The Mission Trip (this'll be a long one)
So I just got back from the Boo-ya! mission trip a few hours ago. It was an awesome trip and i'm definitely glad I went. So much happened i'm not quite sure where to start. I'll describe our accomodations first. We were at a FEMA camp. We had to wear badges at all times, there were guards every where, and we weren't allowed to take pictures on the camp. yeah, it was pretty hard core. The tents had air conditioning which we thought was cool, at first (i'll explain later). There were port-a-poties (is that even spelled right?), a few flush toilets, and shower trailers (those didn't run out of hot water which i thought was nice). The food was great, mmmm food. k, time to switch to chronological order
Went up Saturday. I got sick that afternoon/night. Hoped to feel better after a good nights sleep, but we didn't know how to control the AC yet so i (and the rest of the Floridians) spent the night mostly awake shivering. Sunday morning i felt like complete crap and would have gone home if i could have. I recall saying to Katie "I don't think I can do this", to which she replied "Well you don't have a choice". i later learned she and Pam were using a good cop bad cop strategy to keep me going. I'm fairly Katie was supposed to be the bad cop. But I sucked it up and went to church with everyone else. The church was in a school cafeteria and was the remnants of a few churchs that had combined. Then we caught the end of a parade where they were throwing out beads along with carrots, potatoes, and cabbages. Then we headed to New Orleans to see Billy Graham. We spent a little too much time wandering around in the French quarter so we didn't get seats, but Katie, Matt Gordon, Tim and I stood/sat against a wall and Jon and Pam went to the overflow section. Pretty cool though i was about to fall asleep due to still feeling pretty crappy.
Monday I awoke completely better when i most needed to be. yeah, God's pretty awesome like that. Our first house wins the most muddy award. It would take forever for me to write out just how bad the damage/smell/all the conditions were, but the work to be done made World Changers (repairing houses) look like pansy work. Our job was to completely "gut" the house (take out everything down to the concrete and studs). That day we were with a team from Indiana and MSNBC new was there to do a story on us. I was on live TV briefly by accident, hehe. That night we figured out how to make the tent slightly warmer and layered up so we could sleep.
The next day we switched teams and were matched with the Pura Vida home group. Though the the Indiana people were great i think this was one of the best things that happened all week for me. See with the Indiana people i might have made friends with some of them, but i'd never see them. This way i got to know new people and will actually see them all again and they are pretty awesome people :) For times sake i will sumarize this house and the others by giving them "awards". That day was the most random stuff we had to dig out, quite literally (928 also helped us finish that one so that was cool). We also encountered a rather large snake in that one that we were fairly certain was venomous. Then there was the most mildewy/cockroach infested. Friday we thought was gonna be easy cuz there wasn't much stuff, but it turned out to be the hardest cuz the dry wall was really hard and we were all tired from the week.
We left Friday night and stayed the night in Niceville with Tim's family. i can finally say i've visited this wee little town i've heard so much about ;) That was great cuz we got to sleep in beds, meet his cool family, and eat monster pancakes in the morning his dad made for us. Mmm, pancakes. Then we drove the rest of the way today.
I haven't really had enough time to really organize exactly what i learned yet, but i definitely think God stretched my limits. I feel more self confident in what i can endure physically and it was awesome to be able to use my time and efforts to encourage the people affected by the hurricane and show them God's love. I've also come back with a slight farmers tan, some new muscles (i'm very proud of those), and and odd desire to gut my room...
Now i need to finish my laundry (my clothes have never before been so foul smelling), figure out what i need to catch up on school work wise, and watch my recorded Sci-fi Friday finales :)
Went up Saturday. I got sick that afternoon/night. Hoped to feel better after a good nights sleep, but we didn't know how to control the AC yet so i (and the rest of the Floridians) spent the night mostly awake shivering. Sunday morning i felt like complete crap and would have gone home if i could have. I recall saying to Katie "I don't think I can do this", to which she replied "Well you don't have a choice". i later learned she and Pam were using a good cop bad cop strategy to keep me going. I'm fairly Katie was supposed to be the bad cop. But I sucked it up and went to church with everyone else. The church was in a school cafeteria and was the remnants of a few churchs that had combined. Then we caught the end of a parade where they were throwing out beads along with carrots, potatoes, and cabbages. Then we headed to New Orleans to see Billy Graham. We spent a little too much time wandering around in the French quarter so we didn't get seats, but Katie, Matt Gordon, Tim and I stood/sat against a wall and Jon and Pam went to the overflow section. Pretty cool though i was about to fall asleep due to still feeling pretty crappy.
Monday I awoke completely better when i most needed to be. yeah, God's pretty awesome like that. Our first house wins the most muddy award. It would take forever for me to write out just how bad the damage/smell/all the conditions were, but the work to be done made World Changers (repairing houses) look like pansy work. Our job was to completely "gut" the house (take out everything down to the concrete and studs). That day we were with a team from Indiana and MSNBC new was there to do a story on us. I was on live TV briefly by accident, hehe. That night we figured out how to make the tent slightly warmer and layered up so we could sleep.
The next day we switched teams and were matched with the Pura Vida home group. Though the the Indiana people were great i think this was one of the best things that happened all week for me. See with the Indiana people i might have made friends with some of them, but i'd never see them. This way i got to know new people and will actually see them all again and they are pretty awesome people :) For times sake i will sumarize this house and the others by giving them "awards". That day was the most random stuff we had to dig out, quite literally (928 also helped us finish that one so that was cool). We also encountered a rather large snake in that one that we were fairly certain was venomous. Then there was the most mildewy/cockroach infested. Friday we thought was gonna be easy cuz there wasn't much stuff, but it turned out to be the hardest cuz the dry wall was really hard and we were all tired from the week.
We left Friday night and stayed the night in Niceville with Tim's family. i can finally say i've visited this wee little town i've heard so much about ;) That was great cuz we got to sleep in beds, meet his cool family, and eat monster pancakes in the morning his dad made for us. Mmm, pancakes. Then we drove the rest of the way today.
I haven't really had enough time to really organize exactly what i learned yet, but i definitely think God stretched my limits. I feel more self confident in what i can endure physically and it was awesome to be able to use my time and efforts to encourage the people affected by the hurricane and show them God's love. I've also come back with a slight farmers tan, some new muscles (i'm very proud of those), and and odd desire to gut my room...
Now i need to finish my laundry (my clothes have never before been so foul smelling), figure out what i need to catch up on school work wise, and watch my recorded Sci-fi Friday finales :)