Two Weeks after the Fire

Friday, May 18, 2007 at 7:00 PM,

(two weeks exactly from the time we arrived home to see our burned house).

In a new development, a work team from our mission, ABWE, wants to come out and help us rebuild. They are presently making contacts among their volunteers to form a team and they will need our local workers too. I am not sure about some final details but we would welcome the encouragement that this would bring, not to mention the help so we can carry on our ministry without having to be involve ourselves.

Today with our Thai workmen, we cleared the yard of all the debris from the fire and the removal of the second floor of our house. We sorted and separated the solid fill from the glass and metals for filling our driveway (roof tile, wall board, and cement and brick and block).

When we had cleaned up the yard and leveled the 5 or 6 cubit meters of solid waste, I contacted a gravel truck . What a blessing, the wife of the truck driver said he just loaded up and was going to come home for lunch. He said he would deliver the gravel immediately, so in about 20 minutes we had all of the driveway covered with laterite gravel. Before dumping the gravel, he did us a favor by driving back and forth on the fill which was leveled but still soft. The full dump truck packed it down tight. Then he dumped the gravel it in a number of small hills which the workers leveled and I drove back and forth a few dozen times with my van afterwards to pack it and smooth it.

Our house really looks a lot nicer to have the debris cleared. While clearing debris they found a few more piece of Gail's jewelry still intact. So Gail is pleased too. We are doing well and it is amazing what we have accomplished in just two weeks.