Hey y'all!  Its Lily Schafer.
Today was/is a wonderful day.  We got to the site around 7, and immediately set to work finishing flooring the hallway in Miss Gwen's house.  We only had a very thin stripe along the all left...but we didn't finish yet.  There was one piece that was tricky to cut around a doorway that just wouldn't flush (come together all of the way) for a majority of the time.  Harrison (a worker at RHINO) and I finally got it after something like 3 hours.  After that, we put a few more boards in before one that refused to flush again, and Erica and I gave up when Miss Gwen showed up.
Miss Gwen literally was the sweetest, funniest and most awesome lady i've ever met!  She gave us all hugs (while commenting about Maggie "lord you are short) before telling us an hour long story about her experience during and after Katrina.  She was trapped on her roof for four days with her husband, Charles, her son Ranell (who was eventually picked up by a helicopter.  "They kept shouting for me to come, but I told them to take my son.  He was finna have a nervous breakdown"), and some neighbors who they rescued from their roof.  They too were rescued on day two.  Charles and Gwen then jumped off of their roof, and swam/walked to an airport, where they waited another day before flying to San Antonio, Texas.  She stayed in Texas until loosing everything again during Hurricane Ike in 2008.  She took it as a sign to return home, where she struggled to try and rebuild her home.  Gwen, an amputee after being shot in the leg in a drive by in 1996, still remained optimistic until she got the call that people were coming to fix her house.  "I nearly fell outta my mamas chair I was so happy," she said.  Religion was also very important to her too.  She told me as we walked up the stairs that she was so happy that we were there fixing God's and her house.  "It was his house, and then it was mine," she said during her story.  Her story was inspirational, powerful, hilarious and wonderful.  It didn't feel like an hour, it felt like a few minutes.  We were all so entranced by her story.  It was a highlight of the trip.  Her hope was amazing.  She said when she saw the floor "lord, this is the most lovely floor I've ever seen."  She was beautiful, and I will never, EVER, forget her.