The Journey Begins

February 24, 2007
Biloxi Mission
Day One

My alarm rang and I sat up in bed thinking to myself 'it is saturday morning...why am I up this early?' Then, of course, the realization that I would soon be on a plane to Biloxi, Mississippi washed over me. Excitement rushed through my veins as I finished some last minute packing and fantasized about what this trip would bring.

Last year our lodging, food, and projects were all delightful. Even though last year I had been told not to have any expectations I still had some preconceived notions about how things would be in Mississippi. I find it extremely difficult to empty my mind of any and all expectations, and this trip was no exception. Though, luckily, just as it had happened last year all of my expectations had been wonderfully exceeded. But, more about that later!

Mark, and the little girlies, (my little sisters; Stephanie 10, and Leah 6) took us to the airport. When we arrived we all got out of the car, dragged out our suitcases and gave many hugs. My mom and I would definitely miss them and we knew of course that they would miss us as well.

Then we headed inside to meet up with our team. What an amazing group of people! I must say that I love every single one of them. We mingled and spoke excitedly about our trip and then we said a prayer before heading through security.

When we neared the plane terminal we all looked at our tickets to figure out who we would be sitting next to. The seating was arranged alphabetically so Chanel and I sat together. Both of us should have been doing homework, but we were too distracted. We talked most of the plane ride down to Atlanta, where we would be stopping and changing planes. Once again Chanel and I were together. We were both very anxious to get to Biloxi, the plane could not have been going any slower!

Finally we arrived at the Biloxi airport...and it looked exactly the same as it had a year ago. It was under construction as it had been the previous year, and I swear we walked under the exact same scaffolding and such. I wonder how long that project will take. While we were awaiting our baggage we were greeted by a man named Edwin and his son. They were volunteers from Project Teamwork, which is the organization that we were working with.

Project Teamwork works through the Salvation Army. Before this trip all I knew about the Salvation Army was that they stood outside grocery stores with red containers collecting money, I had no idea what the money went to or anything like that. After this trip I will be much more eager to drop money in the red bucket.

We gathered into two vans and were driven to our living quarters. As we drove along we began to recognize some of the places we had seen the year before, this was exciting for the veterans of our group. After a little bit in the van we pulled up to a football stadium entitled "Biloxis Yankie Stadium" We all got out of the van and went through a door under the bleachers.

The first thing that we noticed when we walked into the building were the doors to the bedrooms. Each bedroom door was surrounding with decorations that made them look like the entrances to houses, they had siding and a mini shingled roof, and even porch lights. To the left of the entrance into the building there was a door that had a wooden plaque reading 'Ladies Lodge' on it. We entered and found that it was divided into several rooms, the dividers were about 8 feet high, but they did not reach the ceiling. We figured that this must have been a locker room when it was a football stadium. Now, however, the room was painted a lilac color. There was a bathroom in our group of rooms too. All of the women in our team were placed in one room, we had 11 women and 6 bunk beds, so it worked out well, we all fit! After we looked around the room we went out into the common area. Each of the poles had been painted a different color, this was nice anc cheerful, and definitely something that made my days brighter.

The common area had a kitchen, and a bunch of tables since this was where we would be eating, and then there was a ping-pong table, a TV, a foosball table and a bunch of puzzles. This was definitely not a place that we would become easily bored.

After we had settled in we all sat down at a table and a man named Jeff came and talked to us about how things worked at 'The Village'. He layed down all of the rules and told us a little bit about his journey through Christ. We learned that inside The Village lived the people that stayed short term. Long term volunteers lived in trailers right outside the bleachers. We met a lot of the Long term volunteers and they were all very nice.

Another important thing that we learned is that meals are at 7am, 12 noon, and 6pm. The meals were wonderful, no losing weight on this trip! But, we had some extra time before dinner, so we all spread out and did our own things. One group of people went and played soccer, I went out to shoot hoops with a few people. It was a fun time, it was relaxing, and it was nice to see how well we all got along.

After dinner we arranged a ping-pong tournament which was very fun. I was put up against my mother first, and of course she crushed me, but it was still lots of fun! After a good number of us had been knocked out of the tournament we got out the game Boggle and had fun playing that. There was not a single dull moment.

It was very surreal being there. I felt free almost, free from the world. Just God's servant, with no other worries. It felt wonderful!

Oh and how could I have forgotten this...it was warm! It was in the low 70's high 60's most of the time we were there. How refreshing was that!

Anyways, that was Day One of our trip! Now only 7 days left to write about! The best is yet to come!



Loving you!
Special Love to my mission team!