The end of 2008

The last day of 2008 is coming to a close in Mississippi in an hour. The young adults in the group are in the living room of "Vanna Whites" house watching a movie after a good day's work. There have been highs and lows, triumphs and challenges and a LOT of laughter. I haven't laughed as much in all 6 six trips as I have on this one. There's just a spirit of laughter that permeates all that we do...but then I laugh easily so maybe it's just me.

One group headed to a new job site today. Mr. Lee is working on leveling his house and needed help and other repairs done as well. Jonathan, Douglas and Guy spent the day there, crawling under the house, making sure things were level, putting on roofing materials and cleaning up the yard. Mr. Lee and his wife are supposed to be out of their Katrina Cottage in March and nothing, seriously, nothing has been done to get their house in any kind of decent living condition. There's a lot of work to do but at least it has officially begun.

The crew at Miss Maria's continued to work on framing, electrical work and baseboard. Meggie got to use a hammer drill and still feels jittery. Craig was on a ladder and Bill worked hard getting all the wiring just right. Mark, Adam and Joe fought over power tools and the best way to use them (Mark won). Jonathan cut a lot of baseboard and Zach helped wherever needed. One of the greatest things that I saw in my brief moments on this site was Zach helping Adam figure out the best way to nail in one of the boards for the room framing. That spirit of encouragement and support is rampant on this site! Our largest crew is at Miss Anna's house and they are rocking and rollin'! The conversation in the van on the way to the site was all about how to get to the top of the house (it could be considered 3 stories). Mid-morning there was paint at the top of the left side of the house. Too cool! The crew here has really bonded with Miss Anna, there are a lot of stories about her at our evening meetings and there's a huge push to make sure the whole house is at least primed before quitting time tomorrow. I have a feeling I'm going to have to pull them off the site!
Mid-afternoon we got back to working on one of the sites that we started the first day, Captain John's house. Gail and I took a drive out with Ben, Miss Sue and Rick to look at the holes that had been dug for the pylons (I have no idea if I spelled that right). They were half full of water but that doesn't seem to be stopping this crew! Zach and Joe were pulled off their sites to build framing boxes. Gail and I pitched in and hopefully we'll be able to drain the water and install the boxes tomorrow. It's seems like a great way to start the new year, putting in supports for a house!We are blessed to be able to end 2008 in Pearlington with people we have come to love as friends and begin 2009 with them as well! Happy New Year!

Day is done, gone the sun...

There was a beautiful sunset over the Gulf of Mexico tonight. We took off work a little early this afternoon to tour around a little and run in the sand and the site above was part of the deal.

Ellen & Jeff at the Gulf

Today was the perfect day to get done a little early. Work has been slow due to many things but the slow down of jobs created a speed up at Miss Anna's house. The garage is fully painted and the house is coming along. It's a big job but the 12 people (!) at her site worked hard and joyously...especially because they had a Mexican Coffee and lunch fixed with love by Miss Anna.Those at Miss Maria's house began framing in a room under the house for the water heater and other necessary items. Bill continued to work on the electrical stuff even had time to apprentice Douglas (his son)...Craig did the same with his son Adam. It's so cool to have families working together! Baseboard was measured, cut and installed and the house seems to be coming along.

Bill & Douglas

The team at Miss Carolyn's finished up most of the jobs today, which created a surplus of workers, thus the 12 at Miss Anna's house.

And then there was those of us who hung out at Ben's house finishing work for him. It was not an overly productive day but we still had fun!

Our days have been filled with laughter and so have our nights as we gather and share our experiences. Debbie shared tonight about how we are building relationships and it really resonated. We're building relationships with the homeowners and with each other. The bonds of which are strong and sure. Thanks for your comments and prayers! We'd really appreciate your prayers specifically that the money that needs to come in for supplies so we can start another project tomorrow actually do come in!

Our night ended with a little celebration...It's Meggie's birthday! Yea! Cake anyone?

Monday's Round-up

We're still trying to get pictures off of camera's and onto the blog but have found that we're taking fewer pictures this time around...hopefully that will be rectified in the next couple of days. I did post pictures earlier today, so look below this post!

