Saipan – Day 5

Thursday, September 8, 2016

As usual, it was an early start to the morning, however, Mary offered to fry some eggs for us, so we had them in addition to our cereal and toast. After our morning devotions we headed to the job site to finish Ben’s home. We still had to install the soffits and flashing, as well as, finish fastening the corrugated roofing.

Ben’s neighbour stopped by to thank us for replacing the roof on Ben’s house. He was a war veteran who had a very interesting history that he shared with Don and I.

We stopped for a break around 9 to eat some donuts and canned pears that Ben had bought for us. While we were eating we had interesting conversations with Ben and his wife.

I didn’t mention it earlier, however, the reason we removed and re-installed the roof on Ben’s house is that another group had started it, but they hadn’t finished it, it wasn’t done right and it would not pass inspection. The typhoon had destroyed most of the roof on their house at the beginning of August of 2015 and they were so happy that we were there and that they would finally have a roof again, over the main part of their house. They said that is all they needed.

We finished the roof, shortly before 11 am and then we took some pictures together with the CARE employees.

I took a picture of Ben and his wife in front of the house.

One of the CARE employees took a group picture of us with Ben & his wife, as well as, four of the other CARE employees and one Red Cross employee.

We had an early lunch and then said our goodbyes to Ben and his wife and we thanked them for their hospitality and for allowing us to help rebuild their roof.

On our way to our next jobsite, we stopped to look at a FEMA model home so that we would have an idea of the type of house would be built. Hopefully, the permits and material will be ready for us to start a brand new home, because there is a lady who is in a wheelchair who needs a house badly because her’s has only been patched up with plywood and there isn’t much of the house left.

We continued driving to another house where we will be building a roof that was torn away by the typhoon. We started installing some of the supports and rafters and worked until we ran out of material and then drove back to our campsite.

On our way back to the campsite, we stopped to see the view at a nearby beach which had clear water with beautiful white beach sand and it appeared to be relatively shallow.

It had been another hot, humid day so when we got back to the campsite, Micah, Pete, Daniel and Don put on their swim trunks and returned to the beach for a swim before supper. We ended the day with a wonderful spaghetti dinner and some lively discussions.