This has been an incredible week.  I think this is the first year that we had no injuries.  As the individual that has had more than his share of mishaps during Back Bay trips, I am very grateful for that.

I am amazed at how well our group and the group from Ohio that we shared living and working space with got along.  Apparently, everyone followed the advise to first pack patience.

The project is a new home for a Vietnamese widow and her children.  They have been living about 20 miles north of Biloxi  in rented space in Pascagoula.  We were able to bring them closer to returning to their old neighborhood by completing the drywall installation (previous work groups had started to hang some), taping, mudding, sanding, mudding, and installing about 3/4 of the siding.  We know they have been monitoring our progress at night because we found a note on the wall written by one of the children thanking the workers.  We wrote one back.  The transformation of a project from a rough construction site to something that looks more like a home when drywall is installed is very striking.  With the addition of much of the siding, it is easy to imagine a family living there soon.  Unfortunately, although the address is the same, the neighborhood is not the one they left five years ago.  There are still more empty lots than occupied ones and I don’t know how many of the occupied homes have the same occupants as before.

Other work campers volunteered for working at Loaves and Fishes (a soup kitchen), the Back Bay food pantry, and the Micah Center.  Craig Steenkamp (Back Bay’s Associate for Housing Recovery) commented that this is one of the few times when groups filled all of the available slots for help in these “non-building” areas.

I can’t emphasize enough how wonderful it was to have campers that volunteered to handle most of the cooking.  It was so great to come back to the Mission House and have lunch or dinner waiting for us.

The Gulf Coast, while no longer looking like a disaster zone, is still a very long way from complete recovery.  This coupled with the fact that for the first time since the hurricane we didn’t see any other volunteer groups working.  Craig said he could only think of three other groups that still have volunteers coming on a regular basis and those do not have groups every week.  While Back Bay has plenty of volunteers, they are experiencing a severe shortage of funding.  This is forcing them to limit the numbers in each group and to increase the number of weeks when they have no campers.

Looking ahead, we are committed to coming every year for the foreseeable future.  We have reserved for 20 people in 2011, 24 in 2012, and 24 in 2013.  All of these trips are the second week of October.

Blessings to all.

A few of the comments heard this morning about our adventure:

• “Unexpected results, should be expected”
• “Measure twice, cut once”
• “The third time is for practice”
• “For Pete’s sake, snap the line already”
• “Do it right or do it over”
• Client to volunteer, “I really like your smile, it makes me feel good”, response from volunteer, “I really like your smile it makes ME feel good”
• “It sure feels good to make a difference”
• “Working side by side is certainly a great way to make new friends”
• “Amazing how much a shower and clean clothes can boost someone’s spirits”

This is a new construction house for a family that is still displaced following Katrina.

Here is our work group.

We are also enjoying sharing the work and the lodging with a group from Ohio.

Monday, getting started

The Park Brothers, together again.

Got it made in the shade.

This was moments after "shut up and snap the line already!" (sibling love)

Week's end

Week's end

Week's end

Week's end

Notes with family

Comments/Notes from The Work site:

The building has transformed into a home in the last few days now that all of the drywall is up and “mudding” is at various stages in all the rooms. The siding is complete on the north and south sides and thanks to the leadership of the Parker Brothers and their “sunshine team”, the east side had lots of progress today.

Comments/Notes from the Mica Center:

There were at least a dozen people in line 45 minutes before the doors opened this morning. The clients are primarily men but today there was a family who were about to be evicted from their most recent living quarters, a tent in a campground which they could no longer afford. Their soon to be 4 year old son was outfitted with some new clothes. He wanted to see the picture that had been taken at which point his little finger focused on the bag of clothes in his arms “clothes, clothes! he said with a beaming smile.

Comments/Notes from Loaves and Fishes:

Things were interesting right from the start today as someone forgot to put the beans on to simmer last night for the stew they planned to serve today. A quick look at the resources available lead to leftover breakfast patties with gravy added and doughnuts that were a few days old. It all disappeared quickly.

We also learned that the person running the program had come to the area to provide supplies for the oil rigs and was laid off so he is leading this volunteer project while he looks for other employment.

After work this afternoon we met with the Bay Back representatives.

