Bottom left, a photo of us on Wednesday, April 8, 2009 by a deck platform we were working on, on the right is a photo of us dancing (or "closing down") at the Shed on Thursday evening, April 9, and then on the top left is how the house looked towards the end of our last work day on friday, April 10. You can read more about our progress and see more photos at:
http://mtzionhighland.com/blog/index.php
This blog website during this past week and the photos therein have been largely supplied by John Lindberg, a fellow crew member.
We arrived back in Maryland last Saturday, April 11, 2009 from the Mission: Mississippi mission trip to help rebuild a house that was hit by Hurricane Katrina back in 2005 (and possibly by similar natural disasters). I had gone with a group from Mt. Zion United Methodist Church. We left fairly early in the morning on Sunday, April 5 changed planes at the Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia (not the country, it's towards the southern part of the United States), and then we flew to New Orleans International. Once we landed in New Orleans in southern Louisiana near the Gulf of Mexico, we hit took a little time to walk around the city and go sightseeing before the van drivers (who were in our group and who drove down separately from Maryland) would take us to our camp in Mississippi. I really liked New Orleans; it kind of reminded me a little bit of Los Angeles, California. There were plenty of shops and streets. It was not too incredibly croweded, and the weather was comfortable for walking around (around 80 degrees, humid, and sunny -- yea maybe that's a bit too much heat, but I'd rather that kind of weather than shivering in the cold). This was my first time in Louisiana, and since I like to travel and keep track of places I've been, I found it a fun experience.
We mainly walked around the French Quarter of New Orleans (which apparently is pretty well known). I liked it as well as some of the building structures. While walking along, I noticed a lot of people walking around in athletic gear and with finishing medals around, and I soon gathered that the New Orleans IronMan (or maybe it was Half-Ironman) Triathlon had occurred that morning. It was certainly humid enough for weather to be a challenge, though I'm sure the cooler water would have been refreshing.
We ate lunch at this restaurant called Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. If you all remember the movie Forrest Gump, the characters Forest Gump and Bubba meet in the army and eventually Forrest Gump helds carry on Bubba's dream of opening a shrimp company. And now they actually have those restaurants for real, and apparently they have at least a few throughout the United States (like I think I heard there's one in Minnesota, California, and possibly North Carolina). The food there was grate (I remember I really liked the Cajun Shrimp). It was fairly greasy in my opinion, but I did not have any issues with that, as I was grateful to have some food and not have a stomach ache afterwards (in light of recent stomach problems, I kinda knew i was taking a risk with that food). After lunch we wandered around some more and I took a couple of nice photos from the outdoor balcony of the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.
After the sightseeing we rode in the vans (there were four vans between the 32 of us) and drove towards Vancleave (Jackson County), Mississippi, where we would stay in the dormitories of a United Methodist Church's camp. On the way to Vancleave, we stopped at this place called the Shed in Ocean Springs (Jackson County), Mississippi (these places in Mississippi were to the more southwestern part of the state, not too far from the Louisiana state line to the west of Mississippi). Now the Shed was a neat place and those among us who went on Mission: mississippi last year were definitely eager to go to this place called the Shed, and when I got there, I knew why it was called the Shed: From the outside, it looked like a small dive of a restaurant (but on the inside there was more room and tables than there appeared to be). On the outside were a bunch of picnic tables right by an outdoor bar area and a small stage for live performances. The music was pretty festive, and the people there seemed to be a fun-lovin' crowd. From appearances, some people would probably call this place tacky, maybe "redneckish", and that the restaurant actually looks like a shed... As for me, it sounds like my kinda place :) The food there was good. Some of the money we pitched in went towards the buffet we got of roast beef, salad, and other nice foods (I can't remember everything I had there, but I liked the food and the atmosphere).
