Update 12.6.12
Hello family and friends,
It’s been 18 days since our house fire. We have been so
BLESSED in those 18 days. We praise God for His provision through all of you. I’ll
try to get to all that needs to be said – there has been so much going on. We can see God’s hand helping us along the way
to recovery and in ways preparing us for this disaster beforehand. I would like
to write up my story but not tonight….
I’ll start with the needs that are being met, instrument
update, next house situation and list the needs at the end.
Our immediate need of shelter has been met through Bob
Anderson, resident and friend in Orange. We are staying at the “carriage house” behind his house. It’s 4 rooms, 1 bath. (Yes, the bathroom line is long but, at least
there is a bathroom to line up at. J
) It’s suiting us wonderfully location
wise as a home base. It’s only a couple blocks from our burnt house and our new
house, 66 North Main Street. We can walk to the job site and it’s only a quick
drive back and forth. We are so grateful
for a nice warm place to come back to after a long hard day in the ashes! Thank you, Mr. Anderson. As mom says it’s like
coming back to the “hotel” after being in the “war zone.”
We had meals brought every day for about two weeks. This
helped us so much as we were able to concentrate on getting other things done.
We have been blessed with laundry volunteers which also has been SUCH a
blessing to mom. People also brought us
snacks, cookies and bottled water to the job site as the men were working. Clothing
has been donated by the bag full and we are so grateful. All but one of us ran out of the house with no
shoes. We all have casual shoes now and clothes to work in! (And, I do believe Joanna has more clothes now than
she did before the fire and maybe more then all of us combined. ;) )
Our plan is to take down all of the burnt structure ourselves.
. The top 2 floors in the front have been cleaned out and taken down in the
front. We stripped the main part of the
house down to the bare studs. Before we gutted we had to clean out…we tossed
out most of our charred, smokey and waterlogged possessions out into dumpsters.
It’s yucky dirty work and depressing. Whatever
wasn’t burnt was wet and smoke damaged. We
were able to salvage some things of our everyday stuff, but a very small
percentage. Some things I’m sure we’ll have to throw out later in the end because
the smoke smell is so hard to get out. We
dumped the whole kitchen save for some select things to try to scrub
clean. I was DELIGHTED to find some
photo albums which only had water and smoke damage!! This was a real encouragement when these were
located that we would have some of those irreplaceable pictures again! Many still have not been found but I’m holding
out some hope that under the ashes in the different parts of the house we’ll
find more.
INSTRUMENTS update! It’s really hard to answer sometimes on
what we need and what was lost. I haven’t
had much time to even assess some of the instruments (like the flute!) until
recently. I have no experience assessing
heat/smoke/water damaged instruments. I do know some of our best instruments
were burnt to a crisp, including the banjo and two mandolins worth many
thousands. But, not all our instruments
were burnt. Some have heavy smoke and water damage some hardly anything. SOME were in the bus like the irreplaceable
cowbells! We are trying to revive the
heat/smoky damaged ones and clean them up the best we can. The guitars miraculously made it out and
appear sound. The cases are toasted though. The trumpet was in a case and was
under the violin case in my room and that appears to have no damage (again,
case was a loss!) We still don’t know if
my violin will keep a tune (the finish is bubbled on both sides.) I don’t know if we ever found Daniel’s violin.
The harp is super stinky and needs new
strings. The flute that once looked brand new aged about 100 years and doesn’t
work properly. The cellos – one totally
roasted the other needs some TLC if it’s gonna work again. what can be fixed or not. The baritones are nasty and not playable. I
haven’t seen anyone play the tuba yet but it appears to be in one piece. My favorite ukulele lost all the strings and
again quite smoky! The digital piano for
concerts was in the bus. So, it’s a mix and the final count is not in.
Our studio equipment which recorded our last CD on was
destroyed. I’m unsure if any of the editing
software made it out.
Most of the current sound equipment we use for the concert
was in the bus. That is a praise! Our back up sound equipment, mixers, speakers,
extra mics, cord making supplies, etc
appear to be a total loss.
When we leave the carriage house we are planning a move to
66 N. Main Street. My parents had bought the house foreclosed summer of 2011 as
a place to use for music ministry and bus supplies. We had NO idea we’d all be
planning to move in this winter. The
Lord was watching out and directing our paths even a year ago to prepare us for
this fire. The problem with moving in
now is there is no heat, which is a big problem when it’s winter in New
England. Vincent lives (with little
heat) in the basement now. We use his area as a second “home base” as we work
on renovations on the top floors and demo at 54 (the burnt house.) We are
working right now on the heating problem and are hoping/praying to be in before
we leave on our winter tour (January 20th.) It’s a much smaller house so it should be
easier to heat. J
Oh and we got a bunch of school books this week!! Big praise!! We sifted through boxes of books
made available to us at no cost and we were able to replace many of the school
books lost in the fire.
Things are looking up but we still have much work ahead of
us. We really, really appreciate all who have sent cards with checks and words
of encouragement. The Lord is using you
all to meet our need and encourage us in a very special way. THANK YOU.
Needs & Prayers (this is not an exhaustive list…)
We are short on concert dress for the men in the family
ties, dress shirts (specifically 15-15 ½),black suit coats, and some black (lace up) dress shoes
ties, dress shirts (specifically 15-15 ½),black suit coats, and some black (lace up) dress shoes
Prayers for a safe and speedy removal of the debris from the
house site and whatever part of the house can be saved can be “winter proofed”
in a timely manner.
NIV Bibles
a set of hymnals
Mirrors – particularly full length ones
Mini blinds
Pray we are able to move and settled into the new house
before the winter trip
Pray for our music program as we have little time to prepare
for our winter tour
If you want to help with expenses we would still appreciate
that
snacks and cookies delivered to the job site would be helpful and energizing to the workers
-----------------
I think that’s all I can do tonight. I’m about falling
asleep on the computer! Thank you to all
who have helped, and are helping. We are praising God for the love we have seen
through all of you! If I missed anything please leave a question in the
comments!
Sorry there are no pictures, I lost my camera! Maybe I can get a few off of someone's phone? Hopefully next post!
Blessings,
Carol