Flag Raising on May 6th

We noticed that the flag at Lakeshore was not looking too well (actually, Tony noticed). We bought a new one and put it up before we left. Check out the pictures that Emily took.

Thanks Emily!

Slideshow Video

Check out the slideshow that was presented this morning. The music has been changed to protect the innocent, but all of the pictures are unchanged. Enjoy!

Pictures from Tom Rogers

Tom sent me an email with a bunch of pictures attached. Enjoy:

Tom Roger's MtM07

Thoughts from Mike Kestner

Mike passed along his thoughts via email a couple of days ago and I've been a bit lazy about getting it posted. Here it is:

Well, as always, the efforts of all were such an encouragement. Both times I have gone, I have been blessed by the fellowship of the mission team. Each person putting aside his or her own problems, troubles and needs, of which we all had in abundance, to help someone else. We all shared moments that we would only have shared with old friends. I made friends that will last for a lifetime. From the pirate princess and of course Andrew to all the others who I think were much older than I (just kidding).

Though we worked hard what we did was nothing more than a small dent. I think what we mostly did was offer encouragement to the ones who must live here everyday. That experience the slow grinding motions that rebuilding always encompasses. James Bobbitt, who tries anything he can to help when he lives in a house in the middle of the construction process himself. Pastor Don, who has a girl drive him around to offer encouragement wherever it is needed because he is all but legally blind. There is also the girl [Jamie Dunbar] who came for a couple weeks and ended up staying a year and still going. Or the guy at Home Depot, who really hasn’t noticed much change when I told him how much better everything looked.

It sometimes is easy to look around and wonder why there are not more people out working to help themselves. Why is there still so much trash in the yards? Why aren’t people working together? These are things that have run through our heads. But, I didn’t lose everything that I owned. I didn’t lose friends, family, children or life-long possessions. The despair has not stolen my hope. Our compassion for these people must be so great as to look past our own reasoning or our own expectations.

God didn’t say help only those that help themselves. What he said was help all that ask. To push beyond and give things that it hurts to give. To give your time even when you don’t think you have it to give. It is our walk with the Lord; it is our mission to come to the aid of others. The struggle is with the devil that battles in our minds and tries to say that they do not deserve help or that they are not helping themselves. Or even that our own needs are just as much or even greater. The walk is definitely ours to make.

Finally, “Forty Days of Purpose” never ends. There will always be needs and there will always be cries for help. Even as we were in Mississippi, Kansas was hit and people lost everything. Jesus said that there would always be poor and that there would always be a need. Let us always be open to help to give and to stretch beyond what we think we can do. There are two little girls who sleep on a couch because their rooms were flooded a couple years back. Numerous people from Park Valley have given there Saturdays and evenings to make this a better situation and bring it to a conclusion but as always in this business it was a bigger thing than we thought. So the project grinds on and the mission and the walk will continue.

As a church, won’t it be great if we could continually reach out and always have a project in the works and that there would always be an over abundance of volunteers to help. May the Lord open our hearts and place a desire there that will never be satisfied to help others in there time of need no matter how large or small.

Thanks to Park Valley for helping me to participate and greetings to all my new friends and also the old, may the Lord live in your lives abundantly.

Mike

Even More Pictures!

Tom & Vicki passed along their pictures to me today at church. Check them out here or click on the picture below. All those that haven't sent me theirs already, please do! Thanks.

Tom & Vicki's MtM 2007

More Pictures!

Check out the Duvall's web gallery of their pictures here. I'll include these on the DVD, so no need to download them all yourself, but you can check them out in the meantime.

A Link from Pastor Don

Pastor Don has linked to our website here and posted a picture from our posted picture gallery. The picture that he posted is of my driveway. That doesn't sound like it would be too interesting, but you should take a look. Emily (my daughter) got creative with chalk and wanted to wish us well on our trip.

Pastor Don also had a kind word for our team's work. You guys rock!

