Mission in Mississippi

From October 23 to October 26, I went to Biloxi in Mississippi with a Mission team to help rebuild homes which were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. There were 8 people including me who went, and I suffered 4 days of what I can only call 'cultural abuse'! I've never heard so many (bad) jokes about the English accent before!

After a 12 hour bus trip, we arrived in the adjacent town, where a church there had been converted into a 'volunteers hostel', with a kitchen, 7 dorm rooms, and a large communal/eating area. There were several other mission teams from around the USA which were living with us. We arrived there at around 7pm, just in time to share some of the food another church had cooked.

One of the men who was staying in the church decided
to cook shrimp for dinner one night. He bought 30 pounds
of fresh shrimp, and the photo shows them cooking outside.

The next morning we drove down to the place where our team would be working - a house in a fairly run down area. As we looked through the front window, we could see right through 5 rooms, and straight through the back window. All the house had left was it's supporting structure.

During the next 3 days of work, we managed to put insulation up throughout the house, put walls and ceilings up, and also plaster many of the walls too. We also befriended a rottweiler there, which I found to be the only thing which never once made a bad joke about the English! During the first evening, one of the people there found some jigsaws. And for the remaining nights the jigsaws became 'the thing to do' for our group and a few others. Below are two 500pc ones we completed (each within 1 day).

The two 500pc jigsaws we completed

We also got to meet the lady who owns the house, and was amazing to see how thankful she was for the help she received. It turned out that her and her two brothers would end up living there. One of the brothers was living in a trailer next to the house, and had been for over two years.

On the last day, we drove by the coastline, and the devastation we saw was unbelievable. Nearly 3 years on, there are still houses and buildings destroyed. There was huge plots of land where houses once were, but now there's just grass. All along the beach, I was told there were restaurants and small businesses there, but now, there's no trace of them - everything was completely wiped out. What was great though, was even though we came home with a few more aches and bruises than when we came, everyone still felt as though it was a privilege to be able to help these people. It reminded me of the passage from the bible (Matt 25:35-40) where it says "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me'. Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me' ". And for 3 days, we really were living that passage, and it really was a privilege to do so.