Chesterton Tornado Clean Up

As most of you know, on Wednesday, August 19th, at 7:35 pm Chesterton, Indiana was hit with an Ef2 tornado. While there were watches posted, there was no advance warning of the storm because there was a hardware failure on the sirens. The Chesterton Middle School roof was damaged as well as the Duneland Resale Shop. Several other businesses and homes have been damaged as well.

One of the garage's

The devastation is hard to believe, but what's more incredible is that fact that no one was seriously hurt when you look at these pictures. The tornado was Wednesday night, but it was Friday before we found out about the first family that we have been blessed to help. This family moved here two years ago from California. They moved into this home last year. There are well over 50 trees down on the property of four acres. These pictures don't do the devastation justice. The family has been overwhelmed with the generosity of those in our small town. There were several volunteers from the community on Saturday and over 20 on Sunday from the community and local churches.

This is the view from their front door.

Popolano's restaurant in Chesterton was kind enough to donate lunch for the volunteers who showed up on Sunday. We want to thank them for their generosity.

Their swimming pool

The garage attached to the house

This is just one family in Chesterton. We know that there are dozens more that will need help in the coming weeks and months. We hope that you will take this opportunity to reach out and help a neighbor in need. Please keep in mind, that if you know of someone who needs help, they can post their project on our NeighborLink Porter County website. If they don't have the Internet, they can call me and I will post the project for them. We will do our very best to help them.

In Him,
Larry & Judy Alders

Just Neighbors Helping Neighbors

While this is not one of our traditional NeighborLink projects, it is the epitome of what NeighborLink is all about. Neighbors helping neighbors. On Saturday, August 15th, a group of us headed over to help a family from our church. They are in the middle of a re-model and it's crunch time as the home they are currently living in has recently sold. We had a great day. Lots of hard work, laughing and lunch! We really wished we could have finished the siding, but there is some work to be done yet.

Before

After

You can see the rest of the pictures on our Flickr page at the top of the blog on the left.

In Him,
Larry & Judy Alders

Go Day 8-1-09

We had a great morning painting the house for our recipient on Saturday, August 1st. We got a lot done and had a couple of more volunteers join us. We were focusing on the front of the house. There is still much work to be done, but he is so grateful that work has begun. This will be the focus of our next few Go Days. We hope you can join us on an upcoming Saturday.


In Him,
Larry & Judy Alders

Alternative Spring Break Saturday

NeighborLink had an awesome day on Saturday when a group of college kids came down from Kalamazoo to serve a neighbor in need. They came down to help paint this house for a gentleman who is in code violation in Valparaiso. Let me explain a code violation. Each town has standards that home owners must abide by. When your home isn't up to "code," the town will send you a notice that you must make the necessary repairs. If you do not, they can then begin to fine you until the work is done. As a worse case scenario, the amount of fines could be so much that they then place a lien on your home. We had the privilege of helping this gentleman out.

This is Allison, she and some of her friends from the Learning Center in Chesterton came down to help as well.


Larry is teaching the boys a thing or two about painting. There are quite a few other pictures of just how much fun our kids had painting here at Flickr page.


This is part of the finished product and all of the dedicated volunteers we had to help us get this project off the ground. As you can see, there is much work to be done. We will again be painting this Saturday August 1st if you would like to come out and serve for a few hours.


Thanks to the Kalamazoo Crew for all of their hard work!

In Him,
Larry & Judy Alders

Great NeighborLink Project and Volunteers

On June 13^th, a group of helping hands answered a call for help that was posted to the NeighborLink Porter County website. They gathered in Wheeler to help a family in need. A wheelchair ramp to the back of their home was constructed too steep. So caring carpenters tore it out and built a better more useful ramp. Under the leadership of George Rieger, the Missions Committee of Ogden Dunes Community Church, organized the project and on a drizzly and cloudy Saturday morning, no less than 10 ODCC people descended on Wheeler to hammer out their faith and help out this needy family. Afterwards the team gathered at Quiznos for a celebration lunch. After a few blisters, bumps and bruises, the project was complete. Come join us for our next project!

Join Us For Our Next Go Day

We will be having our next Go Day on Saturday, July 11th. We will be meeting in the cafe at Liberty Bible Church at 8:00am for a short time of fellowship and prayer and then we will head out for a few hours of service. I know for a fact that we will be painting a house for a gentleman who has received a notice from the City Of Valparaiso that his house is in code violation and needs to be repainted or they will start fining him. We had a wonderful group of youth group kids from Liberty Bible Church that went and scraped his house for him in just a few short hours. This man was so grateful. And I know he will be that much happier if we can also get it painted for him! Please let us know if you can help!

Also, we found out about a family in Portage who have been living without indoor plumbing since Christmas when the pipes in their mobile home burst. If you have any plumbing experience or know someone who does, we really want to help this family out.

Since NeighborLink started in October of last year, we have completed over 45 projects! We are so grateful for those of you who have literally been the hands and feet of Christ and who are reaching out to your neighbors! This organization could not exist without you! So thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

In Him,
Larry & Judy

New Website and Logo

We just wanted to let you know, that we have been working on updating some functions and content on the website and you can now view the changes here. We are very excited about the look of the website and our new Logo. The functions that you are used to have remained, but the look is different. We want to thank our web guy, Bill over at Midwest Web Works for a job well done. Bill is always great to work with and does a great job! We would love to know what you think of the new design.

We are humbled and grateful to our wonderful volunteers who have completed over 40 projects since our launch of NeighborLink in October. None of this would be possible without you. We hope that you will be inspired to get out and serve some of your neighbors this summer. It is a very rewarding job!

In Him,
Larry & Judy Alders