As the CCOB team had only five members this time, we were all assigned to one crew...along with two young men from a church in Youngstown, Ohio. About 20 Youngstown youths made up most of the rest of the volunteer group for this week in Nashville. Our crew was assigned to work on a house in northwest Nashville, about 15-20 miles from the our home base. The home is owned by a lady named Mildred who lives near a creek that overflowed and flooded the lower level of her house. By the time we arrived, structural repairs had been made to the flooded rooms, so our primary responsibility involved the installation of a ceramic tile floor in three rooms and a bath. As the photo on the right indicates, Mildred had a front-row seat to our activities from her kitchen door as we worked.

The series of photos below shows the progress of the work over several days. In the second panel, the CCOB crew can be seen with the homeowner and "Tall John," our SP supervisor for the first couple of days. In the fourth panel Mildred can be seen in her station at the kitchen door.

After a kind of slow start, the crew got into the swing of things with Don on his knees laying most of the tile and Dick manning the tile saw. The rest of the CCOB crew, all of whom had initially admitted a total lack of construction skills, provided support at first and then began to learn some of the needed skills. Susie became tender and runner for Don and she mixed mortar for him to use in laying the tile. As the photos below indicate, Bill became skilled on the tile saw and Julie learned how to grout the tile seams.

Meanwhile, the two young men from Youngstown started the week by painting a utility room and doing odd jobs around the area and finished by putting up wall tile in the lower-level bathroom.

The projects at Mildred's house were not quite completed before our time ran out that week. Part of the reason was that we had to cut our work days short on Thursday and Friday to participate in the dedications of two completed projects. A more detailed description of dedications like these was included in the report from the May team, but one dedication we attended would have been of particular interest to the members of that team. It involved a project they had worked on.

The photos on the right show the exterior of that completed project and the stairs and deck that were shown being worked on by part of the May team on the previous web page. Also shown are Dan Burton, Nashville project manager for SP and the homeowner, Bonnie, at the dedication ceremony.

On the left is a photo taken at the Friday dedication showing Dan with that homeowner. This home was in a rural area west of Nashville. It had been severely damaged by the flood and SP had assumed much of the repair costs, totaling several tens of thousands of dollars.

The final event of the week for our team was a banquet for all of the homeowners who had been helped over the ten months of the SP Nashville project. The banquet was held in the gym of the church next door. Volunteers teams for that week were requested to attend and to disperse themselves among the homeowners represented. Don Baar and the two Youngstown boys on our crew sat with Mildred, the homeowner we had worked with that week. A highlight of the evening was an opportunity for homeowners to express their feelings. The photo on the right shows Mildred pointing to Don and extolling his labor for the week, declaring "Five days!! On his knees!! Mr. Dan (she confused him with Dan Burton)...on his knees for five days!!"

It was a very good week. We were particularly delighted to be able to attend the dedications and the banquet. And we continue to recommend Samaritan's purse projects for anyone interested in a short term mission with minimum expense and exceptional organization.