BACK HOME AGAIN!

It's hard to believe how quickly our time in Mississippi flew by! We arrived home Sunday, March 19 right at noon (minus Brad & Rebecca, who flew home on Friday and Saturday, respectively). From what I heard, the trip home was much faster than the trip there, mostly because everyone was so tired they slept most of the way!

A couple days have passed now since we have been back and we have had a little time to process some of the things we experienced. Already, some of the students have had phone conversations with the homeowners that they worked with. It's fun to think that some relationships have been built that will most certainly last beyond this trip.

This time something that really hit me about the trip was the fact that in the world and especially in the family of God we all need each other. We were created to live in community and when storms, disasters, and hard times come upon each of us (as they most certainly will at some point in time) God has given us the gift of each other as one of the ways to help us through. I went down to Ocean Springs thinking that I was there to help others, and found that I was helped in my own time of need. When I had my own personal storm, it was a homeowner named Linda who we had helped on both of our trips who then came to my aid, and it was the students who were there to help the residents of Ocean Springs who also helped me. I want to give a special thanks to each of you who went on the trip for allowing yourselves to be agents through which God's love flowed to me!

There is still much to be done in Ocean Springs and in the coastal areas of Mississippi and Louisiana. I drove through New Orleans on the way to the airport on Saturday and I was shocked to see miles and miles of flooded out, wind-damaged, unoccupied homes. Even in Mississippi, where the rebuilding process is much further along, it is estimated that it will take at least 5 years to get things fairly close to the way they used to be.

Once again, I encourage each and every person who reads this blog to consider the needs of the hundreds of thousands who have been affected by last summer's hurricanes and to arise to meet those needs in any way that is within your means. If you can go, then go; if you can send money, then send it; if you can donate supplies, then donate them; and if you can pray, then pray. I have been shown anew that each of us needs to do our part to give hope and help to all of our neighbors, near and far.

If you would like to know some specific items that are needed, organizations that you can donate supplies or money to, and people that you can be praying for, please contact Rebecca at heyrebecca@csf.net. Also, we may be planning another relief trip this summer, so keep checking the blog or talk to Rebecca for more details!

You can also check out some pics from our Katrina Relief Trip 2 on the CSF Photo Site. Thanks for reading our blog and God bless!

(posted by Rebecca at 4:59 pm on 3/21/06)

Another Update

We just got done with another day of hard work! We had people at several different houses once again doing a variety of different tasks. Most of our teams have had the opportunity to interact with their homeowners pretty extensively over the course of the week, so it has been fun to get to know them better. It's also been fun because many teams are nearing the end of the jobs they have been working on. One team finished the roof it was working on today, another team finished up a couple of jobs that they have been mudding and sanding for three days in a row, and another team finished cleaning out and sanitizing several houses they have been working on the past several days. It's fun to be at a point where we can look back and see all the progress we have made in our short time here!

Tonight we also had a BBQ in the big community tent. We were honored to host John and Dot (the homeowners whose roof we have been repairing), Ray (a homeowner we are working with who lost his wife during the storm) and his friend Les and Burt, and Linda (the homeowner we met last time we were working here through First Baptist Church and whose house we have been working on in the evenings). It was a fun time of eating and talking together. We also sang some worship songs and Tony shared his story of how he became a Christ follower. All in all, it was a great evening!

I'm getting ready for bed tonight with mixed emotions about tomorrow being our last day of work. We are all tired out and ready to sleep in our own beds again, but it's hard to leave when there is still so much work to be done. Once again, I am compelled to tell others about the true situation down here in Mississippi and how the need is much greater than you can imagine. If you can come and help, I hope and pray you will do it soon!

(posted by Rebecca at 9:17 pm on 3/16/06)

Wednesday's Update

Unfortunately, I seem to have lost the blog I posted here on Wednesday. I'm going to do my best to recapture what I said the first time, but it might not be quite as thorough!

The weather today was in the high 60's, which was just great. Monday it was almost 80, which was too hot for most us Minnesotans, especially those working on the roofing team. We were told the the weather in Mississippi has an endless cycle of getting hot, raining, cooling down, then getting hot again, then raining again, and then cooling down again. The rain came on Monday and Tuesday night, and the cool weather followed. The only time we aren't quite as thankful for the cool weather is at night, when it has been a little hard for us to stay warm!

We are actually staying in big plastic army tents. There are 30 of us in the girls tent - 21 from our group and 9 from Tennessee. Our tent has 10 sets of bunk beds in it and each bed is three bunks high. There are no mattresses however - all that is on the wood frame is a thin foam pad, so it's not quite as comfy as home!

Our bathrooms are mostly port-a-potties (or port-a-lets as they call them here in the South) although the church does have a couple of bathrooms that we can use and our showers are in big tents and trailers set up behind the church. All in all, it's a lot like camping, but we can't complain too much. In a couple of days, we get to go home, but all the people who lost their homes to the storm and are now living in trailers have lots more days ahead of them in their cramped quarters.

