Samuel came back from a weekend at grandma's with a slight eye infection. We went to the doctor today and got him some medicine. Everything is going well outside of that. He weighs 6’9” now so he’s gaining an ounce a day.

A year ago now, Katrina was just off the boot of LA poised to slam into the MS coast. A few days later I made my first relief trip. Pray for healing.

While he's really named for Israel's last judge (see 1 Samuel in the Holy Bible), we just learned Samuel is also named after his great great great grandfather. His great grandparents just celebrated their 67th anniversary!

Today was the first day of school. Stephan spent the night at his dad's so he could drive him so we only got to see Sydney off this morning. Samuel wanted to go, but he just had to settle for waving goodbye with help from his dad.

Sydney practiced emergency drills and listened to the teacher talk all day. Stephan got "horribly lost" because all the hallways look the same despite us walking to all his classrooms yesterday. They both had good days though.

Samuel has been doing well though his skin is peeling. I don't remember that with Sydney. He had his first "sling" ride last evening at Sydney's open house. He was a bit cranky last night but overall seems to sleep better at night now. Today it seems his feeding demands have surpassed Merrie's production - he got to have some pumped breastmilk.

It seems I need to get back into the swing of things - I had a couple calls from clients to help with issues the last 2 days so I need to get focused on work items again.

Sorry for the delay in updates - we've naturally been very busy and wiped out. Samuel didn't want to nurse too well at first and slept quite a bit so he lost several ounces. We had to wait a while to schedule his circumcision so we didn't get home until 7:20 pm Monday. He's gotten into a pretty good nursing routine (too good if you ask Merrie), but he seems to have his days and nights mixed up as he sleeps most during the day now.

Samuel is a mover, likely due to all that exercise he got in the womb. At 5 days he already pushes himself with his legs and has done a half roll in his sleep, shattering Sydney's record of 3 months. I'm thinking we'll be needing to keep him on a short leash. He almost looks to be sporting a grin in this picture.


He didn't enjoy his first stroller ride last night, but then we discovered the pads hadn't been put back into his carseat. I got him all fixed up today with extra padding even, and he seemed fairly content with it. He weighed 5’14” at the doctor’s today so he has gained back all he lost plus an ounce to grow on. He did not care for getting his heel stuck again but was a real trooper, and I calmed him down with an airplane ride in his carseat on the way out to the car. His next appointment will be for shots at 2 months.

Merrie's mom has been spoiling us rotten this week. She left work early Friday to be here with the boys and has done all the laundry and cooking this week. We could get very used to this! She took the boys to the state fair today and tomorrow so we could have alone time with Samuel. I was mortified to discover that she hasn't managed to be in any of my pictures yet so I must correct that when they return. She'll be here another week.

Stephan had his high school orientation yesterday afternoon. He has a couple friends in some classes, but I'm sure the first week will be very stressful as the school is so large and he's not great with directions. I'm rather nervous about picking him up, too, since they didn't cover anything like that and I couldn't find an official to talk to once I was free to do so.

We went over to Sydney's school last night to see who was in his class and there were many familiar names. We're going to have to warn his teacher to rule with an iron fist. :) Sydney is not a shy child and that tends to get him in trouble at times.

We arrived at the hospital a bit after 8 pm on the 11th. We got into a (very small) room pretty quickly and they inserted the cervidil in Merrie. Her contractions started becoming more regular (1-2 minutes apart) and intense about an hour later and they took it out after another hour. Unfortunately, her cervix exhibited no change even several hours later. At 4 am they started a low dose of pitocin. We were moved to a big room at 5. Neither of us slept a bit all night. She was maybe at 2 cm at 8:30 am so there was little progress, but she finally took some morphine, which helped her considerably. In fact she was able to nap on and off for a couple hours. The doctor broke her water at 11. She was still about 2 but noticeably thinner. She started having the pain in her thighs about 11:30 and very rough contractions in her back from 1:30 pm on. Merrie was even going to get an epidural until we checked her again at 2:15. Thankfully, she was dialating very quickly then, and Samuel was born at 2:38 pm with 5 big pushes. He was 5’13” & 19” and went to NICU since she had just had a shot of demoral and he came out with the cord around his neck. Here is his very tired mother (superwoman - 16 hours of contractions an avg of 2 min apart!) finally getting to touch him for the first time a few hours later.

Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother's breasts. On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother's womb you have been my God. Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help. (Ps 22:9-11)
And Samuel grew, and the LORD was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. (1 Sa 3:19)

Merrie's cervix is being cantankerous so we're heading to the hospital shortly so they can give her a drug to open it up overnight hopefully. They should start the pitocin in the morning to kick her contractions into gear. If things go well we'll have Samuel tomorrow - otherwise, they'll give Merrie a break Sat night and start again Sunday morning.

