Day Three

February 26, 2007
Biloxi Mississippi
Day 3

This was our first workday. Though it was an early start in the morning, and I hadn't had the best sleep ever I was still excited to get up and moving. I wanted to start the work that I had been anticipating for months. We began the day with a prayer and a wonderful breakfast. Then we waited for direction. First we were split into different teams. One team painted and the other team worked on a house. I was on the house building team. I did not do any painting last year, and I didn't do any painting this year.

We spent about an hour gathering supplies for our worksite and then the house building team all piled into a car and drove for about 10 minutes. We arrived at a very old house. The house was lucky enough not to have been completely flattened, thanks to the casino between the beach and their house, but even though they didn't have water damage the store that had been next to their house, had hit their house and moved it to be lopsided and the walls were then all messed up. So that, and the fact that the house was over 100 years old, made the necessity for reparations very serious.

When we got out of the van we were introduced to the home owners, Darlene and Reggie Harvey. As we worked with them we grew to know them better and better, and they really are two very sweet people. Reggie had been helping people around the neighborhood fix up their houses with the immense collection of specialty tools in his shed. Reggie helped us out a lot, and any time we were in need of a tool it was inevitable that Reggie would have it in his shed. Reggie's wife Darlene is battling ovarian cancer, but even so Darlene was outside with us everyday. And not only was she always outside with us, but she was working with us also.

Now in addition to the members of our team from CCCSH and the Harvey's we had two people that were the leaders of our group. Tim was a man that had come to Mississippi to help before, and he was back again with a group from...Iowa? Indiana?...A state that I do not remember but I think it begins with an 'I'. Anyways, he had worked with our Salvation Army leader Ken, and Ken stuck him in our group when he found out how big of a job this house would be. Now, Ken was the main leader of the group. He was a pleasure to work with. He truly was a fun guy to work with, and he was very understanding. Though I know there are times when I messed up and other people would get frustrated he just told everyone makes mistakes and it could be done over. A side note about Ken, he was pronounced volunteer of the year last year by President Bush.

So, back to the project, we needed to strip the siding off of the house, change the sizes of the window openings, put in new windows, install insulation, and put up new siding. This is a very big job, lots of things to do, but it starts out a little slowly because there is only one type of job to start, and that is taking off the old siding. So a group of people started that, I helped by taking the wood to a big pile. I helped take nails out too, it was difficult to pry the nails out because they were old and the wood was a very hard pine.

When we took the siding off we realized that a lot of the studs were warped or bowed and some weren't even really attached to the top and bottom. Some were held on by the siding. So we cut new boards for studs to help hold up the house and some to put between the studs to make the sections smaller and easier to put the insulation in.

At some point during this process we packed up and went back to the village for lunch. Everyday at lunch about 200 volunteers from all over the area got together under a red tent or in the fresh air on the field and we all ate lunch. Everyday we had sandwiches, and everyday there was chocolate. The chocolate was my favorite part!

After lunch we returned to the Harvey house and we started working again. We managed to take all the siding off of the front, the windows in the front were taken out, and I believe some of the siding was taken off the side of the house too. We also started putting in the insulation. We got most of the front insulated. This was nicebecause it meant that I had a job to do, before the insulation I mainly talked to the Darlene. Although, talking really is a powerful tool on a mission trip. I got to hear a lot about Darlenes story. It was quite interesting hearing about how this house had been passed down through generations. It had even been a storehouse.

Near the end of our day we met a sweet old lady named Rene, but we fondly refered to her as "The Cookie Lady" because she brought our group yummy cookies several of the days we worked on the house. She lived alone with her dog, and she loved to bake for people. She said that it was her dog that saved her during Katrina by waking her up. She was a very sweet lady and we definitely enjoyed her encouragement.

At the end of the day we were sad to pack up but we needed to get back to the village for dinner. We would return the next day to work more. So we cleaned up all of our tools, and we formed a prayer circle, and we prayed over our work and the house and the Harveys before we left.

Dinner was delicious as it was every night and showering after a long day of work felt so good.

We had a meeting for our team where we sang songs and talked about our day, and all of the God moments. It was cool to reflect and to hear about the other teams day, they had been working on painting a house. They were able to finish the painting I believe, they are so amazing!

Loving you!
Special Love to my mission team!