Houston update-

We have gotten a lot done on the house:

• Installed wooding flooring in living room, dining room, family room and hallways 
• Installed tile flooring in the master bath, kitchen, pantry, hallway, and utility room
• Painted and installed baseboard in 90% of the house
• Installed and painted all but four doors in the house 
• repaired drywall in several rooms and the garage- mud and sand also
• painted eight rooms in the house- touched up some paint in some of those rooms
• cleaned windows and screens
• installed window sills
• Installed drywall and tile for a shower enclosure
• General clean up.  

That's a lot.  This team has been a go getting team.  No really.  This list can be read through pretty quickly, but please don't underestimate the enormity of this list.  

Thank you for your prayers for us.  I will tell you they availed much.  The people who were sick are better (mostly) and we have a good level of team cohesion.  

Wednesday night we went out on a field trip together after dinner.  We went to a mall that supposedly had a shop with some good Texas tourism stuff.  We were disappointed.  And then we went to a place called "Proud Pies" and we were not disappointed there.  We met a new friend named, Chelsea who took our group picture for us.  (Hi Chelsea!)

On Friday we got to meet our homeowner.  He is a nice guy who lives with his son and their dog, Ginger.  They have been living with their home "in process" since November.  We really pushed the production for this family. 

of the site leaders from the agency we worked with bought us a "King Cake."  It's a cake they use to celebrate Mardi Gras.  In the truest form, there is a small plastic baby in the cake and whoever finds it has to buy the cake next year.  Sounds kinda weird to me, but it was kind of tasty.  I did not have the baby in my bite. 

Also on Friday, after working a half day, we took Gary to the airport (the right one this time!) and then the team went to a Houston landmark called The Water Wall.  It is a tall structure with water cascading down it.  It was really kind of neat.  And impressive.  Then the team wanted to check out a thrift store.  They actually bought me (Rod) a pair of duck pajamas.  See more of the pictures on our SmugMug or Facebook page. 

After that, we went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant.  We usually go out to eat as a team on the last night.  We figured in Texas, we should either get bar b q or TexMex.  Glad we went to TexMex. 

I can't say enough about how much work we got done this week.  It was a great team in that regard.   I'll post more about some of the things we observed and learned this week in a couple days.  In the mean time, we are heading out on Saturday morning.  We have to drop Jen off at the airport (we'll drop her at the right one-  not the one Gary was at.)  and then head up to Joplin where we'll spend the night.  We hope to get into St. Paul in time to see the SuperBowl. 

Please pray for our team as we head home that we have safe travel, make good time, and have good conversations. 

Talk to you again soon!
R

What's BTT doing?
So surprise surprise!  BTT is in Houston this week, working with Harvey Housing Recovery.  The team is 12 strong including some of the usual suspects, Howard, Jon and Debbie, Ron, Erin, The Colonel, Me (Rod Sc.), and Doreen, but we also have Troll with us from Atlanta, Jennifer from Hale, Gary from Kentucky, and a brand new member of our team, Maria from Marquette. 

When did that happen?
We started down on Saturday morning and drove to Tulsa where we spent the night in an awesome church with a LOT of couches for us to sleep on.  Then on Sunday, we headed down to Houston, but we had to make a stop in Dallas-

What happened in Dallas?
You see, we were planning on going grocery shopping for the food for our meals once we got to Houston, after getting settled in and dinner going and everything, but we learned that Sam's Club (where Debbie was going to get our groceries) would be closed after 6, and we weren't sure we'd make it by then.-  So we decided to stop in Dallas on the way down and go shopping there.  That stop was supposed to take about a half hour but when Sam's Club shopping went longer, and part of the team sat down for lunch instead of getting it to go, the stop ended up setting us back about two hours.  Everything just took a little longer than we thought.  We got in to Houston around 7:00pm on Sunday night.   Made for a good story anyway.  Rod may or may not have done a U turn over a curb and onto some grass pulling the trailer to avoid going back out on the express way at one point. 

Where are you staying?
The church we are staying at is a HUGE United Methodist Church.  The campus has several buildings.  The one we are staying in used to be a mansion, and in fact, they call it "The Mansion."  They have converted a big space to housing volunteers and put in a bunch of bunks in.  They seem very happy to have us here. 

What was the disaster you are responding to?  
The area we are serving in is just West of Houston.  A community called, Katy.  There are two reservoirs nearby and as Hurricane Harvey kept dumping water in the area, one was filling to almost overflowing.  Overflowing would have destroyed the levies that contained the water on three sides, flooding areas around the reservoir.  Instead, they decided to open the relief valves and flood the area around the area where the water would run to anyway.  That included 740 homes in the part of town we are working in. 

What is the project you are working on?
The agency we are working for has us all working in one house.  The house had a couple feet of water in it.  They have been working slowly on this house since November.  The work that needs to be done is mostly finish work, like flooring, paint, installing doors, installing trim and a other wrap up things.  Today is the 2nd day we have worked and we have so far done some painting, some touch up to drywall, installed some doors, painted trim, started putting down wooden flooring and tile flooring.  Everyone has kept busy and we are getting a lot done.  There are a lot of doors left to install and a big chunk of tile floor to put down.  There is some painting to still be done and a lot of baseboard to put down.  Part of the challenge is that you have to do A before you can do B before you can do C.  And A gets bottlenecked which slows down B and C.  But I think the team is working well and getting a lot done. 


How can we partner with BTT?   
We are having health problems.  I took one volunteer to urgent care today and then he came back to work.  We took one volunteer back to the church we were staying at for dizziness and vomiting.  And I picked up some Mylanta for another volunteer.  I would ask for prayer for the team for health. 

Some people believe in spiritual warfare and some people think it's more psychological problem.  I would suggest that no matter which way you believe on that, pray for team unity. 

You can check out our Facebook page.  One thing that FB users are going to get that others are not are access to videos that Maria has been shooting.  If you are on FB and haven't "Liked" Be The Tool, I would encourage you to do so.  It helps get our message out when more people think it's worth paying attention to.  Click here:  Be The Tool Facebook page.  It will open a new window so you can get back here quick.  Besides the videos you can look at our pictures. 

If you're not on Facebook but want to check out our pictures, you can click over to our photo site page:  Click here for our photo site. 

If you want to donate some money to BTT, there are two options:   You can donate to Be The Tool by sending a check or giving online at this link:  Click here to go to the BTT website to donate.  If you're interested in supporting one or more of the volunteers who are on the trip, get a hold of Rod directly and he'll talk about who still needs some funds to pay for the trip.  Email Rod at:  rod@bethetool.org

You can email a note to the team telling us you're with us in thoughts and prayers and will. 

This new format
Let me know if this new format works better for you. 

The "goodnight."
Goodnight and thank you for being here with us. 

Rod