Great Week End

Betty and I just returned from a four day week end in Platte, SD where we were invited to help celebrate the Platte Christian Reformed Church's 125th anniversary. We had a great time meeting with old friends and thinking back to 1986-1991 when we served that congregation as Pastor. What a blessing to be there with them in their celebration!

More work done

As you can see, our garage door is installed, though the hardware must still be put on. But now we can "lock" the garage over night or when we are gone.
We were glad to see that the bathroom window, at left, and the North bedroom window were also installed, though inside trim must still be installed. This part of the house is now ready for siding. Betty is busy cleaning up under the bushes. This is a never-ending job during the fix-up period.

Some Progress

Finally we had a couple of hours where Betty could help me get started on the siding of the boat shed. Seeing some "constructive" work done really encourages us. We were told the windows should be here in the next couple of days. Hopefully next week much will get done.

A view from our back yard, if you compare this to earlier pictures you will notice that much debrie has been cleaned up. Things are starting to look up!

Rested!

Betty and I returned home yesterday morning after having been gone since Saturday morning. On Saturday we drove to Sanborn Iowa and witnessed the marriage of Alex Jansen and his beautiful bride. Alex is a son of our good friends Harv and Gail Jansen from Tucson, AZ. At the wedding we had the opportunity to also visit with other friends from Tucson, which was great. Later Betty and I drove to Albert Lea, MN where we stayed overnight. Sunday I led the worship services at 9:30 AM and 6:00 PM in the Hollandale CRC. We returned home yesterday morning. I then had a couple of hours to catch up before going to Conrad, IA for a golf tournament with my good friend Dennis Hippen. Now I am somewhat rested. Today I have a 8AM meeting with the ministerial association of Parkersburg, and a noon meeting regarding the reconstruction of Parkersburg.
Regarding our house, we are at a standstill, waiting for the windows. The garage door was delivered yesterday, so hopefully that can be installed soon. Then our garage will once again be secure.
Thanks for your continued interest and prayers.

Respite

We have had a good week, no rain, wind or storms. Much clean-up was accomplished. Now it is time for Betty and myself to have a litle rest. We have been invited to a wedding in Sanborn Iowa, so soon we will go there. From Sanborn we go to Albert Lea, MN as I am committed to preach in the Hollandale CRC both services (9:30 AM and 6 PM) on Sunday. We should be back by 10 AM Monday.
Presently I am using a loaner car as both my vehicles are in the collision repair shop to fix them up from tornado damage. I thought I would get my Equinox back yesterday, but they found a couple of other gouges on the roof that had not been seen before. Hopefully I will have my own car back Tuesday.

A Good Week

This has been a good week. No rain or inclement weather. The volunteers, about 24 teens from the Covenant Life Church (CRC) of Grand Haven Michigan, and their sponsors, did a GREAT job in all they were asked to do; picking up debrie, cleaning yards, finding precious objects, rings, wedding dress, silveware, jewelery, pictures, etc. They also made a flower bed for one of our neighbors, did some drywalling, encouraged us and just were a blessing to so many of us. We said "good-by" this afternoon as they were getting ready to head back home to MI. If any of you kids see this, just remember we love you and won't forget you. THANKS!
Pastor Frank and Betty

Precious Memories

Volunteers did the dry-wall in our garage. Slowly but surely thingts are being accomplished.

This is about half of the pile of metal that was collected after the tornado.
Here we have one of three "wood and debrie" piles.

Volunteers found this wedding dress and along with other things brought it to our house.
Brenda gets back her daughter's wedding dress and her own favorite box with most of the silveware, which the volunteers found. What a great job these kids did!

Went for a Walk

Last night was such a beautiful evening Betty and I went for a walk. We are amazed at what has been cleaned up and at how much there is still to do. On the following post you can see pictures that I took during our walk.

What we saw

Waiting to be taken to the junk pile.
How good it is to see another house going up!
A very necessary place whenthere are no homes...

Betty is looking at the rubble from a house that was built this past winter and only occupied for 2 months. Owners told me they would rebuild the same house, same floor plan, "but", she said; "we will change some colors".

Looks like the remains of a trailer.

Children's toys now discarded.
A man's toy, no longer useful.

Volunteers are here!