After the Shed, we drove a little bit further until we got to Vancleave and then we unpacked and got settled into our dormitories. At that point, I think I was starting to feel really tired and I wanted to get to bed. The day before (Saturday, April 4), 2009 I had been busy on the Maryland Eastern Shore, and I had started out there running in the Stillpond-to-Betterton Tree Run in Kent County, Maryland (which was about 3.6 miles long), and then throughout the day I had a few other things to take care of and some things to straighten out on and off the computer before I left (I did not intend to use a computer or the internet while I was gone), and as a result of getting to bed later than expected and then have to get up fairly early, I think I had gotten a little less than four hours of sleep. Fortuantely, God gave me the strength to stay awake, alert, and able to enjoy the experience of traveling (even though I may have dozed off for a brief few minutes on the flight from Georgia to Louisiana after reading). I dont' remember much about what we did once we got to the camp that first night aside from unpacking and sorting through my stuff and work gear. Needless to say, i did not have much trouble falling asleep that night.
Monday, April 6, 2009 - This was our first day on the worksite, which was about 40-50 minutes away from where we were staying in Vancleave. This house was in a rather remote and shaded area of Lucedale (George County), Mississippi. A previous group had done a great job setting up the foundation/first floor of the house and we were going to continue building off of it. There were not too many of us (myself included) who were that experienced with construction, using powertools, or any of that, but that was okay 'cause there were at least four people among us who participated in building houses and our main project supervisor among us actually has been working in construction for the past several years. So we had some solid management and instruction throughout. We were divided into about four teams (I was on the "Blue Team"). That first day we set up our gear and the project heads examined the blueprints. Each team did not seem to work on too much of a speccidfic task, we all just sort of worked on putting the insides of the walls together, which we hoped to raise in the near future. As I recall, we raised one of the longer ones on the first day, and I think we started to raise one of the shorter ones too. We worked pretty much from about 9 to 5ish before cleaning up and heading back to the camp for dinner (and they did great making homemade breakfast and dinner for us, as well as providing food to make our own lunches with). I'd say I ate more there for breakfast than I would on my own these days (which is beneficial, 'cause I should not be losing too much weight as a result of exercising, an issue I was having a couple of months ago and was one of the chief reasons for my recent break from running). They really treated us very hospitably and kindly; they valued their workers and volunteers for sure, and they seemed very passionate about what God was doing in and around their ministry on the Gulf Coast (and their ministry involved helping to regulate disaster relief efforts in that area of the United States).
Our group ranged in age from high-school age teens to folks who were retired. The evenings after dinner, I would usually play games witht eh youth and younger adults on the trip. Monday, we played a game (I think it was "Catch Phrase"). It was a fun game and I had trouble pulling myself away from it 'cause I knew I had to get to bed early if I wanted to get a good night's sleep (I was still a little tired from the previous weekend's events).
Tuesday April 7, 2009 - I got up at around 5:19 in the morning to use the bathroom and could not get back to sleep. I knew we had to be at breakfast by 7 A.M., and since I wanted to try to fit in a brief run in that day, I decided to throw on my reflective vest and run in the dark for a little bit to get a run in in case the rest of the day got too hectic to fit it in. I ran around the camp, and then down the road to the Vancleave Upper Elementary School (I guess in this area, an "upper elementary school" includes grades 3,4, and 5 while a "lower elementary school" includes grades 1 and 2 and possibly kindergarten", I think someone told me that anyway). I ran around the school's campus a little bit, and then back down the road to finish at the camp in I think just under 19 minutes. By that time, the sun was starting to come out and it looked pretty on the crisp, cool morning. I grabbed a quick shower and made it to breakfast.
When we got to the work site, we on the Blue Team were assigned the task of building a deck with a handicap-access ramp coming from the side of the house down to the front of it (the homeowner was in a wheelchair). We started working on the main deck and finished that up before the work day was over. There were a couple of people in teh group who really seemd to understand what they were doing and we sort of let them take the lead. I found a lot of it confusion, 'cause right now, I have trouble visualziing things (which is probably why I was probably not the best with arts and crafts for one thing). I took orders and spendt a lot of the time hammering (and I discovered the hammer I brought from home was pretty small compared to others, making my job harder, not too mention my hand-eye coordination is not the best all the time and neigther were my hammering skills as a result :)-, drilling in nails, and I looked for opportunities to carry heavy things, something I felt like I could do decently, because I was not too experienced with the other activities with the deck. All-in-all, our first day with the deck went nicely, and I thought we worked pretty well as a team. I think we were patient with one-another as many of us did not have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, and we all made mistake or were learning how to use certain tool for the first time.
