Refugees and Rebuliding

Most of our refugees have either returned to their homes when the power finally came back or traveled to another city to wait it out. We miss them! Although it was probably not tons of fun for them to be refugees, we hope they had a good time at our luxury-themed camp. At least we made some memories! Here are some of the highlights:

Katie & Robert checking email at the internet & cell phone cafe

Mark & Erica having a glass (or two) of wine

One of the hardships we endured was running out of wine. Just kidding. We had plenty. A bottle of wine was the price of admission to the camp.

Another hardship we endured was losing our HD TV for days. Rachael Ray was frozen in this rather unflattering position for the duration.

Emie enjoyed sleeping with air conditioning.

All kidding aside, we were REALLY lucky and happy to help our uncomfortable friends. If you want to see some really crazy pictures of the damage in South Texas, click here.

On another sad note, my school, YES Prep North Central for you new readers of the blog, was severely damaged in the storm. We have three buildings on our campus - middle school, high school, and gym. The high school building was completely flooded and 2/3 of the roof was ripped off and/or caved in. We lost about 10 classrooms, 5 offices, our cafeteria, our library, and our auditorium. The damage will take about a semester to repair and rebuild. Our school leaders are currently determining what to do. We will most likely have to move half of our campus to another location, which causes all kinds of logistical nightmares. My classroom is in the middle school building, but my heart goes out to those teachers whose classrooms are no more. So please keep our school in your prayers as we determine how to press on with almost 700 kids who deserve a great education, no matter the physical circumstances. As I get more updates, I'll post ways you can help if you'd like. I'm sure we will be in need of many things. Thanks for your concern over the last few days!