Monday, August 11, 2008

The Iowa Team Is Home

Welcome home to the Iowa Flood Relief Team!

St. Anne's was treated to a wonderful sermon which included stories shared by the team members. With any luck, the sermon will be posted soon. In the meantime, Rev. Neesie's message was that sometimes God calms the storm we are experiencing and, sometimes, God calms the child in the midst of the storm. Always, God is present.




(Pictured are 6 of the 7 team members... guess #7 is taking the photo!)

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Hello from Iowa

Hello from the Corn State!

Sorry about not posting last night but don’t worry because we are all alive and well…except for Art. He is in the hospital due to a horrible Mattock axe accident. I’m kidding. We are all great though and here’s what we’ve been up to:

TUESDAY

We started out the day at the same house on Normandy St. that we worked at on Monday. We just finished up the work there with some nail removal and tree stump exterminating. After about 2 hours there we moved onto another house on the same street. There we did a bunch of lawn beautification. This entails more tree removal, pruning, serious garden cleaning and sand bag relocating. Denise and a local volunteer, Dale, were out mowing lawns. Tall grasses watch out because Denise is equipped and prepared to trim you down to 2 inches! At the end of the day we were all tired but it was worth it to see the work that we had done. The yard was looking much better and it was a huge sense of accomplishment. After that we all showered up and got ready to go to dinner. On our way to dinner we dropped off our laundry. Apparently some people on this trip aren’t comfortable with wearing the same dirty, muddy, smelly clothes every day to work in. I don’t get it. Well we ate at the famous Hamburg Inn which has award winning burgers. This restaurant has been featured in movies and has been visited by a few presidents. We came to understand why as the burgers were delicious! Following dinner we picked up our laundry and went to our local trip organizer’s house for compline and then broke into two groups. One that went home and one that went to get ice cream at Whitey’s, an Iowa City unique place. The ice cream group was primarily the 3 boys and Denise. We ate ice cream, walked around the city, and then returned home for bed.

WEDNESDAY

On this beautiful morning we were planning on working with Habitat for Humanity. That didn’t work out and it appears as if we won’t be working with them this week. We instead returned to good ol’ Normandy St. to help the people there. Today we moved onto two new homes. One home belonged to a great guy named Frank. His story is that he was 2 weeks away from moving into this house that he had just bought and fully upgraded with brand new appliances. The flood came and ruined all of that. Now he is just trying to finish up the house quickly so that he can move his sick wife into their home they’ve never slept in. It felt good to help him with the painting and other help that he needed. The other group moved onto another home right next door. There we were removing stumps (never a lack of dead trees to be removed), pruning back trees, and bagging toxic mulch. We knew it was toxic because an hour after touching it, Perry grew a 3rd arm. She’s going to be even more efficient now in the St. Anne’s office. We returned home after work to shower and get ready to go out. Some of us went to go get groceries, dinner and to check out the artisans gallery. I hear that the gallery was a really neat place. The second group, the 3 boys, went out to explore the University of Iowa campus. We all returned for excellent feast of a dinner and for compline. Compline seems to be growing in popularity as our group keeps growing with other parishioners wanting to join in.

Again we are all doing great and God’s presence can really be felt in this group. Especially as all of the relationships that we are making within the group and outside of the group are growing. We all feel truly blessed to be here while missing our loved ones at home. We are all excited for the next days of our grand adventure!

- Varun

Monday, August 4, 2008

This is day two of our Iowa Mission Trip. The day started with an impressive thunderstorm, but we pressed forward. Katharine Nicholson, our on site crew chief from Trinity Episcopal Church, had chosen one of the houses on the Iowa River within the flood plain. Katharine and Dale, another local volunteer worked alongside us. We picked up flood debris that often showed up in unexpected places high up in the bushes. We pruned and removed lots of dead bushes, filled holes, repaired tractor damage. We were just getting into our stride when the scary whaling of several loud sirens began going off through the neighborhood warning of a tornado. We looked at each other wondering what to do. It didn't feel like a tornado was coming. Luckliy Dale identified the sirens as a monthly drill. We enjoyed getting cleaned up and having lunch in a local park and were joined by Rev Mel from Trinity Church. After lunch we arrived to find the owner of the house had stopped by and we were able to spend a few minutes with him. As the heat and humidity wound up we began to wind down and finished about 3PM. We went back to Joan's house took showers and cleaned up.
We plan to go back to the same house tomorrow to finish our work and then onto the next place.
This late afternoon finds us trying to decide which Iowa cuisine to try this evening. We are once again under a severe thunderstorm watch until 12 midnight in a city that does not need anymore rain. More to come.
In the words of St. Paul's letter to the Romans " And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8.

Greetings From the Iowa Team!

Hello to All!

We have safely arrived after a night's stay in Bloomington, Illinois (not a typo, it really is in Illinois!) We were met with great hospitality at Trinity EpiscopalChurch and I was invited to read the gospel and serve as deacon at the table. It was very moving to represent St. Anne's in this way. All here are very appreciative of our commitment of time and energy. We were given lunch and a briefing after church and then a full tour of some of the ravaged neighborhoods and the damage at the university. The Rector Mel Schlachter and his wife Barbara hosted us for dinner and we have settled in to our host home at the Rinner Family's house.

We will be working for the next couple of days cleaning up debris and pulling dead bushes and limbs out of yards. Much of the debris is embedded in the ground and will require digging- some hot and heavy work ahead! Wednesday we will begin work with Habitat and expect that to be deconstruction work. We also may be doing some painting of some homes that have been under repair. A little work for all skill levels!

Tomorrow we will upload some photos (hopefully onto the blog that Martha sent to us) and will have a more detailed narrative of our journey! We will have it to you in time to go into the Wednesday e-news- stay turned....more to come.

We send our love,
Denise and the Iowa Mission team

Friday, August 1, 2008

Ready, Set, Go!

St. Anne's Episcopal Church gathers for worship on a hill in Reston, Virginia. We are a vibrant, energetic bunch who love to spend time together. More and more, we have been spending time with our sisters and brothers in various places - southwestern Virginia, New Orleans, northern Virginia and the Dominican Republic.

Tomorrow morning, in the gentle light of dawn, a group will leave Reston and head for Iowa City. They will be mucking out houses that were flooded several weeks ago.

Tomorrow afternoon, in the mid-summer heat, another group will return to Reston from their time in Dungannon, Virginia. They've been repairing homes in Appalachia.

Watch this space for stories from St. Anne's folks who are out on the road!