And we're off.....

Well, after 11 days in the hotel, the decontamination process in our quarters has finally begun!  The German "haz-mat" crew arrived this morning, ready to work.  It is a multi-day, multi-step process!  Today, I arrived at the house at 8am, where I was quickly placed into a lovely, "bio-hazard" suit.  After everyone was suited-up, we went into the house where the crew packed up all of our clothing and other "textile" items into special bags, where they were then transported to a laundry facility that would properly wash (decontaminate) everything.

This is me in my "protective gear" since I had to go into the house and supervise the packing up of our clothing!

Packing up our basement area

The MANY bags of our stuff, heading out to be decontaminated!  We're thankful that we didn't have all of our household goods delivered, or it would've been a longer mess!

Once the clothes were out, the rest of the process was explained to me.

Air samples would be taken inside and outside of our quarters, and would be left to "collect" all day, then the technician would return at the end of the day to collect all the samples, along with several "tape" samples from different surfaces in our house, outside the house and our trampoline. 

We had several of these placed throughout the house, in the front yard and in the back yard.

Today, they would inspect 50 oak trees in the nearby vicinity of our quarters, checking for other nests, removing any found, and treating the trees.  I don't know how many they found today, but I do know that our friends across our cul-de-sac had 4 in the adjacent backyard (to their duplex).  I will find out Monday how many more were found.

On Monday, they will begin to work on the ouside of the house.  I don't know exactly how they will clean it up, but I do know they have a special vacuum cleaner that will "suck the hairs up" and then they will use high temperature steaming, which will de-activate the poison on the caterpillar hairs.  They will treat the roof, outside walls, screens, windows, patio furniture, patio, trampoline, driveway, sidewalk....everywhere outside.

On Tuesday, they will begin inside the house.  Here they will treat all the ceilings, walls, floors, windows, fire place, remaining items in the house, such as suitcases, and other items with hard "non-textile" surfaces.

In essence, they said they work from top to bottom, outside to inside...this will help keep the contaminants OUT of the house once they begin to clean the inside (since the outside has already been cleaned)!

On Wednesday (or Thursday), when they complete the cleaning, the technician will return to collect more samples, and will take them up to Landstuhl Medical Center (about an hour away) which has a lab that will run the samples. 

There's still some uncertainty as to "what" the results will show from the air samples, since this is the first case for this area.  When they "dumbed" it down for me, they said they hoped that the numbers would go down, showing there were less contaminants after thay cleaned, than before.

We will have to await the results before we are allowed to move back into our quarters, and ask for you to join us in prayer, to move back in as quickly as possible.  Everyone is getting tired of "hotel living" and really want to be in our beds, with our furniture and blankets!  There's a possibility of us returning to our quarters a week from Friday, though it seems that the likelihood is dwindling....and may not be until the 26th or 28th!  :(

Right now, though we're growing weary ....we are trying to hold fast in the knowledge that everyone is doing the best they can here on post, and are advocating for us.  Even greater than that, I love knowing that God has our home picked out for us, and I know that His timing is perfect.....and we will get into our house, in His perfect timing!