By Jenae Boren

Today at Colleen’s house, we finished all of the exterior tasks. We finished painting the trim and touching up paint at the house. We finished all the yard work, including the back path leading from the house to the back yard made out of stone. We also spray painted the chain link fence. (more…)

Today was a day of coming together. The walls were primed and painted, the house cleaned. This home is now looking very much like a home- and I can’t wait for Colleen and her family to arrive. (more…)

I am going to be completely honest with you. (more…)

Yesterday we made a huge dent in our workload by completing all the drywall and getting half of the mudding and taping done. Everyone was in bed early last night for the extended workday we had today.
(more…)

 What a strange thing it is to wake up and have a new taste in your mouth. I wonder if, after living through something like the loss of all your furniture, your family photos, your clothes, your silverware and good china and car and neighborhood, if salt tastes the same. (more…)

OAK ISLAND, Texas - We went to Oak Island on Saturday after hearing that there were several hundred familes in a Vietnamese fishing community that had not received hardly any help. (more…)

JACMEL, Haiti - Jacmel is a city with a population of 120,000 people. It is surrounded by mountains and beautiful beaches, a must-visit for tourists. Flowing through the city is a river where almost all cleaning chores are done. Women wash clothes, men clean their motorbikes, kids swim and people bathe in this river. (more…)

BRIDGE CITY, Texas - Today we helped a very precious family in need. Richard and his wife, Angie, have two children: Cameron, 11, and a teenage daughter, Kelsey. They evacuated for Hurricane Ike and returned to find their home flooded with over 2 feet of water. (more…)

SILOE, Haiti - About 80 percent of Haiti’s population lives in Port Au Prince. The remaining 20 percent live in remote villages surrounded by beautiful mountains. Today, we traveled to the village of Siloe. The last few days I’ve had to ride in the back of a pickup truck, and for the first time this week, I was given a chance to sit in the passenger seat next to the driver for what I thought would be a comfortable ride. (more…)

BRIDGE CITY, Texas - Today was a great day overall. We worked on cleaning up Deputy Sheriff Mike’s house today. When Ike came ashore, Deputy Mike and his fellow officers were staying in a secure bunker to weather the storm. But as the 911 calls poured in from terrified residents, they left the safety of the bunker in boats and off-road dump trucks to rescue people who otherwise may have lost their lives. (more…)

L’ESTERE, Haiti - We started the day off with a small UN escort to L’Estere. It was scorching hot and a 2-hour bumpy ride brought us to sector 5 where we were to deliver the first food distribution. (more…)

ORANGE, Texas - Today I stopped by to check on a crew of volunteers. As I drove up the the street to the home where they were working on, I passed a cemetary and saw caskets that had literally popped out of the graves. Ike’s storm surge saturated the ground so much that the caskets were uprooted from their cement graves and scattered throughout the small cemetery. (more…)