Mississippi Mission Trip News and Photo Links

 

Monday

Hopefully you have all heard from your sons or daughters and already know that we arrived safely in New Orleans and made the trek to Bay St. Louis, MS without incident. We arrived at Mission on the Bay late last night, around 11:00 PM, and I think everyone was grateful for a soft mattress and a place to lay prone for a change. The train trip was fun, but I believe we all agree that it was just a tad bit too long.

We had a productive first day. Our day began with a lengthy greeting and orientation session. Through a show of hands we found out that St. Alban’s is the only group out of the 5 or 6 here that has been here before. Of course, our kids are rather enjoying their “seniority.”

Our job today was to paint the interior of a house that is being rebuilt. The house is owned by a gentleman, Michael, who is on full disability after suffering an accident on a cargo ship. He is too young to have had both hips replaced, a steel plate in his skull and several back surgeries. Our team swarmed his new home and finished the paint job by 3:30. You can be very proud of the St. Alban’s youth. Working in sweltering (95° ) heat there was lots of laughter, lots of water and Gatorade and much singing by Sarah and Aleca. Michael came into the house from his FEMA trailer a few times and was just amazed at how much work we had accomplished. He was thrilled that he could call the electrician in a week early. After we returned to camp we gathered for a few moments to talk about the day’s events. Everyone agreed that just seeing Michael’s face, and hearing his heart-felt expressions of appreciation, was well worth the effort. We’ll see what tomorrow brin gs.

Photos are posted - links for a few photos from the train trip, and from today's activities, can be found at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jeffshankles/20080720TheJourneyToMississippi?authkey=e7LaGH0uuMc

http://picasaweb.google.com/jeffshankles/20080721MissionOnTheBayDayOne?authkey=Q4zPaSjRm-c

 

Tuesday

Today was about as exhausting as it gets. Our group was sent back to Michael’s house (we painted the interior yesterday) to install a laminated floor. Luckily we had two experienced installers with us, Kristy and Justin. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take 16 people to install a floor. The whole group worked to scrape the floors smooth (a necessary step for installing laminated floors) and then we left four of our team at Michael’s house to do the installation while the rest of us returned to Mission on the Bay to pick up another job. The floor installers finished the living room and most of the kitchen, while the rest of the team worked hard to lay a paver path in the front yard of a home that has been rebuilt after hurricane Katrina.

Tomorrow our team takes a down day (and a much deserved down day after two days in the hot Mississippi sun). We’ll send photos and updates of the activities we have planned for tomorrow.

Today’s photos are at: http://picasaweb.google.com/jeffshankles/20080722MissionOnTheBayDayTwo?authkey=_ITkGJxrrpk

 

Wednesday

 

Today was a little...different.  We decided early on in the planning for the mission trip to try to take one day to do something fun and to have an opportunity to relax.  So we went to an alligator farm.  It doesn't get much more relaxing than that.  Our visit to the 'gator farm included a tour on a 20-passenger air boat through the swamps of coastal Mississippi where we got to see, among other things, a 16-foot alligator with one eye.  We like to think of the gator farm visit as a fact finding mission.  The farm was destroyed by hurricane Katrina and most of the wildlife, including alligators, turtles and other swimming creatures, were either killed by the storm surge or escaped into civilized places when the fences were covered by Katrina's floods.  The boat tour was a lot of fun.  There's nothing like having a 16-foot carnivorous creature bump your boat with it's head.
 
After a wonderful lunch with local flavors of po'boys and gumbo we drove through Pascagoula, Biloxi and Gulfport and saw some of the destruction that is still visible.  Biloxi and Gulfport are most well known for the floating casinos which are anchored on barges just yards off shore in the Gulf.  The casinos are huge, and most of them were hurled several hundred feet across the beach front road during the storm.  That strip of road, Beach Blvd., is beautiful today and looks like a miniature version of Las Vegas.  The only way to know that a disaster ever hit is to look to inland, across the street from the casinos, where small businesses and homes are still missing from their empty lots and foundations.
 
Tomorrow it's back to work, finishing up Michael's floor, and who knows what else we'll be doing.

 

Thursday

 

Our group continued working in two teams today.  Our "flooring" team of Justin, Hunter, Eric and Will was joined by Rose and Aleca.  The six nearly finished the floors in Michael's new home.  The kids have had a great experience of both helping out a stranger in need, and also the chance to learn a new skill.  Parents, I strongly encourage you all to capitalize on the newfound skills our youth have acquired.  The laminate floors, as you can see in the photos, look fantastic.  Rose also apparently learned how to ski on laminate that is just laying loose on the floor.  In her excitement to finish the kitchen pantry Rose dashed into the room with the last piece of cut board, stepped on a loose piece of flooring and her feet shot out from under her.  The only injuries were to the ego.
 
After today's activity there will be some seriously sore muscles tomorrow for the other team.  We were sent to Waveland, the next town down the coast, to work on Judy and Gerald's lot.  Their home happened to be the spot where five other houses in the neighborhood happened to land during Katrina's storm surge.  The lot was clear, for the most part, but there were two large piles of dirt mixed with asphalt and concrete chunks that needed to be spread and smoothed down.  We worked for about six hours with pick axes, shovels and rakes and left at 3:30 with a nice, smooth lot on which Judy and Gerald can begin rebuilding their home.  For most of the residents, including Judy and Gerald, rebuilding is a painfully slow process as they cannot afford insurance and building materials are expensive.  They hope to begin building in October.  Our team hopes to be able to see a completed house the next time we're in the neighborhood.
 

 

Friday

 

It was our last day of work...and we didn't let up until the end.  The flooring team finished up Michael's house and he was estatic.  He's excited to move in, and the only thing holding him up is a lack of water to the house.  It's always something.  A Presbyterian group from South Carolina joined up with our guys and girls at Michael's house and worked on the bottom of the home (the house, like most in the area, is on stilts).
 
Something we learned today that was a little surprising concerns the workforce in the area.  Because so many people have left the area, and because of the amount of construction projects going on, there is a shortage of manpower.  In our area of Northern Virginia it is easy to round up casual labor, but here it's tough to find people to landscape or to even pick up litter for the city.  So the rest of the team worked with Jimmy and Jerry, two Bay St. Louis city employees, to do some landscape work around the new Bay St. Louis bridge.  Jimmy and Jerry were a lot of fun to work with, and it was interesting hearing their perspective on the hurricane.  Like just about everyone else we've met down here, they both lost everything they had, their insurance has been cancelled and they're trying to rebuild.
 
Last night our kids led the group worship time and did a great job.  After opening with a prayer from the service of Compline, they asked the rest of the camp participants for their reflections on what they've seen and done since they've been here, and then led the group in a rousing version of "This Little Light of Mine," with accompaniest Eric Jurenas playing the electric organ in a honkey-tonk/jazz style.
 
Our wake-up call tomorrow is 4:30 AM.  Our train leaves New Orleans at 7:10 AM and we'll be back at Union Station at 10:10 AM Sunday morning.  See you then!
 
Photos of the team working with Jimmy on the "chain gang" are at: 

http://picasaweb.google.com/jeffshankles/20080725MissionOnTheBayDayFive?authkey=iCxx4JIetl8