Overall, things are going well. I have been really impressed by the hard-working group of students on this trip. For the past couple of nights (including tonight) groups of students have been working during the day, coming back for supper and devotions, and then going out to work for a couple more hours at night. They have been trying to find time to work on Linda's home. She is one of the homeowners we worked with through First Baptist Church last time and this time we are putting up & painting her trim. It's so cool to be able to continue that relationship with her and she is so grateful for our continued help!

That's about it tonight - more tomorrow!

(posted by Rebecca on 3/15/06)

Pictures of Us Working

Check the CSF Photo Site for more pictures of our trip.

Working Hard

Just like I promised, today in our blog we are going to tell you more about the people we have been privileged to meet and the ways we have been able to help people rebuild their homes. The CORE (Christians Organized for Relief Efforts) camp put us to work right away yesterday morning (our work day is from 7:30 am - 4:30 pm). Because we are such a large group, we actually broke into 5 teams. 4 of those teams are working through CORE and 1 is working through the D'Iberville Community Volunteer Corps (a local organization that is partnering with Presbyterian Disaster Relief Services). The reason we chose to send one team to work in D'Iberville is because during our Christmas break trip we spend a good amount of time in the Biloxi suberb of D'Iberville. Much of the city has been destroyed by a 30 foot wave surge out of the Back Bay of Biloxi. Our hearts were touched by this little suberb and because of that we committed one of our teams on this trip to that area.

Since our team broke into so many different work crews, the best way to give you a little taste of what our groups experienced is by letting a couple of the students tell their stories. Here's what a couple of people had to share:

"Just seven miles from camp we drove along a road with many houses still intact, but no one was around. Many of the houses suffered severe flood damage being only 1 mile from the Gulf coast. Ray is eighty years old and as sweet at can be, a team of us worked with him to rebuild his home. It is amazing to see how someone who has lost so much can be so committed to moving forward. Not only did the flood waters reach the top of the tall windows in his house, but Ray lost his wife during the storm. Over lunch he shared with us his traumatic experience and how he has found hope. He is so grateful to all of the people who want to help and feel called to come to Ocean Spring’s aid. His house was stripped down to just studs and has been rebuilt on the inside. One day at a time sheetrock, mudding, painting, and furnishing is taking place and we have had the privilege to be part of it. Our team is blessed by Ray every time he smiles. Thank you for your prayers, Elizabeth A. & Amy F."

"Today five of us worked on cleaning and sanitizing two houses. The second house that we worked on had not been cleaned out since the hurricane. The owners stopped by while we were working. They were a young couple. The wife had just started school one day before the huricane hit. So after the huricane they moved to Texas where she is now going to school. I really felt like we were helping them because the husband said that he had gotten estimates of what it would cost to clean it up and he could not afford it." (posted by Alamanda)

"Since I am also a part of Team Brute Force with Alamanda, I worked on the house owned by the same young couple. Having just bought a house myself I realize what a huge financial stress it can be. As I listened to this young couple talk about having to start over in Texas, I thought about how difficult for me to make my mortgage payments and I still have a house to live in. These people still have to pay the bank back for a house that they can't even live in and when they sell it they won't be able to get any where near the amount of money that they still owe the bank. So as they are beginning their life together they will have to tackle this burden of paying off a mortgage on a house they won't even own. I'm glad that we could be here to help them and hopefully they will be able to get more money for their house when they sell it and not carry as much debt with them into the future." (posted by Amanda)

"Team SheetRock Your Face has had a pretty interesting but productive two days so far. We've actually been working through the CIty of D'Iberville. This was the city that we drove around in last time; with pretty much everything washed into the bay. They gave us name badges and sent us out. It has been a different experience for me, having been on the earlier trip, to get to a job and sort of figure out for ourselves what needs to be done and what supplies we need. The first day, we had to go to Lowes and buy some stuff, and figure out how we were going to do the tasks: finishing up a garage and some ceiling patch-jobs. Ben got to crawl around in an attic and cut pieces out of the ceiling; he seemed pretty happy with that. We didn't really get to talk to the homeowners until the third day, when there wasn't much to do but we got a chance to talk and go for a drive with Emile. He had wanted us to help him take out his furnace, but our fearless leader, Brad, and his consultant, Ben, decided we shouldn't mess with freon lines and other stuff. So, we helped Emile move some stuff so he could get more work done around his house. He showed us his tank with the fish he kept alive while riding out the hurricane, and told us about playing bass guitar with his sons- he plays their Metallica if they'll play Lynyrd Skynyrd with him. Sine their wasn't much else to do, he got in the van with us and showed us around D'Iberville. We also went to look at the destroyed bridge between Biloxi and Ocean Springs- it really put the storm in perspective to see something made of concrete and metal crumbled like a stale cookie. Anyhow, please keep us in your prayers as we continue to help out. God bless, Taylor and Team Sheetrock Your Face"

"Our team has spent the last two days roofing. The house had already been gutted and a half block down the street houses were completely destroyed. We ripped off the old shingles since we didn't have to worry about water leaking on the concrete slab below. It's awesome to be down helping out however we can, but the thing that drives us is how it affects the people of the area. Dorothy, the homeowner of the house we are roofing, has been incredibly appreciative of us being willing to come down from Minnesota to help her out in her situation. Susan, Dorothy's daughter, said that this is the most excited Dorothy has been in a long time. When Susan was talking with her mother, Dorothy had said to her, "I've seen beautiful oceans, and beautiful sunsets but going to my house and seeing 12 people on my roof is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." That's why we're here, not to rebuild homes, but to rebuild lives." (posted by Noah)

