After some changes to our original accomodations. We headed to The Mt. Pleasant United Methodist Church located in the Turkey Creek community of Gulfport. It was a very, very old church. It was also the week for their VBS which meant we couldn't use the Fellowship hall until after it was over each night, nor could we begin our meal preparations until it was over. (Did I mention my main responsibility was to be the cook?) We also couldn't use the rooms that had been set up as volunteer sleeping quarters. So we now had all of the girl's sleeping in the Sanctuary of this little old church and boy did it smell. The Jr. High boys were placed in an adjacent Sunday school class, and the Senior High boys were upstairs in a Sunday school class. Did I mention how bad it smelled???? Oh it was awful. Bathrooms & showers had been added after the Hurricane, so it was not going to be easy to get 20 folks showered each night as well as the 8 folks from the other team. Also, some church members were still having to use the showers and laundry room at the church since they were living in FEMA trailers.
To say that I was less than gracious would be an understatement. My momma was not proud of me at that particular moment. (I just know she wasn't, she "raised" me better.) I had all my teenage girls lamenting "Aunt Kim, I can't sleep here....................wah". Of course, mold & mildew are 2 of my worst allergies, so I was agreeing with them. The Pastor being a man of reason, suggested we go check out another church that might could accomodate us. So off we headed to Biloxi. We visited the church where previous teams had stayed. It wasn't any better (IMHO). As we drove through what used to be Biloxi, I realized it didn't matter where we slept. We were here to do a job. The van was so quiet as the reality of what they were seeing sunk in to these kids. Of course some of the younger ones were still talking and joking, until Renee started bawling. "Shut up, just shut up, don't you get??? Every empty lot you see used to be someone's home, their life." (I was so proud of her right then, she grew up so much on this trip. I truly saw God using her that week!) It finally took seeing the Wal-Mart that was just a hollow shell for the reality to really sink in to some of those younger ones. I have very few pictures from our time in Biloxi/Gulfport. It was just too hard, and wasn't a time for taking pictures. There was way too much work to be done!
Back to the church in Turkey creek to get out work assignments. Our first project was to tear down a house. This was a family of 6 living in a little Fema trailor. They had to get their old house torn down before they could start building.
My "team" began lunch prepartions while the other teams began the "destruction". We also had another team working 2 doors down on the home of an elderly woman that had ridden the storm out in her home. The entire front of her house had to be replaced. Another team had done much of the rebuilding. Our team would be building window seals, sanding and painting. She was so precious, she had stayed because her older sister didn't want to leave. They were 82 & 84 respectfully. The storm surge came up Turkey creek flooding areas that had never flooded before, and the area had also been hit by tornados as well. Even though it was approaching a year since the storm hit, many areas looked as if it had only been a few weeks.
We called each family that we helped our "neighbor" and always invited them to share our meal. They really seemed to enjoy our Mexican fiesta lunch.
Our kids were invited to participate in VBS, it was quite a cultural experience for them! We couldn't start dinner until after VBS was finished so they were all starving to death. LOL
After dinner that night the adults met with the local area Pastor that was coordinating the work teams. Due to the number of teams needed and the inability to really use the kitchen, I suddenly became in charge of a "work" team. Our plans for nice big lunches was now replaced with sandwiches. Oh yes, my klutzy self in charge of a group set to go install dry wall. Well, our God is big but this was gonna take a miracle!
Our night spent in the sanctuary was interesting to say the least, but somehow we all survived. I couldn't help but try to imagine if the roles were reversed. Would the elders of our church open the sanctuary as a dormitory? Would the completely welcome a group of mainly teens to come to work? HOW??? in the world was I going to be over a construction crew?
I'll try to post the rest of this adventure tomorrow....
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