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)