Trip to the Mississippi Coast

How do I begin? I guess I will begin with my team; Michelle, Kat, Tommy, Clay, Howard and Danny. My thanks goes out to these who gave up almost a week of their lives to go and serve somebody they'd never met.

We left Glen Allan UMC at 7:22am on Monday morning traveling in a three vehicle convoy. Just over 4 hours later we arrived in Biloxi at St. Paul's UMC. After unpacking and eating some lunch that we packed beforehand, we left with Loyce Seawright (the coordinator of work teams). He took us to a family down the road that we had been set up to work with and put up sheetrock since the previous Saturday. When we got there, though, there were other people already working. It seems that anytime someone gets offered some help, they take it (and understandably so).

When we left I had asked the team to allow our key word for the week be "flexible". I knew that things could change quickly. And this group was definitely that. They used the word so widely that every time we went to eat they would tell me how flexible they were because no one wanted to make a decision. But at any rate, this was the first occasion that called for flexibility.

Loyce left that place and went down the road to the next family on his list. No one was home so we wound up at the third family's house. This was the house of Doris and Otis. And this is the house that God meant for us to be at. I truly believe this because of the fact that our team was skilled in the areas that this family needed. We came expected to hang sheetrock. We wound up putting in 3 new windows, trimming them up, doing some plumbing, pulling off asbestos siding, hanging wood siding on two sides of the house, replacing receptacles and light fixtures, and painting the inside and priming the outside. This is the work we did from Monday afternoon until Thursday afternoon. And we had the people who could do it and do it right (myself being the apprentice/gopher). And when we were through, even though the house wasn't finished completely, the family could move in according to Doris.

The first family that we were "supposed" to go to was named Smith. But I truly believe that we were never meant to be at that family's home. We were meant to work with Doris and Otis, a couple people who will long be remembered by everyone on our team. They were so appreciative of everything we did. You could tell that Doris was kind of in charge. And she watched over us too. Now don't get me wrong, she wasn't pushy or always standing around one of us making sure we were working. But you could tell she'd been burned before. She shared with us about the three prior paid electricians that had been there.

She wasn't just making sure things got done though. She had a paint brush in her hand when we were leaving at night. And when we came back the next day, all the scraps of wood and everything laying around in the house was cleaned up so much so that it looked like a totally new workplace each day.

As I said, Doris and Otis were so appreciative and so sweet. They shared so many stories with us about how they grew up and where they went when the storm came and what they did for a living before retiring. If they had been the kind to sit around and watch or boss us around, the morale of the group could have dwindled. But the whole atmosphere was one of love and support for the family and for the team. What a wonderful way to serve and be served. Surely there's a lesson in there somewhere.

In the love of Christ,
greg