While we were working on the deck, the rest of the four walls of the house were raised and more people began to work inside.
This was the day I met Betty, the homeowner, and I think she had soem of her family with her. Apparently since her house was wrecked in Katrina, she had been staying with her son. She seemed like a nice lady, and grateful for the work we doing on rebuildling her house. Later on I found out from our trip leader that she was so happy about what we were doing for her that she was in tears. One thing that I found moving about this was when I heard Betty talking to some others in our group and how she was trusting that her property and what had happend was all in God's hands, and that she seemd to take a lot of security in Him. That was a huge blessing to hear, and definitely encouraging as well.
That night we had a big dinner, and maybe I ate too much, 'cause my stomach was bothering me when we were playing this really fun game called "Outburst". I got through the game fortuantely without my stomach causing an "outburst" :)-, and then headed off to bed early. As I was getting ready for bed, I felt a little bit better and by the next morning I was rarin' to go for breakfast and then work. I was grateful for that because I did not want to have another bout of queasiness bugging me while I was trying to help build a house and while I was away from home too!
Wednesday, April 8, 2009 (Passover :) - After breakfast, we made a point to leave a little earlier (we had been leaving closer to 8:30 the past couple of days and this time we wanted to leave at 8, 'cause this day was expected to be our busiest day). Mostly everyone was successful with leaving early. Though, the Blue Team was assigned breakfast clean-up duty that morning, so we did not get to the worksite until a little later. No worries about that though, 'cause we knew what we had to do and it was easy to transition into work. We worked on another platform that would connect the two ramps as one ramp came from the deck we built the previous day on the side of the house, and then the other would go to the ground a the front of the house. This deck and ramps would sort of looking like a backwards "L" if everything went right. We did a lot of digging and lifting with this. The photo above in the lower left is one of myself and some of the crew that worked on the deck (we are standing on the lower platform where we planned to have the two ramps intersect).
Also, we were promised a porta-potty at the beginning of the week, but it did not arrive until today. We were happy about that, because before we would have to either find a tree or go into an abandoned and wrecked shop on the other side of this dried-out creek bed, and use the dirty toilet there (I don't think any of us sat down on it). The first day, some of us actually made a special trip to Hardees for a bathroom stop. In addition, there were two of these porta-potties too.
In addition to working on the deck, the tresses for the rooftop arrived, so some people started building up the skeletal foundations for the roof while a bunch of others worked on hanging drywall inside.
We stayed a lot later at this worksite. Before we had worked from about 9-5ish, and this time a lot of people started earlier and we stayed until about 5:30ish (and we usually took our lunch break at around 12:30ish-1ish in the afternoon.
We got back and were late for dinner, but dinner sure tasted good after a long day's work. After that, we had a team pow-wow between the 30+ of us ot process and discuss our progress, our reactions to what we were doin and how challenging some of the work was. We also talked about how grateful Betty and her family were for our efforts and progress too. It was pretty encouraging to go to this and hear from my teammates that they were having similar challenges and experiences that I was. After the meeting, I played hide-and-seek with the high school students, and that involved a lot of running around. Even though Iddi not run nearly as long as I did on Tuesday morning, I still decided to count it as exercise, adn that was pretty much the last time I went running on this trip.
