Live from Pearlington - 4

We 're busy, busy today and I can feel that old familiar ball of emotion building inside me. Tears of sympathy for these great folks threaten to spill out all the time and I'm missing my Rosie a lot. I'm also missing my bed and warmth; my shoulders are aching and the on-site doctor tells me I likely have a torn rotator cuff in my right shoulder. I think the original injury happened last time I was here. I am taking Advil, but it hurts all the time and now the other shoulder is also aching. Sleeping in the cold on the ground isn't helping. But, there is lots to do and if I keep real busy I don't notice.

Nancy is out in Slidell preparing the Hope Chests. We have identified the children and their families who will receive them and I know it was an extremely hard task for Nancy to read all the histories of the families here and pare the list down to only 35. We will use some other money - and some of my own, if necessary - to do our best to cover all the kids we can. Their occasionally trembling lips and their infectious laughter make it a task of love for us. We are sending out flyers about Friday's Karaoke Night and it looks like a party of epic proportions.

Joe Clark is taking a day off today. He is off getting a root canal for a tooth that has been hurting him for weeks. Imagine a root canal being your idea of a "day off!" I am in the Aid Mart covering some ground for him and working with Will, a Carbondale, Colorado firefighter who runs the show on the ground here at the "Pearl Mart." The kids from AmeriCorp do the stocking and shuffling and we have quite a going concern here. We keep a proper inventory to ensure that everything we get and have stocked and tarped on skids is rotated in as we run out off stuff and require it to re-stock the shelves. Here at the Resource Centre we can facilitate you getting a lot of things you need - water pumps, trailers, generators, food, clothes etc. Thank you for shopping Aid/Pearl Mart! Then there is the Shelter and the Medical Clinic. We even have a psychiatrist who visits once in a while.

Last night, I created a special blog for Pearlington. It will enable those of us who leave after our tour, to keep in touch with what's going on down here. It is located at:

www.pearlington.blogspot.com

Your comments on it's appearance are invited.

I must get back to work. Send us love and light. It's the best work in the world we do and perhaps the costliest. But none of us would have it any other way.