Mississippi Relief Trip from February

I have no idea if this is going to work. Its not that I'm a technophobe. Its more that I'm a Bellsnwhistlesaphobe. I like technology. I'm not a fan of gadgets. So my lack of photos online is a direct correlation to my lack of willingness to get photos, digitize them, scan them, and upload them to various different programs all over the web. But these photos were too good to pass up.

So, now, if all goes according to plan, here are five photos from my mission trip to Mississippi earlier this year:

Here I am actually working. Not too many photos of this since I was mostly the support crew. In this photo, I think I'm holding something in place while the ladies are on the roof hammering it down. I worked on the ground and hence, took a lot of the photos.

Here I am holding a board which is being handed up to the ladies on the roof. In the distance you can see one of the ladies in conversation with the house's owner, Lee. For a point of comparison, most of that tree in the background was underwater during the Katrina storm surge.

At night, we surrounded the campfire - some for good times and conversation, but mostly to stay warm. It dropped below 20 degrees at night while we were there. In fact, it was colder in Mississippi that week than in Alaska (In February!) The only things we had to keep us warm was the campfire and our on again/off again heating blowers that blew warm smoky air into our cabins at night. But hey, it was too cold for mosquitoes.

Did I mention it was cold? On this particular morning, it didn't reach 20 degrees until about 10am. I think I had every layer covered with two or three things. But since most of the roof was finished (as you can see in the bottom of the photo) there wasn't a whole lot for me to do to stay warm. Where I'm standing used to be the backyard den of this house. It floated away during the flood.

Evidence of the infamous Sugar Fight at the Cafe Du Mond! On our last day in the area, we went to church in New Orleans and then got to explore the city for about two hours. We had beignets at the famous Cafe Du Mond which quickly erupted into a giant powder sugar fight. Nobody was left unscathed. After that, I had to find a Po Boy so that I could complete my New Orleans menu (we'd already done the Cajun gumbo and seafood boil the day before).

In all, it was a great experience. Not only did I get to meet some great new people, but I also got to live out my faith for an entire week (and I was well fed also... catfish and fried chicken and... ;) The fact of the matter is, this one week of work for me was more fulfilling than the remaining 51 weeks at any other job. If you get the chance this year to do something with your time off, I totally recommend serving others. You can't better the experience, no matter how much money you spend.