Thursday, April 9, 2009 - As a result of last night's meeting, the leaders decided to make some changes in the groups and switch people up with different jobs, so that the delegation of people to tasks may make the building process more efficient and effective. While I was still a Blue Team member a couple of people were moved onto the decking project, and I was swtiched over to help carry and cut the "hardy boards", these rather cumbersome boards that were also fragile if bumped too roughly on the ground, that were used for the exterior siding. These boards could be difficult to work with, especially since they could easily break under pressure or even dropping them. I did not mind carrying them too much, because I felt like I understood what I was doing with that and with working with them, so I felt a little more confident about that. I helped hold these boards down while some of my teammates measured certain dimensions on it and cut it accordingly to fit around different parst of the house's exterior. I even learned how to measure some of them and cut some of them too. One of the best things I took from this trip was learning how to use new tools and ways to problem solve/correct construction-based errors and mistakes (and believe me, I made quite a few of them, but fortunately nothing too serious).
The deck platforms were pretty much finished and they got a lot of work done on the ramp section that went from the ground to the lower platform that was built on Wednesday. That looked good. Also, people were starting to work on the roof (including some of the youth). It was dfeinitely looking a lot more like a house.
We ended up working really long this day; in fact this may have been our longest day. We got there a little earlier again (well before 9 in the morning, and then did not leave until probably a little after 6 in the evening (and there was still plenty of sunlight out by then). By that time, I was glad it was time to clean-up for the day, 'cause I was getting tired from carrying those boards, as were my teammates. Instead of having dinner at the camp like normal, we had planned to go back to the Shed. By the time we got there, the sun had almost set completely and it was getting dark. Since it was almost the weekend, it was more crowded and we were fortunate enough to be able to find some picnic tables to sit at. I remember I got this really nice beef sald, a soda, and some other tasty side-dish. While we were sitting and eating, it was Country Music Night or something like that (apparently they have it on Thursdays), and I thought that was great since I like to listen to a lot of country (and I've been into it since I was in the eighth grade over ten years ago). They had a few acts (one of the vocalists was a female high school student, and I thought she sang pretty nicely). I recognized a lot of the songs there. Towards teh endof the last rather upbeat live song, people started dancing a little bit on stage, and after that the music was played through the stereo system, and the first song I remembered they played was the rather upbeat, "Fast as You" by Dwight Yoakam, whose a famous country singer. Soon a lot more people got up on the dance fllor in front of the stage, and pretty soon quite a few of us on the missions team got on the dance floor and started boogeying. I tell you, I don't usually see this kind of activity or this kind of restaurant from where I grew up in Columbia, so it was great to experience this kind of laid-back and fun culture.
YEEEHAWWW!!!!
- This was our last scheduled work day, and I was pleassntly surprised that I was not as sore as I thought I 'd be from moving those "hardy boards" around or from dancing last night. We got to the work site, and a lot of us were able to finish our projects, if not, come close. We finished cutting the "hardy boards" and we almost covered all the areas of the house's exterior with them. By the time we did that, our supply of "hardy boards" was pretty much depleted. One hting about using those boards is that since they are delicate, if they are left outside and it rains, the water can ruin it and so we had to take these boards that we did not hang during the day (even if they were scrap that we were probably not going to use), and put them back inside of the house at the end of the work day. Then, at the beginning of th ework day, we would have to carry them out of the house (which was becoming harder to move around in by the day as more interior structures and walls weres being built up, but this was a great problem because we were making progress). Fortunately, I was always able to find someone to help me move them too. We were worried about how rain would affect our project, because rain was forecasted for Thursday and Friday, but fortunately we did not get anything more than a fewsprinkles while driving ot the work site on Friday morning. So the rains, which probably could have made the work more difficult, held off.
