One long Fu King week..

Hello readers! We finished two whole weeks of disaster relief.  Last week from Monday-Thursday morning we went back to Mr. Davis's house.  By Thursday morning we had his house completely gutted out.  He was so happy that we got to finish his house for him.  I am really happy because he is such a good guy.  Unfortunately the rain, again, didn't hold out for us and since Mr. Davis is kind of sickly, he didn't like sitting in his tractor in the rain.  Monday and Tuesday we had to end work a little early because of how hard it was raining.  On Tuesday, we worked at his house and he had a few of us outside talking.  At one point he was asking us about the food we like to eat and we got to talking about how he has been in a motel since June.  The room is for his wife, himself, and their 5 big dogs.  They have to go out to eat for every meal and buy dog food for the dogs every week.  I can't imagine how much this all would cost.  With that being said, we told him that we like all food.  He told us about this great fried chicken place in town called Hip Hop and he wanted to show us where it is located so we would know for future reference.  Instead of just seeing the place, he bought each member of our team a lunch.  It was really so nice of him considering what he is going through.  He told us that it was the least he could do to thank us for our hard work.  I gotta say, my body wasn't thanking him too much for the food.  It was great, just grease on grease.  I won't ever deny a free meal though!  Wednesday and Thursday morning we went back to Mr. Davis's house and finished it!  It was an accomplishment for us because it was our first house completely finished.  The reason we had a little delay finishing his home was because we didn't have the proper face masks to go into some of his rooms that had serious mold.  We got the face masks, made sure we were sealed tight, screamed at each other for a few minutes to enjoy the sweet new face gear and then went straight into the house.  We worked really well as a team on this house and got it finished for the Davis family to start to move back to normalcy once their construction begins.  I learned a lot from this house and from Mr. Davis.  He was a great man to work for.



Jamie, Sam and I with our new masks



Thursday afternoon and Friday we went back to Miss Thompson's house.  This was the house that we were at the week before that had quite an effect on me.  Again, it was hard to work in the conditions and to see a woman living in the home she does.  It is still hard for me to comprehend that all of this is going on in our country and for some of us, it was hard to even go back into the house.  Thursday after work was nice to cook together and to sit and talk about how the day had made us all feel.  I won't lie I shed my first disaster tears thinking about this particular home.  We made sure to tell our sponsor how we feel because she cares about us so much and she took care of us by giving each one of us a Happy Seed.  Happy Seeds are a product of a sculptor who didn't want to throw away his scraps of pottery and he made these little seeds that are just plain smiles.  It's the little things in life like Suzanne caring and giving us such simple trinkets to make our day turn around.  Friday we went back to Miss Thompsons home.  We started on replacing her floor for her.  Hopefully by the end of tomorrow we can have a whole new floor put in for her so that eventually when the roofers come her home can start to be more complete.  We all just have to dig deep and get this home done for her and know we are making her life better by being there to be the first steps toward a better home.

This weekend was actually the first two sunny days in Lake City in two weeks.  We were kind of feeling the effects of the rain and clouds.  I took advantage of every ray of sun light yesterday and stayed by the pool all day.  You could probably tell if you saw me now.  After basking in the sun for a good 5 hours, I went to church with a few team members then we went for a nice little dinner at a local Chinese food place.  This place was called, kid you not, Fu King.  I bought a t-shirt don't worry.  Fun fact about Fu King is that Marc Zuckerberg (creator of FaceBook) wanted to buy their store sign, but they said no.  How Fu King awesome is that?!  Today Suzanne hooked us up with sweet free passes to float down the Ichetucknee River.  We did just that.  It was a fun relaxing day for us.  We are truly blessed and spoiled to have Suzanne as a sponsor here.  She takes care of us as if we are her children and just really cares about each one of us.  She showed up to the pool yesterday with $15 gift cards to the local movie theater for each one of us.  She really is someone special and is doing such good for this world and I think we are all lucky to know her.



New T for me!



This week was a hard one emotions wise for the whole team.  It really had an effect on me to see certain homes and situations.  We are trying to take advantage of different outlets while we are here to escape the craziness that is disaster relief.  The county is now worried about Isaac hitting and causing more flooding her because the water levels in Lake City haven't gone down in some places.  We know that this county does NOT need any more rain and I hope it strays the path of lLake City a little bit.  It may not be too bad here, however, it will be bad where more AmeriCorps teams are.  My friends that are on other teams will be in some of the areas predicted to get hit the worst so keep all of us in your thoughts this week.  Let's throw some up to the big man that the damage won't be as bad as some past storms and all of us are safe.  I will keep you all updated, but let's hope nothing happens with Isaac. 

That's all for now for me.  Hope everyone has a good week preparing for the new school year starting soon, unless you are starting this week, good luck!