The weather driving out was VERY windy and at times, pretty rainy. This made the drive somewhat challenging. We arrived in Minot at a whopping 10:00pm. The facility we are staying at is a compound called Hope Village. Hope Village is made up of several trailers and is located at a Lutheran church in Minot. They are just barely up and running. There are porta-potties to use if the church is locked. And it was snowing. - but also very muddy where the semi's that moved the trailers in tore up the ground. There was a lot of confusion about which trailers we were supposed to use, and etc. The people organizing it are very nice, but they were dealt a pretty messy hand.
The last time I was out here, I heard that there is a rule that in a disaster response, agencies cannot duplicate efforts. The best I can tell, the Presbyterians are in charge of housing and hospitality for volunteers. The Lutherans are in charge of work assignments. The Methodists are in charge of case management. That's the best I've been able to figure out so far.
The work assignment department wasn't all that well oiled, either. This isn't a criticism. It's an observation. They have a new volunteer coordinator. And new systems in place with Hope Village, and more people than have been here in a long time. But the whole thing did cause confusion with getting tools, work assignments, clarification about the work, and then more tools once we got to the site and discovered we needed something else.
Bob had a good point. He said that if they (work coordinators) could tell us what the projects would be that we would be working on, then we could bring the right tools, and we could avoid all that confusion. The problems with that, though, are that 1.)- I didn't now for sure who was coming from our team until we got on the bus. (I let people sign up until the bus pulls out of the parking lot, and even then, it's a loose boundary.) and if I don't know who's coming, I can't tell them what we are capable of, and then they don't know what to assign. 2.)- It takes away flexibility on the part of the work coordinators. In this kind of setting, things happen and stuff comes up. 3.)- Some people fly here or have other transportation limitations and can't bring the tools they need. BUT- Bob's idea, I think, is still worth kicking around.
The work assignments look like this: Bob's team is putting down a sub floor. He has Rod Sc., Rod St., Barb A, and Leanne C. Howard's team is replacing siding on a house. He has Lewis W., Louie L., Hub S., and Jon M. with him. Annie stayed back and worked on sack lunches for the teams, and other meals. Dave's team is putting in drywall in a basement. Working with him are, Ron C., Jeff S., and Matt. S. Everyone reported getting a lot done once the tool situation cleared itself up. Bob's team and Howard's team both met their homeowners, who are very willing to be involved in their own reconstruction.
We ended up with 15 people on the team. Eight from the Twin Cities (including Bob from Indianapolis) and seven from the Pipestone, MN area. Everyone is working well together and seems to get along well.
I have a few pictures from our commissioning (Pastor Deb and Pastor Mike from Crossroads Church prayed over the people that were at Crossroads. They also gave us each a pair of gloves and read a very cool devotional from a book I "borrowed" from Pastor Deb until further notice.) and from Bob's team's worksite. I have them posted on www.picasaweb.com/rodscofield/minot2 . I'll add to those each night.
Prayer requests: I THINK we're ok on our finances, but it's going to be tight. Praise God for providing! health and safety of our entire team. An ability to reflect Jesus' love to the homeowners we're working for.
Ok- that's it for now.
If you want to be removed from this email list, let me know and I'll take you off.
Peace!
R
True faith is never found alone; it is accompanied by expectation. --C.S. Lewis.
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