By mid-afternoon we were done working with the "hardy boards" and the deck, platform, and ramps were pretty much completed. It looked very well-done and it was great to see something that I participated in helping to start as a finished product with the house. More roofing was going on, and towards the end of the day, they needed more help up there and I decided to take a risk and try working on the roof. This was the first time I could ever remember doing anything on the roof of a house. For the first several moments up there, it was pretty scary, 'cause it looked like I could easily go off the edge (which was certainly a reality), though I was surpirsed how much easier it was to get around up there once I got a bit used to it (even though I moved pretty slowly). APparently a lot of people up there had sneakers, which provided more traction on the roof, and I had my work boots on which, provided less traction. Once someone told me that I should wear sneakers for better traction and once I realized I did ont bring them with me because Idid not intend originally to go up on the roof or use them for the projects, I left them back at the camp. After that, I was a little paranoid about losing my balance, and it kind of made it hard to concentrate as I was hammering in these pretty easy nails into black tar paper on he roof top. Towards the end, I think I got the hang of it, even though I was doing it kinda slowly and like I said before, hammering isn't exactly my strong point. I had to borrow someone's larger hammer too since my smalelr one was making the job harder than it should have been. Still, I was glad I could help and that I survived the rooftop experience. I'm glad getting back down the ladder was easier than I thought (I heard and suspected that it could be kinda tricky). Fortuantely, we had one of the younger workers holding the ladder for us as we got down and some of the more experienced workers were helping us get up and down the ladder.
After getting down, I looked around at the house, which was looking more like a finished product from the foundation/ground level that had been there twoards the beginning of the week. I felt a sense of accomplishment with it, as did many others. While I was up on the roof, Betty had visited and we got to say our goodbyes to her. I remember yelling goodbye to her from the rooftop. That was great that she came out almost everyday we were working to check in on us, and it was just so encouraging to see her happy about it.
Not long after that, I helped clean up, and we left again probably close to or around 6 in the evening, and we got back to dinner late and had some leftovers that the kitchen staff graciously left out for us. After that, we got our gear together, and a lot of us went out to this small local ice cream joint called "Dairy Dream" or something like that. I had a nice oreo cookie "twister", which kind of reminded me of the oreo cookie mcflurries that I'm quite fond of from McDonald's. After that, we headed back to camp and got ready for bed, 'cause we knew we had to get up early to get on the road towards the airport in New Orleans by 6 in the morning.
Saturday, April 11, 2009 - Our team leader had provided us with bagels (and I think some doughnuts) and coffee in the morning, and we ate that before getting our stuff together and getting on the road. We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, and we caught our flight, changed planes at the airport in Atlanta, Georgia again, and then landed in Maryland. We all stuck around in the bagagge claim area, and said our goodbyes to each other as we started trickling out to meet up with rides home or catching shuttles to where we parked. I am going to miss the great people that I met and got to know on this trip, but I'll probably be seeing some of them in the near future this coming Sunday as we meet up with some of the group members who drove separately and took some of our gear back with them on the road so that we did not have to worry about checking them in at the airport/carrying them on the plane. Also, there is a Mission: Mississippi reunion in May that I hope to go. Plus, Mt. Zion United Methodist is not too far from where I live in Baltimore County, MD.
Closing Thoughts - I was really pleased iwth the trip. I felt a lot more confident about doing hte kind of work required for it than I did at the begining of the week. I think it was great how our group, having a wide age range and different kinds of experiences with construction and architecture, as well as different abilities, could come together and produce the awesome progress that we made. I think I mentioned before in my previous blog post that we had gotten more done than was expected. A lot of the roof was done, most of the sides were covered by "hardy boards", the deck and ramps were sturdy and looked well done, and we got a terrific start on the interior rooms and structures of the house (in the last day or so of our work week, we had gotten a bath tub pretty well inside the house as well as just about if not all of the doors and windows installed. Towards the beginning of the week, we built a sturdy wooden scaffolding around most of the house from which we could work from and that connected the deck in the rear of the house to the one on the side that our group built this past week. The house is on the hill, with a steeper elevation towards the back and easy ground-level access to the front door and ramp in the front of the house. It looked nice and I know I took at least one good picture from the front and side of the house before we left the work site on Friday (and hopefully I will upload more photos sometime soon).