Today was a rare day in Pearlington work...most everyone had something to do all day long.

We started off standing around a little waiting for Ben to drop off some supplies before handing out our assignments. Craig and Bill headed out to Miss Maria's to do more electrical work and soon were calling asking for more help. A crew of 4 manly men (Douglas, Jonathan, Zach and Mark) headed over to haul full sheets of sheet rock out of the house and down probably 20-30 stairs. They wound up staying there all day doing many various jobs. From what I hear they are still learning the value of measure twice, get directions 5 times, cut once.

Joey and a couple others another group that's here spent the morning power washing a tractor. A picture should have been taken of the spotted arms that he came back with. Definitely muddy out there! They joined the crew that went back to Miss Carolyn's house (Jeff, Guy, Adam and Cedar Blvd. Church) to paint, finish tiling, and do various other little projects. I didn't hear much from that group tonight, so I honestly can't tell you what their successes were today!

Miss Anna's crew (Sandy, Lynn, Melanie, Sammy, Debbie, Ellen and Elizabeth from Cedar Blvd. Church ) returned to her house and their paint job. They are priming the entire house and garage and taking great care. Her house is the oldest house in Pearlington but it doesn't look old. Once the paint is on it will be one of the most beautiful homes in Pearlington again. Miss Anna is ecstatic with her crew. She stood at the gate waving and calling out "I love you!" to the crew as they left. They responded with "We love you Miss Anna!" I know there were tears in many eyes. They will be back at it tomorrow!

Gail, Meggie and Regina spent the day painting Ben's shed and putting up trim work as well. It may seem like a little job but something else was happening as well. Ben paid them the ultimate compliment today by handing them the tools, giving instructions and walking confidently away. Gail especially appreciated his confidence in her as he showed her how to use a nail gun and then drove away to other sites where his skills were more in need!

I spent the morning driving around a little but then something amazing happened after lunch. My phone didn't ring for 3 1/2 hours. Not once. I got to stand on a ladder and paint trim (painstakingly in my typical semi-perfectionist tendencies). It was heavenly!

Tomorrow is another day and it's coming up fast. We'll be taking a couple of hours to tour around Waveland & Bay St. Louis, some for the first time. In the meantime it's time for sleep! Good night!

Pictures from the last couple of days...

Doug and Mark working at Miss Maria's house...with Craig and Bill our electricians!

Cementing in the pylons at Captain John's...Jonathan in the trenches.

Painting crew at Ben's house! Love the designer rain jackets.

Inside the one trailer after organization...yep, there's a lot of stuff!

Jeff laying tile at Miss Carolyn's house...pictured below.

The digging of the trench before it was filled back up.

Gail using power tools!

More pictures to come as well as the day's update!

Finally a post from Pearlington!

I know, I know, where have we been??? We've been on an adventure!

Here's the rundown of the last 72 hours:

• Plane rides pretty good. One medical emergency in air between SJ and Denver (not anyone we knew) but the amazing flight attendants handled it well. Don't know what happened, just know we prayed.
• Alamo Car Rental in at the airport will be receiving many unhappy letters from people on the team. The shuttle bus pulled into the lot and we saw....5 cars and a lot of people in the lobby, in front of the building and no one was smiling. Quote of the moment was from the shuttle bus driver who said "I know this looks bad." Hmmm...Craig saved the day and found pretty much the last two vans anywhere in New Orleans. 12 passenger vans. I'm driving "Vanna White", Craig is driving "Van Halen" and there is much laughter amongst the team. God worked it out. Praise Jesus!
• Saturday morning as the Vanna White crew was heading over to the Van Halen crews place we had a surprising encounter with the local sheriff's department. One pulled across the road in front of the van, another across the road in back of the van, effectively blocking us in. My panicked mind immediately thought "How fast was I going? I swear I was only going 35!". Turns out there was a "Be on the lookout for" bulletin out for the same kind of van we are driving with Louisiana plates. It didn't take long for the sheriff's to figure out this Church group from California weren't the ones they were looking for. Nice start to the day.

Our work sites have been varied and interesting.