I actually got to spend the day visiting some of the same places we worked during our first trip to Ocean Springs. I went to the Distribution Center to drop off some blankets and sheets. One of the volunteers gave me a tour and I was shocked to see the warehouse looking much emptier than just two months ago. She told me that because of lack of supplies they are not sure how much longer they can stay open. I also got to see and talk with Linda, one of the homeowners we worked we in January. It was fun to see that more progress had been made on her home since we left. However, she had been unable to get anyone to come in and put up her trim, so tonight after supper and devotions a group of dedicated students headed over to her house to work late into the night putting up and painting her trim. We're so glad to that we can do something to continue helping out our friend Linda!

Thanks again and check back tomorrow to hear more about the camp we are staying in and the fun things we are doing every night!

(posted by Rebecca at 10:18 pm on 3/14/06)

Pictures of Us Being Tourists

Check out the CSF Photo Site for more pictures of our trip.

WE'VE ARRIVED!

Hello friends! Thanks so much for reading our blog and keeping up on our trip to Ocean Springs, MS! Even though we have only been gone 3 days, I feel like a lot has happened. Let's see if I can give you a good summary of everything we have seen and experienced.

We started packing up our three 15 passenger vans and our trailer on Friday night at 6 pm. After just an hour, we were ready to load up our group of 24 students and 8 adults and leave for our first stop - Baton Rouge, Lousiana. Spending 26 1/2 hours straight in the vans convinced us that we are EXTREMELY slow travelors (apparently it was only supposed to be a 19 hour trip)!

The Christian Student Center at Lousiana State in Baton Rouge providing housing for all of us and we picked up Matt at the airport there to bring our trip total up to 33 people. We split up into 5 different groups and stayed in the Student Center and in staff and students' houses. Thanks so much LSU Christian Student Center for your great hospitality!

On Sunday morning we woke up early to meet at the 8:15 am South Baton Rouge Church of Christ worship service. We experience something that was a first for many people - a non-instrumental church service, which apparently is more common in the South. We also heard a great message about loving and serving others, which I thought was a perfect start to our week!

Sunday was a full, fun day as we headed from Baton Rouge in the direction of New Orleans. First we stopped at Evergreen Plantation (www.evergreenplantation.com) in Edgard, LA for a plantation tour and then we headed on to LaPlace, LA for a swamp tour with Cajun Pride Tours (www.cajunpridetours.com). The swamp tour was a big hit and our tour guide was completely crazy - sticking his feet in the water as the alligators swam by, dropping food into their mouths, and telling lots of great stories about the swamp and all the friendly (and not-so-friendly) creatures that live there. We also all got to hold a baby alligator, and luckily no one got pushed into the water or got bit (even though there were a couple of close calls!).

Finally, we drove into New Orleans and had supper in the French Quarter at Acme Oyster House. We tried lots of good southern cooking like jambalaya, gumpo, and boiled crawfish. We finished out our time in New Orleans by visiting the legendary Cafe du Monde for their world-famous Beignets - a small, square donut covered in powdered sugar. They were a big hit with our group and we were glad we spent the extra time trying to find them (we almost gave up but Brad's persistance paid off!).

We arrived at St. Paul's Methodist Church CORE tent city in Ocean Springs, Mississippi at 10:30 pm last night and met up with 3 more students for a grand total of 36 people. We had a short orientation this morning and then broke into 5 work groups and spent the day at various work sites drywalling, sanding, mudding, roofing, cleaning, and sanitizing (check the blog tomorrow for more details about our work and stories about the people we are working with).

We are off to a good start and looking forward to a great week of working and helping. We're just excited to be used in any way we can to bless everyone we have the blessing of coming into contact with! Please keep us in your prayers and keep checking the blog for regular updates (there is wireless internet here at the church, so I should be able to put up new posts pretty regularily this week). Have a great night!

(posted by Rebecca at 7:37 pm on 3/13/06)

KATRINA RELIEF TRIP 2

After an amazing first trip to Ocean Springs from 12/28/05-1/5/06 to help with relief work, we have decided to organize a second relief effort. We will continue to partner with Woodbury Lutheran Church here in MN, and this time we will stay at and work St. Paul's Methodst Church in Ocean Springs cleaning out houses and yards, putting up sheetrock, and just helping out any way that we can.

We are so excited to currently have 35 people signed up for this trip. We would appreciate your prayers as we are in the final stages of preparation. You can also pray for us while we are in MS, that we would have safety in travels and in the work we are doing, that we would be able to bring help and hope to many needy families, and that everyone who goes along would be able to make some great connections and build friendships with each other.

If you want more details about this trip, contact Rebecca at heyrebecca@csf.net. Partial funding for this trip has been provided by the University of Minnesota Community Initiative in partnership with Coca-Cola.

(posted by Rebecca on 3/6/06)