Another way that I felt that God was working here was with me and my inner frustrations. And maybe others experienced it too, I dunno. I know I was definitely confused a lot of times in undestanding and analyzing things like measurements, precisely positioning certain pieces of construction, how to properly hold/use some of the tools, trying to listen and understand directions in the midst of a noisy and busy construction sight, and of course, visualizing what we wanted our finished project to look like. I felt like the devil was feeding off of that and bringing up all of these memories and struggles from the past, of the times I got picked on, or struggled in school because I was not coordinated enough (socially, physically), and how sometimes that led to fits of rage and the occasional fight. When doing the measurements, as well as the mathematical/geometrical thinking and visualization, I felt like I had trouble with that and it did not take long to think about all of those math tests I failed throughout grade school, and how I'd constantly come home and struggle with homework as my folks tried to help me with it, and more often than not, it led to feelings of inferiority, stupidity, and anger. Some of those feelings started to come to the surface in me, or at least in my mind, but not really towards anyone, just myself. However, God helped keep me calm and collected, and focused on the goal of rebuilding this house from a tragedy that could not have been prevented. The homeowner could have done nothing to protect Hurricane Katrina from taking out her house, and here I was in a position to work with a team to help her recover her house. I was not going to let these thoughts get the best of me, not when I knew that even in my meager efforts and contributions, that it would be going to a larger whole of working on this house for God's glory. At that point, I wanted to glorify God more than feed into these negativities about my life and past, which would no doubt have kept me from effectively contributing to the team and helping to advance God's Kingdom in this situation. I figured that if Jesus Christ could save me and everyone from our sins by making us right with our creator, God, if Jesus could raise someone from the dead (Lazarus, a gentleman from the New Testament of the Bible), if He could feed thousands of people with precious little fishes and loaves, and if He Himself could come back from the dead and conquer death, then He could certainly help me overcome doubts and weaknesses to help me and everyone else with this project. And I believe He did. I know He has worked through my weaknesses in the past (i.e., He helped me get good grades in my high school and college classes that were challenging, espeically math, He helped me run races in every county of Maryland and Delaware despite a series of injuries, illnesses, and logistical obstacles, and He has helped me impact people's lives beneficially and make new friends even though I'm not always the best at building relationships and in the past I've had troubles fitting in), and I absolutely believe that in my weaknesses God is strong, and whatever strengths I have comes from God and His favor towards me that was won by Jesus Christ sacrificing Himself in my place and rising from the dead to have victory over death and justify faith in Him. I looked at that house that we had made an incredible amount of progress on, and I felt rewarded in knowing that despite all my weaknesses, struggles, and mistakes, I was still able to work with a great group of people to get this done, and God did not allow anyone's weaknesses or shortcomings to interfere! I have a feeling that I am not the only one who has experienced this feeling of victory on this trip either, and I am grateful that this is part of my testimony of how great and powerful our living God is, and how HE can use us at our worst or best to accomplish great things :)
So that's my trip report. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask (preferably sooner than later as some of the details are still fresh in my mind :) If you would like more thorough coverage and great photos of this trip, please to check out Mt. Zion United Methodist Church's blog on this at: http:///www.mtzionhighland.com/blog/index.php
They also have a little bit of coverage at the church's actual website at: http://www.mtzionhighland.com/
The reason I'm able to get all of this out this morning is because I decided to take the day off of work. Towards the middle of last week while I was working, I started sneezing a lot (most likely because of the sawdust and dirt), and for the last couple of days my throat has been bothering me. Yesterday, my right eye was bothering me and now I suspsect I may have pinkeye (which can be caused by allergies). In case I'm contagious, I thought it best to take a sick day, and if anything, I hope the extra rest helps. I can only remember one time when I had pinkeye, and that was back around the winter of 1997 when I was in the seventh grade, and some of what I'm experiencing now are similar to the symptoms I was having then. I'm was blessed to have been able to get an appointment with my doctor for this afternoon on such short notice!
Thank you all for stopping by and reading. I appreciate all of your prayers and support towards this missions trip; I don't think it would have been what it was without God's blessing! I hope that you all had a great Passover and Easter, and hopefully I'll see some of you soon :)
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