Tony's thoughts on Mission to Mississippi

I have been trying to get other people's perspective of the trip up here on the website. Tony is the first to send me his thoughts and here they are:

We traveled far, encouraged, shared sorrows, we showed our support to James Bobbitt, Pastor Don, and to all we came in contact with. We worked hard for long days and gave as much of our strength as we could muster. It rained on us. The bugs beat. The sun burned us. It was Mississippi hot. We got dirty. We used our gifts and skills to help progress the recovery. The bed was hard. I hear the snoring was loud but I was asleep. The kitchen sergeants were tough and the food was not as good as last year. The toilet facilities were not good and the shower had a line. The flight home was late and Dulles’ ground transportation was terrible. We gathered as strangers and went home friends. We shared our experiences and thoughts and we laughed a lot. Jesus Christ was our example and being more like him is our mission. If we grew, learned, loved, and achieved anything on this mission all glory goes to God. The mission started the day we believed and put Jesus in our hearts. The mission continues.

Thanks to Tony for his thoughts.

Day 5: Mission to Mississippi

We're Home!

It did take a while - part of the reason I didn't really write this post last night. Our flight from Atlanta to Dulles was delayed by an hour and fifteen minutes. Then, when we got to Dulles, there wasn't a spot for our plane. Then the fuel truck was in the way of the "mobile lounge". It was all smooth from there, though.

Day 5 was really just a traveling day, so not too much interesting really happened. We got a late start (at least I did, others were up reasonably early) and enjoyed some doughnuts that Bob bought for the group. Lisa (and some others?) visited some jobsites with James and Danny caught James up on the progress we made on the Ladner's roof. We cleaned up and then each car decided how to get from Waveland to Gulfport and where to eat breakfast. Many of us ended up at a few of the dozens of Waffle Houses that exist between those two locations. Christa thought it funny that the breakfast was pretty good except for the waffles - they could have been better.

Security didn't take long at Gulfport, although most of us got "puffed" before we went through the metal detector (that was only my second time being "searched" like that). We hung out together in Atlanta. A game of Pig was played and perhaps a few others.

I was able to get some pictures uploaded (my own), but am hoping for others from group members. Here's our group shot on the last day:

Here is a before and after photo of the Ladner's house:

Here is the entire album of my pictures:

Mission to Mississippi 2007

Day 4: Mission to Mississippi 2007

Our last day of work - and we did work hard.

Today our team finished up several big-ish projects.

Keith & Josette's house:
Bob, Robbie, David and Tom (Rogers) worked hard carting concrete to the holes they had gotten inspected yesterday afternoon. The ground was soft so the cement truck couldn't back far enough to chute right to the first row of holes. The softness also didn't help the wheelbarrows. After emptying the holes of water, Bob and David made sure the cement was at the right level. The cement operator was very helpful and mentioned that our being here was making him consider going back to church. Keith and Josette offered to feed them crawdads and they stayed and enjoyed.

Cindy Ladner's house:
We worked hard to get the roof rafters up and had to improvise a bit. The sun beat down and took a lot out us, but we did get all the rafters up and started on the OMB sheeting. Fortunately, there is a framing crew coming tomorrow or Monday that will be able to catch up where we left off so the project will continue moving forward.

Bo's house:
The women painted, stained and painted some more. Bo came by to help and they did get much accomplished despite the humid (very humid) conditions.

Store/Warehouse Operations:
And part of our team continued to work hard with the free distribution warehouse and store. They've been working toward helping the Lakeshore people be able to get out of the gymnasium that they have been using as a warehouse. As well as continuously stocking shelves for the seemingly unending stream of customers.

Dinner:
We ate out at Las Palmas - a small Cuban restaurant not far from the church. Good food and lots of it.

Evening meeting:
We got together at 10pm to share again. We had just hanging out and chatting - I think some of it was sleep deprivation - but we have gotten comfortable enough with each other to just talk.

Leaving our mark:
I'll post a picture tomorrow or Monday of our mark, but Diana, Andrew and Raquel worked hard to provide something much larger than a t-shirt to leave our mark with.

Day 3: Mission to Mississippi 2007

More work today - but sustained rains made it difficult to get too much done.

It rained all night and into the afternoon. It didn't stop until 3pm making us all pretty soggy. Worse yet, the lightning kept the framing group (a few of our guys and the Alabama crew) from continuing work.

