms and sanding compound that had been applied by an earlier team.

Pat cooked us a great dinner. We had Chicken Piccata with broccoli and Marble Peanut Butter Delight for dessert. Whit, eat your heart out!

Day 2 - April 26, 2009 - Champaign, IL to Marion, IA

Several of the VIM went to town for breakfast and three of the fire trucks from Champaign were parked on the street around the diner with the crew inside eating. Sunday morning we all attended the 9:00 AM service at our host church. The main part of the service was a special music program provided by the church’s choir, strings, and orchestra. Following the service and a short coffee “hour” we got back on the road. The weather today included some rain as we got near Iowa. Driving into Cedar Rapids we could see damage that remains from the floods of June 2008. We arrived at Living Water UMC in Marion around 5 PM.

Deb Frank, our host from Living Water, met us. She was very gracious, introducing us to our “home” for the next five days. She and her husband had just returned from visiting relatives in Pittsburgh. It seems everywhere we go we met former Pittsburghers. Living Water UMC in Marion is now in its third location as it has grown to 180 members and 60 other regular attenders. They own the strip mall in which they are located. They are in the process of gathering funds to resurface the parking lot (sound familiar?). Our sleeping accommodations are good. There is a well-equipped kitchen for Pat, and a 6-person shower trailer parked outside the building. The NOMADS Mission Volunteers are also here. Shortly after we arrived we all heard a very loud and long lasting siren. OOPS. Our first tornado alert and what do we do? We were told a tornado has been spotted within 20 miles. We later learned that one had touched down about 10 miles from Marion.
We next met with the Rev. Melisa Bracht-Wagner, associate pastor of the First UMC in Marion, and the disaster coordinator for the UM conference in this area. She welcomed us to Iowa and then gave us our assignments for Monday. Our cook Pat served us lasagna and meatballs that she had made at home, froze and brought with us to Marion.
The rest of the evening some people read, talked or played scrabble. Dave and Dick went over the job assignments for Monday and divided us into two teams for the two job sites.

Day 1 - April 25, 2009 - Allison Park to Champaign, IL

Fourteen volunteers assembled in the parking lot at St. Paul’s UMC at 7:30 this morning to begin their adventure in Cedar Rapids. By 7:50 everything had been loaded into the trailer and the two vans, Rev. Hoellein had prayed for our group and Faith Geer had taken our official picture. The convoy of two vans and a truck and trailer left the parking lot to make their way to Cedar Rapids. Our drive to Champaign, IL, our overnight stop, went smoothly, except for our lunch stop. We stopped at a Wendy’s in OH. The wind was blowing very hard and when Callie open the door of the truck the wind blew the door back onto her injuring her little toe. By the time we arrived in Champaign she was feeling better.

We arrived at the First UMC in Champaign (membership 700) around 5 PM and were met by the lead pastor, Dr. Terry Hartner. He showed us around the church and then took us on a walking tour of the downtown neighborhood, pointing out several places where we could eat dinner. After unloading our overnight luggage we all went to Farrens Pub dinner. This place came highly recommended by Terry. The owner of the pub was originally from McCandless Township. We all had a good time talking to him. After dinner we all walked around the neighborhood for a while. After returning to the church several of the team members were able to watch the video of the Penguins win over the Flyers. Others played a Boulderdash in the youth lounge, read or just relaxed.