We are home

We all arrived safely last night at 10:30PM after a long day of driving. We are working on getting a large slideshow put up on the internet for all of you to see. Keep checking www.southgrandvillechurch.org and we will put a link on the homepage as soon as we get it up (hopefully by Monday or Tuesday). Thanks again to all of you for your support.

-The Gulfport Work Project Team-

Last Post

Since we are busy cleaning our apartments, we are just going to upload some pictures for our final update. Thanks to all who visited - we had nearly 800 page views and 265 visits to our site. Thanks to all of you. See you soon!

P.S. Happy Father's Day in advance for those of us who didn't have time to get a gift (or card).

Thursday Update

Thursday, it's so hard to believe that we only have one day to go. Time is flying by. Today, we finished the church kitchen, and finished painting the outside of the Chamberlan home. One of the work groups spent some time this afternoon jacking up a house in order to replace some rotten boards. A good challange for them. Today was another hot one, but we are starting to get used to it. We take plenty of water breaks so no one gets dehydrated. Tonight we delayed supper until 7:00 so that the kids could take a swim in the ocean before supper. Tomorrow we will have to clean up everything in preparation for leaving. Our plan is to get the trailer completely packed before bedtime. We will sleep in our clothes and be ready to leave at 2:00 in the morning. That should get us home around 10:00 Saturday evening if everything goes well. Please pray for the drivers again...it's a difficult drive for some of us. Till next time.

The Mullins' home crew for today

A finished Hallway!

What is left of a beachfront home:

Wednesday Update

Last evening a group headed to the beach. While we were walking back to the van a couple drove up to us thanking us for coming down to help rebuild. Apparently it is obvious that we are out of towners....locals no longer come to enjoy the beach anymore. This couple is rebuilding across from the beach and it was interesting to hear them tell their story of the recovery.

This morning we started with early morning devotions on the beach....yes we were able to get teenagers up and at the beach by 6am. It was a beautiful morning today, and it was a welcomed experience.

Work wise has been more of the same. We have split up into multiple crews again and continued to do more drywall finishing, painting, and installing trim. Progress is being made and it is nice to see the fruits of our labor.

It is hard to believe that today is already Wednesday. The week is going by fast, but we are still having fun and enjoying ourselves. The damage here is still incredible, but it is good feeling to know that we are making a difference.

Til next time......

A boot found on the beach - debris is still floating in from the Gulf

Sunrise over Gulfport

Tuesday update.

Last evening after dinner a group took a drive around Gulfport. Two of the sites we saw were a wall that used to divide the races - whites on one side, blacks on the other; and a 500 year old oak tree just off the gulf coast.

Another work day in the books. Today we woke up to a wonderful breakfast. Not getting enough to eat is definitely not a problem. Again we broke up into groups and were at 3 work sites. Progress is being made. Each job has several tasks going on. Drywall finishing and painting seem to be commonplace at all sites. Again it was quite warm. A thunderstorm rolled through late afternoon and cooled things off considerably. The front was welcome relief. We are all having fun, but are tired by the end of the day. We look forward to accomplishing alot as the week progresses. Til next time......

More Monday Pictures

We just didn't have enough room in the previous post! See the post below this one for the write-up for the day.

Photographer's Privilege (since he is always on the other end of the camera):

The wall of the industrial canal in New Orleans - this is the lower 9th ward where there used to be many homes along this wall.

Monday Update

Today was a hot one...about 95 degrees. We had a variety of jobs today, breaking down into various work groups. Some of us did dry wall sanding and mudding, some were painting, trim work, and basically just did a lot of sweating. Pete must have liked Nancy and Mary the best, because he gave them the air conditioned church to work in.

We are now waiting for a lasagne supper. We all enjoyed our showers a lot. Tonight we plan just to hang out, and maybe head to the beach for a little while. We are all getting along very well, which is a definite blessing.

Till next time........

Steve's burger at Cafe Maspero's

Some of the damage left in eastern New Orleans

Sunset over the "Golden Arches"
Notice missing part of the sign....restaurant is too!

Steve has a question:

Short Update

This is just a short update before we head out to New Orleans. We enjoyed an early morning worship service at Little Rock Missionary Baptist Church at 8AM this morning. We are hoping to explore N'awlins and then come back here to Gulfport to go out to the beach tonight. Thanks to all of you that left comments for us. We enjoy reading them together. Here is a picture of our church this morning:

We Are Here!

Finally we have arrived! Our journey took a little longer than we had expected. We arrived to Gulfport about 6:00 local time safe and sound, but not without incident. We encountered a few traffic jams and one adventure with our trailer. This morning in Nowheresville, Alabama we had a bearing go out on one of the wheels. The good news is we weren't stranded on the road, but we did have to make other arrangements. The shop we stopped at couldn't get parts in until Monday so we had to rent a Uhaul to complete the journey. We also ran into substantial rain which slowed things down as well. Oh well...more time in a 15 passenger van - added value.

Our accomadations are quite nice. Our home for the week will serve us quite well. Tonight we had dinner, orientation and are relaxing after our long journey. Tomorrow we hope to go to a local church and tour New Orleans.

Til next time........

Video

Thanks again for your interest in our updates. If you have not already done so, please read the welcome message located below this post. For an idea of what conditions in Gulfport are like, we found this video (click link to go to video page). If you have a moment, feel free to check it out.

Welcome

Welcome to the update page for the Gulfport, MS work project. We plan on updating this blog every day beginning with our arrival on Saturday. We are using a blog for our updates as it is easier to update and view. This allows all of you to leave comments for us on each update. We welcome you to do this as much as you want. To leave a comment, click on the "(#) comments" link on the bottom of each day and you will be able to write a comment of your own. Use the "other" identity and include your name if you wish. We will enjoy hearing from you.