Samuel update: Things are progressing as planned. Merrie is at 1 cm so we are going back Friday. Depending on where her cervix is then, they may give her a drug to dialate it quicker, and will induce Sat or Sun as the hospital occupancy allows.

Merrie spent part of this week while the boys were gone getting ready for Sam's arrival. The crib is dressed in the linen set that I picked out and all the clothes from 0-3 months have been washed in Dreft. She disassembled the car seat, stroller, and swing and washed all the cloth parts in Dreft and cleaned up the hardware. Now we just have to reassemble them.

We made it home safely Sunday night. Friday went much the same for us - fixing up the mudding job so the foundation would be more suitable for the next team that worked on her house. We quit early because part of the PA team had to start driving back. I tried to find another job the boys and I could work on in the afternoon, but it had already been completed so we got the rest of the day off. I looked through several books on Katrina to see if I wanted to buy them and watched a pseudo-amateur DVD on the storm one of the team had bought. A couple of us went to buy some fresh shrimp for an after dinner snack and then went driving around Gulfport a bit until it was dusk, hitting the beach before returning for devotions and shrimp. They were good - and cheap compared to up here. I brought some home to have after Samuel is born.

Saturday the remainder of the PA team left for the NO airport and we went over to Hancock County to visit a house I had worked on. They had received less than $17K between FEMA and insurance though they had 8 feet of water in their house and lost everything, but they had been approved for an SBA loan so their home was in beautiful condition now. They let the boys swim in their pool while we chatted for a couple hours. They shared some things you normally don't get to hear about. Some people are taking advantage of the church groups, waiting around (sometimes for long periods of time) to get "freebies" when they have the ability to pay for the materials. Most people have not risked rebuilding yet either because the zoning/building codes still have not been solidifed yet in many areas. However, there are a few houses that have been put up on the coast. We also visited the family we provided Christmas presents for and they were back in their home doing well. Then I let Stephan drive for the first time on the road and we drove out and back on US 90 and visited the mobile home Merrie and I worked on before we came home in Dec. Margie was back in it though she had lots of problems with the people she hired. At least she was lucky enough to get the work done even if it was pretty shoddy at times. Many people have been just plain ripped off. Fraud remains a huge problem, not only from shady contractors but also from those spending their FEMA money inappropriately. Significant efforts to crack down on both are in effect.

Here are a few pics from the coast. This one shows a cross someone made from what had been the floor beams of their house.

This one below shows the remnants of one house while another is being built in the background. The weed growth makes it look like Katrina happened years ago.


The last one I took on this trip reminds us of what we are there for...
... to provide the hope of Jesus to a broken people.

It was a sweater today! I was hardly exerting myself (repairing more drywall goofs) and the beads of sweat seemed more like a stream. We've been kind of hampered in the house we are working on because a previous team didn't do too well on the drywall installation and mudding. As a result, we've spent the past 2 days sanding and fixing mistakes so it will look nice once it's done. All the youth including my boys have held up pretty well and worked hard. Stephan has asked if we can come back next year. I suspect that is mostly because there are a lot of kids here now, which makes it far more enjoyable for him. My plan is to gut our house, but if we don't have the funds and time for that next summer, we will come back.

Our homeowner shared part of her story today, which was good for the kids to hear. She had several miracles that kept her and her pets alive. While she only had 5 feet of water in the house itself, the water was over her roof as she is the 3rd block in from the coast in Long Beach. She now almost has a nice view of the Gulf as there is nothing left on the first 2 blocks. Here we are with her.

We finished up what we were to do on the house we started at yesterday. The boys got a taste of rolling paint and enjoyed themselves. Since we finished early, I took off to Hancock County to visit some of the places I worked at. I stopped at the new Camp Gulfside where UM volunteers stay and met someone I worked with in Nov who had a team of youth down! We're going to hopefully have dinner tomorrow. I stopped in Clermont Harbor and saw the new church building, the results of an 8-day blitz build. I stopped by one of the houses I gutted and the owner has gotten quite a bit of work done. He's been doing it almost all himself at age 75. In fact, he had started gutting it, too, back then and it was very hard for him to ask for help. He was thrilled to see me and show off the progress he's made.
The Mitchell's were here when I stopped in tonight to update my blog so I quickly caught up with them. They may not be doing hard labor like me, but they are working harder I think doing what they can for the people here. Over 5500 families in Harrison County are without homes, and the suicide and homicide rates are climbing. These people need our help! I'm encouraged by the number of people I see here now but I suspect it will drop off a lot once August is over. Trinity doesn't have anyone coming in for next week though.