We spent a week in Gulfport, Mississippi on a United Methodist Volunteers in Mission work project. John and I were part of a team of 27 people -- 14 youth and 4 adults from a UMC in southern Calif; plus 6 adults and 1 youth from a UMC in Indiana. We were each given bright green T-shirts, identifying the relief organization we were a part of.
It was fun to be part of a group, but we were glad to have our own private living quarters. We had parked our trailer behind the Gateway UMC -- a church that had converted part of their upstairs into living quarters for volunteers. We were told that at the beginning of the disaster relief efforts, they had 200 volunteers staying there, sleeping in every possible inch of the building. Can't imagine how they did it. Just with our group of 27, it was a challenge for the group to share 4 showers, 4 toilets, and several bunk bed dorm-type rooms. They had a large kitchen, but not large enough for 200 people! We did our own cooking, and I helped with several of the meals, but was really only in charge of one breakfast. The site coordinator, who did an excellent job with all the duties he had getting us out to the jobs, would also purchase food items in bulk, and we tried to figure out how to fix meals from the supplies on hand! A doctor and his wife from Indiana did most of the meal planning/preparation, for which I was grateful.
Since John had the most construction skills, he was needed on various projects. I became his assistant and/or navigator. I even learned to operate a circular saw -- you'd think a contractor's wife should know things like that! The biggest job was being part of a roofing team on a house that looked like it should have been bulldozed instead of repaired. Nothing was to code -- and since there aren't any inspections in this part of the country, it's amazing buildings survive at all. With lots of ingenuity, John and a couple men from Indiana got the roofing figured out, and the shingles on. I was happy to be the go-fer on the ground!
John did several other odd jobs, and we made several trips with the VIM trailer to the dump. The first day we loaded the trailer with junk -- truly junk -- from a woman's home who said the debris had been left from the work on her house 2 years ago! Let me tell you... there was more than construction debris in that pile! At the other houses where we picked up stuff for the dump, we had youth that helped, luckily. We only worked on one project where the man and his son were there while we were working. Most of the projects didn't have residents that our workers interacted with -- a difference from our experience in Biloxi in October 2007.
On our last night together, the whole group went out to dinner at "The Shed," a restaurant/experience that is a "must" if you're in the area. It has the best bbq food around -- and has even been featured on the Food Network more than once. It was delicious!
We bid farewell to our new friends on Saturday morning, and have now driven to the Corpus Christi area in Texas.
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