A few interesting tidbits:

• Back Bay has built or rebuilt 176 homes since Katrina. This was possible because of $5 Million worth of volunteer hours.
• The typical cost to build a modest home with is $70,000. They have to contract out for A/C, plumbing, electric and the foundation (which costs $13,000) raises the house 11 feet above the ground, with beams that go down 12 feet.
• The home owners may get grant funds to cover part of the cost but they have to be able to show that they can afford their energy efficient home in the long term.
• They have many more requests than they can build. Families with no homes are the highest priorities.

Jambalaya for dinner. Boy, those Ohio ladies really know how to cook! Then off to church for the Wednesday evening service. Tomorrow will be a short work day so that people have a bit of time to explore the area.

Comments from Micah Center volunteers: so many men coming to shower and have their clothes washed! Respectful and appreciative;  some of the socks, underwear and jeans we brought down were distributed this very first day because their supplies were so low.

Comments from building crew: . . . . (silence) . . . . when one of the workers found a message about 4 feet up the wall obviously written in a child’s hand “Thanks you guys!!!

Loaves and Fishes crew: we thought they’d come and get as much as they could eat but the servings we provided were so small we would have left hungry had we eaten there.

Food Pantry crew: People eligible only once in 30 days to supplement their food supply received a small bag of groceries that any of us would likely use in a single day. When the last can of fruit left the shelves we couldn’t resist a trip to Walmart to replenish the shelves. Never thought about how important something as simple as a birth certificate might be.

A HUGE thanks to our fellow work campers from Ohio who brought along cooks!

There is a rumor that those trusted with transporting tools for the trip stopped at a casino and (to keep the story short and protect the guilty) apparently the tools are being safely stored by a local “pawn star”.  Not much consolation was provided by the comment that we have 30 days to retrieve them.

We are off to a great start!

The rest of the trip was blissfully uneventful.  We arrived at our Mount Vernon, IL hotel before 7:00 in spite of our late start and cotton picking delays.  Enjoyed dinner at The Pasta House and looking around speculated that there is a hotel room for every resident of Mount Vernon.

Most names have been omitted.  Most of my fellow campers should know who is who.  Just ask one of us.

A group of four driving around Biloxi the two ladies in the back broke into song.  They were all shook up.  Elvis was at the wheel.

If the code is 36” we need 36”.

One camper had a close encounter of the rattiest kind.

Thankfully we had an architect in the group that pointed out that when we put the wall back together, the wall should go all the way up to the ceiling.

Do you understand what I mean when I say ceiling joist?

Today, east means west.  (Next day) East means east again.

Some of us need to be careful with a sharp pencil.

There was some destructive testing of flooring materials.  Thankfully, the scaffold was already in place.

The framing gals are only following the roadmap (even if east is west).  If we get lost due to a faulty roadmap, the framers are not responsible…unless the hot sun is getting to them.  It occurs to the leader that they are in a no lose situation.

K is for king, J is for Jack, where is the Queen?  The leader observes that we have 10 Queens on this trip.

Four inches isn’t really that far apart.

I said put the top in first.

For one camper, the most challenging thing all week was keeping track of the various tasks assigned by the leader and the frequency with which items on the list would change in hierarchy.

Craig to leader that will remain nameless: “The 82 ½” rough opening for the door should be measured from the floor, not the top of the bottom plate.”  Nameless leader: “Oops” or something like that.  More rework follows.

One couple had issues with the air compressor.  One day the wife suffered from hose whip and saw the warning (“hold the hose firmly when disconnecting to prevent hose whip”) too late.  Next day the husband cleverly sprayed himself while bleeding the tank.  They both seem to have learned a lesson.  Hopefully, they will remember this for next year.  Wife thinks the common denominator here is the air compressor, therefore it is at fault.

Craig to work camper 1 “Make two three inch blocks to use as nailers.” Work camper 2 “What?”  Work camper 1 (now measuring) “We need two 3” blocks.”  Craig: “Is there an echo in here?”

Framing gals observed that it would be more helpful to have the scaffold sections placed so that the ladders on the same side on each level.  Otherwise, that next step is a doozy.

Moving the scaffold platforms from one level to the next proved to be nearly as challenging as the circular puzzle in the Mission House.

Speaking of puzzles, some campers stayed up until 11:10 on Friday night to finish the last puzzle.  Everyone worked on one of the puzzles at one time or another during the week.

The weather all week was nothing short of spectacular.  Daytime highs in the 70’s, sunny, and (especially for here) low humidity.  Our timing was good because Mississippi had record rainfall in October.  We simply could not have asked for better weather.