Volunteers from Grand Haven MI busy cleaning up our yard from small debrie. They are making it safe for our grandchildren to play out in our back yard.

Notice that the roof is gone from our neghbor's house.

Mr. Arnie Gustafson from CRC looking over the house of a friend and CRC church member Mrs. Brenda Terpstra.

A view of Parkersbur from Brenda's house.
Volunteers frind some of Brend'a "stuff". They found and brought to my house a wedding dress belonging to one of Brenda's daughters.
Another view of Parkersburg

Some of the stuff found in Brenda's back yard.

Improvement

Our boat is back fromWellsburg, where Pastor Tom Vos was caring for it while we cleaned up our yard. Thanks Tom, for watching over the boat! You have been a great friend and help!
Looking South from our deck. Notice how much cleaner everything looks.
A view towards the Southwest, where the tornado came from.

Our front entrance, all it needs is a decorative support pole, and a picture window for our living room.
Mike's "new" car to replace his Oldsmobile Alero. This is a Chevy Malibu, not as fancy as the Olds, but will serve him well for a couple of years.
Mike's business sign. He is open for business and started to get some calls for compute work.

Showers and Blessings

We had another round of storms at 3 AM and had an inch of rain fall. For the rest, the night was quiet except for that one hour of thunder, lightning and rain. This morning I preached in the Stout Reformed Church using 1 Kings 19 as my text, and entitling my sermon "Listening in the Dark". I made reference to God's whispering His love to us, even in th midst of an F5 tornado... I hope to post some updated pictures tomorrow morning.

Beautiful morning

It is Saturday morning, no rain now for 48 hours and we are drying out a bit. Had a good day yesterday. We went to Grundy Center and were able to get some groceries as well as order some flooring for the house. The construction guys were here most of yesterday and all is ready for the windows to be installed (hope they come soon) and then siding to go on. They will work on the front hallway, drywall etc. at a later date. Right now the priority for everyone is to get the homes enclosed so that inclement weather does not do more damage.
The encouraging thing is that we are starting to see new construction beginning in varios places.
Both new houses as well as businesses are going up.

Tragedy and Humor

Some of the vehicles that were destroyed
Would you like to buy a lot, cheap ... you clean it up!

The Mulder vehicle which was parked in their garage.
New fashion street signs.

Quiet, yet Busy Day

It is Friday morning. Yesterday, Thursday was quiet in regards to rain and wind. Wednesday night we had another 2 inches rain, so everything is really wet and that hinders the clean up work.
Yesterday morning I had a meeting of the Parkersburg Economic Development [PED]Corporation (of which I am VP) and we discussed ways in which our city can be rebuilt. Many ideas came to the floor and we are pursuing some of them. Our goal is the rebuilding of the city and getting new businesses into the community while not loosing excisting businesses. One great idea which we are pursuing is the building of a small "strip mall" on the main hiway into the city. This would allow for 5 businesses to be located there. If this flies, we could see this building up in about 100 days.
Last evening I also met ith the City Council regarding our work on the PED as well as informing the Mayor and Council what the faith community (churches) can do.
How thankful I am for CRWRC and what they can do. I will be meeting with one of their reps on Monday.
Personally we as a family are doing better, still have our ups and downs, but we are able to laugh and go ahead. We have orderd all the curtains and drapes for the house, also ordered some new furniture and are looking at carpeting and other flooring.
We hope the windows come in the next week. After the windows are installed, siding can be put on and we can paint the interior of the house.
For today I hope to do some minor repairs as well as prepare for Sunday when I must preach in the Reformed Church of Stout.
Frank

Pictures taken the "Days After"

A view of the destruction area 2 days after the tornado hit.
view 1 block south of us the day after.

From our back yard looking over the football field at the A-P High School gym, or what is left of it.
Our big beautiful tree which thankfully fell away from the house and even missed the boat shed.

Leaves are gone due to the winds, but the tree has "other" decorations.
Another view from our back yard te say after the tornado. This set of pictures was taken by my niece Melinda DeJong.

A full day of work

We finished shigling the house at 4 PM yesterday. Hopefully, if we did the job right, there will be no more rain coming in through our front hallway.

Aluminum is at a premium, so we are putting all of the old aluminum sidind off to the side so that it can be sold. The rest of the building "material" goes on a dumpster, we filled one, and now have another one on our driveway.