These CCOB volunteers were all assigned to one SP team, with Johnny as our supervisor. He divided the team into two crews, with one assigned to each of two homes being worked on. They were in the town of Bellevue, about eight miles to the west of the church. The community in which we were working was an expanse of single-story duplex townhouses and was immediately adjacent to the Harpeth River. Locals told us that, when the floods came, the torrent down the main street of the community (Sawyer Brown Road) was so violent that two people in a car on the street were washed away and drowned.

The proximity of the neighborhood to the river can be seen in the aerial view to the left. The two home sites at which team members from CCOB worked are circled on that view. Their respective house numbers are also indicated. Much of the damage in these two homes had already been repaired when we arrived and the our work mostly involved preparing and painting walls, painting doors, building and painting window frames and putting down flooring.

The home at 970 was owned by a retired pastor and his wife. He had recently retired and this was their first home, having lived in parsonages up until retirement. They had no flood insurance (as was the case for most of those in the neighborhood) and they were unable to afford the cost of the massive repairs to their home. In their case, Samaritan's Purse was underwriting the entire cost of the project...with the help of volunteers.

At left can be seen the owner of the home at 8586 and some of the paint crew hard at work there. Patsy is a single lady and has been able to afford some of the repairs to her home, so SP is providing the materials she cannot afford and the volunteers are providing the sweat.

At the right are the pastor from the home at 970, his wife and her developmentally challenged brother who lives with them. They visited the site regularly while we were there and the brother particularly enjoyed being included in discussion about the progress of the work. They were very appreciative of the work we were doing and she brought us a dozen doughnuts the last day we were there. We left very hopeful that they could be back in their home before Christmas.

At the left, Dick Hoving accepts some help with flooring at 970 from a neighbor who is also a Nashville fireman. He told us some harrowing tales of the hours last May during which Nashville and the surrounding area were being inundated with water. A number of neighbors dropped by both sites while we were working, to visit and check up on progress. On Friday, Patsy at 8586 prepared a delicious pork roast lunch for the whole team. She can be seen in the picture above laying out the repast.

The November team returned home committed to returning to Nashville before SP terminated its work there.....and many of us did!!