• One crew headed over to Miss Anna's house on Saturday to paint. She was nervous about painting when it looked like the rain was coming in but a quick prayer with the crew and she was ready to go! They did a great job too! By lunch they had primed the walls of the garage and by dinner they had the trim primed and had started priming the house. Awesome!
• Another crew went to The Wakes house. This is the 3rd trip that we've worked at the Wakes and David helped a few of us build ramps last March. Electrical work, shoe molding, crown molding and more was installed. The crew there learned that there is a handy guide right on the saw that helps cut angles for molding...it just took them awhile (and a few cuts) to find it. Bill and Douglas were schooled on how to take a ladder down by Miss Tami. It was fun to watch!
• A third crew went to Captain John's property to get started on the foundation. He wanted his house as close to the bayou as possible. The morning was spent plotting everything out and the afternoon was spent digging (luckily a backhoe was available). Unfortunately by the end of the day it was apparent that there was no way to build where they were digging...the walls of the trench kept collapsing. Everyone came back a little sad but reported that Captain John's response when told that his house would need to be built somewhere else just shrugged and said "build it where the old house was".
• The fourth crew headed out to Miss Carolyn's house. She has 35+ cats, 4 ducks and some other animals that I can't remember right now. Her house is has been built but needed some fixing up. A trench was dug for the sewer line (and then filled back in when they found that the line would be lower than the septic tank...not a good combo I hear.), tile was laid in the entry way and an overhang was built for over the front door to stop rain from leaking inside.
• The last crew stayed back at Ben's house and emptied both trailers that house all the tools and building materials. The goal was to rearrange the trailers and it quickly became overwhelming. At the end of the day we had put in new shelves to house all the tools, found boxes and boxes of nails (many the same size), sorted through miscellaneous buckets of stuff and had tried to find a home for everything.
• Oh and Saturday the temperature in Pearlington was a balmy 76 degrees with humidity and lovely little no-see-ums.

Today (Sunday) we decided that our worship would be our service to the people of Pearlington.

• The crew at Miss Carolyn's returned to finish the sewer line, roof the overhang and grout tile. They also played frisbee in between waiting and talking with Miss Carolyn.
• The crew at Captain John's returned to start digging holes in a new place for the house foundation. We've been told that Captain John is very appreciative of the work being done...even though many of the crew felt like they were just standing around while the backhoe did most of the work. That's the nature of work!
• Miss Anna's crew had downtime today as the rain that seemed imminent on Saturday seemed extra imminent today. They eventually found work at a friend of Miss Anna's painting indoors this time. Miss Maria gave Debbie the job of climbing up scaffolding (that had to be at least 12 feet high) to sand down a beam that had been painted in preparation for the beam to be stained. Debbie even stayed "after work" to make sure her job got done before the scaffolding was taken away. This crew even had time to scout out a future job!
• The Wake's crew returned to finish their jobs well! They got done with everything they could do about an hour after lunch. There weren't any ladder or saw incidents to speak of and they were dispersed to other sites.
• Gail and Ellen plugged along on the trailers at Ben's all morning with help from Sandy, Lynn, Mark and Debbie. After lunch Gail continued to work on the trailers while the rest were sent to other places. Sammy and Melanie got to hang around and paint a shed on Ben's property. Meggie and Regina joined in about half-way through.
• The threat of rain turned to real rain just after lunch (good timing!). My job was to drive people around and around and around and around. All total today I drove 89 miles. About half of those miles came from just going around Pearlington. It's amazing how spread out that little town is...though I did pass the same guy working in his yard about 10 times.

It's a great team of people, doing great work. Our days are filled with laughter, there are good things being shared at our evening meetings and we are so blessed to be staying in two comfortable (air conditioned!) homes. Thanks for praying, keep it up!

Pictures will be posted tomorrow. It's midnight here and 6am is coming soon! Time for bed! Good night!

Job sites to pray for

The boss men: Ben & Tom

I talked with Tom at the Pearlington Project this morning. I always love talking with Tom because we laugh and laugh and laugh and because I know that Tom tells it like it is. Two years ago on our 2nd trip to Pearlington we met up with Tom just by chance. He was down in Pearlington working on a couple of jobs but mostly lining up new ones and we were looking for things to do. I knew the minute we started working for him that this was a good thing! 4 trips later I'm still convinced!