Fortunately, the rain did stop and some work did get done. The cement foundation crew was able to get their work inspected and approved so that the cement could be poured tomorrow. In addition, Danny got up to speed on the framing job, which we will be continuing tomorrow.

The ladies (and Andrew) continued to work hard in the warehouse and store - trying to keep them in good shape for the next week.

Day 2: Mission to Mississippi 2007

Today we got down to work. We worked hard as four separate teams and then got together at 9pm (we worked late) to talk about the day.

Lisa Malone took charge with the warehouse operations and kept Emily Chaplin, Vicki Boggess and Andrew Bulkeley busy. They worked hard (despite telling us that they took a nap). They got things in order at the warehouse and stocked up the sheds for the "store". In the store, Debbie and Raquel worked hard to keep the shelves stocked. They had a lot of customers throughout the day that kept them busy.

Some of the ladies (Christa, Emily, Laura and Diana) did some inside work at a house still under construction. They sanded drywall, painted on some primer, stained cabinets and stained an outside wall.

One of the groups of guys (Tony, Mike, Danny, Mark, Tom and Tom) worked on setting and digging 36 holes for a house's foundation. The auger that was rented from home depot was barely up to the task, but it turns out, also didn't have a functioning alternator. About two hours in to our job, the unit just quit. The guy over at home depot was helpful and bought a new battery. Unfortunately, it too died after several hours - just before the last hole or two was dug. At that point, we had to call it a night, and it was a night. We didn't get back to the church until almost 7:45.

The other group of guys (Bob, Robbie and David) finished up some other foundation work, but this one for a concrete foundation requiring (as I understand it) lots of bent rebar. After they rented the right kind of bender for it, they were able to get the job done well. They were able to get to know the family and their story. They (family of five) were here when the storm came and fought hard to survive. They did, only to find the aftermath quite difficult. Insurance paid them little, but they still owe on their previous (no longer existing) home. They are working hard to get their new house built and we are glad that we can help.

I'm tired and the snoring has started already, so I will finish up. Please comment if you have any questions.

Day 1: Mission to Mississippi 2007

We're here. Despite not getting too much work done today, I think we are all ready for bed - even though its only 9:30 EPT. Here's what we were up to:

We all made it without incident to Dulles and through the long day of travel. Our layover time in Atlanta was longish, but it did allow us to get to know each other a little bit better. Our flight landed on time at Gulfport, MS where we found the airport under heavy construction, but perfectly suitable. We jumped in our rental vans and scattered.

When I say we scattered, we ended up taking different routes to Waveland. A couple of cars hit I-10, and another bunch went on US-90. The latter route, US-90, had a notable bridge taken out by Hurricane Katrina, so the group of us that went down it did so only after consulting the MS DOT website to ensure that the road was not out of commission. The website was silent on any bridge closure, but sure enough, 5 miles away we were sent on a detour back to I-10. It turns out not to have been a total waste, because the groups that went down I-10 were backed up in traffic due to a horrendous accident (it delayed them 30 minutes; sadly, several people died in the accident).

We all eventually made it to Lakeshore Baptist. We didn't get too much done but some distribution/store work did get done. In addition, the skilled among us went (which does not include me) went with the project coordinator to survey our work site for several days. We are going to be spending effort trying to get a post foundation set correctly and will hopefully have some other painting projects to report on as well.

We are fortunate to have a couple of old pros in the kitchen. Dinner was great and we look forward to more good food!

We were able to hear Pastor Don preach - something we missed out on last year due to him attending a conference (his first break since the storm). The Wednesday evening service was great. There are two other large teams here, one from Michigan with a bunch of teens and a big group from Alabama of "more experienced" folks. All groups were down previously and felt burdened to come back. We are looking forward to working alongside of them.

I will not be the "official" team photographer this year - Robbie Berriz brought his 30D and already has been snapping away. I will try to steal (borrow?) some of his pictures and post them as soon as they are available. [Update: I was able to steal a couple of pictures and upload them:

The team waiting in Atlanta:


Unloading our first trailer's worth of goods:

The men are all bunking in the main church building (good thing I brought my ear plugs). The women are in the converted shipping containers and small bunk rooms right next to them. I think we are all excited to get to work tomorrow and ready for some rest.