A month from today will mark my third anniversary of arriving in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I came initially in June of 2011 with Bart Tucker to see about setting up the Fuller Center Disaster Rebuilders in T-Town. As it happened, Bart had a little too much on his plate at the time. He had recently remarried and was expecting child number two and was also in the process of purchasing a home in Boston with Heather. While we were there, we ran into Brandon Kasteler who was up on the roof of the first house the newly re-booted affiliate of Habitat was building. I knew Brandon from my Biloxi days after Hurricane Katrina. He was working with Bill Stallworth, a local councilman from Biloxi, and they had set up a non-profit organization that was doing the case work for all the families affected by Katrina in Biloxi. Their organization (the name changed a cupla times) would dole out the houses that needed work to the four or five volunteer organizations that were there. Bart and I were there as Habitat of Northern Va. working in Biloxi. We rebuilt about a hundred homes in the two plus years that we were there, with Bart raising all of the funds (approx. $40,000 for each total rehab that we did). I always say that Bart's last name is Tucker but he's a good Talker.
      I tend to be a pretty loyal person with friends and employers (used to be able to include spouses but that's another story) so I held out as long as possible to keep working with Bart, but when it looked like the Fuller Center wasn't going to happen, I joined forces with Habitat again . That was three years and about 45 new homes ago.
      In those three years, this past week is only the second week that we did not have a group of out-of-towners working with us. Great testimony to the giving spirit of the people of this nation. It also was kind of nice to have a break from herding the cats and have an opportunity to work just with our staff.
     Our ever-shrinking staff (Stephen Scott headed out west and Nancy McDaniel started her job with Mercedes last week after working with me since Port Sulphur days) of Brandon, Joey, my son Alex and regular volunteer Ben (from Australia) used the week to finish up the final details on two houses- the Women's Build, which Nancy had successfully led and got dangerously close to finishing in the last 8 weeks, and also the Faith Build, that Ben has been shepherding for around the same time. Those last final details are always the hardest to kill. Its as if there is an almost physical barrier that needs to be broken through to crosss those last little items off the punchlist .
     Brandon and Joey and Alex were all in the Faith Builds bathroom, painting the last doors. The electric is not on in the house yet and they had a halogen lamp in the small space with them. In addition to the 90 degree heat that day, no AC yet in the house, the little lamp is also lke a little space heater. Brandon, when they were done, asked where he thought would be hotter, the bathroom that they were in or the tool container at the women's build. The steel shipping containers that we rent for tool storage at each house we build are usually about 15-20 degrees warmer than the outside. So, Brandon called a meeting in the container. most of the tools had been moved out, so we took our places, lying down on the 2 foot wide plywood storage shelves, and listened to Brandon storys for about fifteen minutes. Some places you have to pay to go to the sauna. Not here. When he was done, he called the next meeting in the commercial ice chest that we have on site for ice. It is the kind that you see at gas stations and convenience stores that holds about 300 bags of ice. The four of us climbed in and chilled for a bit. It was very refreshing. See what happens when there are no volunteers around?
     It was nice having a long weekend off. Did a little day trip on Friday to Mobile and Bayou LaBatre to visit with old friends there. Got back in time to see the fireworks from the Target parking lot. Hope all enjoyed their Independence day weekends.
       If you who are reading this worked with me before on a mission trip, please consider a return visit. Still plenty to do. Bye ya'll. Love ya. Peter