Anyway, I got the scoop on our potential job sites for this trip and thought it would be good to have y'all pray for them even now.

• Miss Anna's house--We'll be doing odds and end's here.
• Captain John's--Laying the groundwork for the house, i.e. digging holes, mixing cement and putting in the pylons (I am so not a contractor so I have no idea if I spelled that word right!)
• Carol, the cat lady--She's got finish work that needs to be done on the house, fixing things that have gone wrong. I've seen pictures she's close to moving in!
• Ben T.--building a pump house. This one could be tricky cuz Ben is stubborn and doesn't like to take workers from others...but we love him!

Another possible site is the Baptist church. And if things go like other trips, the jobs will start to come in once the town starts seeing volunteers around!

This friday!

We leave this Friday! I'm so excited! I'm ready...well, okay, maybe not ready as in have all my bags packed, paperwork, various stuff that I wind up carting with me to Mississippi each time prepared but emotionally ready to be in Pearlington. I'm praying for two very specific things:

1. Team unity. Our meetings have been good and it seems like a good group but we can always pray for team unity.

2. A clear day of travel on the 26th. Flying in an out of Denver. It worries me...and so does the report that their are luggage issues there as well. Might want to pack an extra pair of...:)

Here's where we are financially as of today:

Amount needed: $16,000
Amount brought in: $15,075
Amount still needed**: $2,546

Number of people on the team: 20
Number of people fully sponsored: 11
Number of people within $150 of being fully sponsored: 6

We can do this!
**If you are confused by this number see previous posts on the subject.

Time to pray

When people are doing good works for God, Satan tends to want to jump in and start messing with things. I fully recognized this today. We, as a team from Felton Presbyterian, are going to Pearlington to do God's good works and Satan is trying to derail us. People are feeling sick, some injured, families are a little more stressed than usual, outside forces are trying to take my focus away from the good that is our work in Pearlington and the list goes on and on.

It's time to pray. It's been time to pray all along but especially now, less than two weeks away from our departure. It's time to really call on God's name and ask for God's guidance, wisdom and protection from the forces that are trying to derail the good that will be done in Pearlington.

At our meeting today I was so blessed by the feeling of oneness the permeated the room...I believe we have a great team in place that will accomplish much for God and the people in Pearlington, so let's start praying that our focus be on God and that Satan gets banished again!

Wednesday Update--15 days to go!

The countdown is on...well it's actually been running ever since this blog went up but that's beside the point...we are two weeks away and a day away from our departure date! So exciting!

Here's our stats as of Today:

Amount needed to raise: $16,000
Amount brought in to date: $13,507
Amount still needed: $3,719 --if you are confused about this number see the post from last week...it will explain things better

Number of team members: 20
Team members completely paid for: 8
Team members with less than $250 to go: 7

Keep up the great work!

Wednesday Update

It's a been two weeks since my last finance update so let me first apologize. Thanksgiving kind of messed up my whole week last week! I'm sorry!

As of this week our numbers look like this:

Estimated amount needed: $16,000
Amount received to date: $12,002
Amount still needed: $5,083

Okay, now I can see a few of you shaking your heads thinking "Brittany really needs to take math again, those numbers aren't adding up." and you are right, they don't. So here's the explanation.

Some people have raised all their support and are still recieving money from sponsors, which goes into the "slush" fund enabling us to buy supplies while we are in Pearlington. Other people have given to the team as a whole and not any individual person so that goes into a seperate column but gets added into the total. Confused yet? Here's one more for you...the "amount still needed" really is still needed. That amount is what we really want to see get lower because that means that all the team members have raised their support! And that's the overall goal!

To make this even more fun, here's another statistic for you:
There are 20 team members.
6 team members have completely paid for/raised support for their trip.
8 team members are within $300 of their goal
6 team members still need over $300.

My point...keep asking people for help! We can do this!

Prayer

Just got word that our friend Ben T. is having some heart problems and is in the hospital. So far he's okay. I will update as I get word. Please pray for him and for Sue.