Day two and three

I'm back!!!! Sorry for the day of no blog. The wireless connection tends to cut in and out a lot so I wasn't able to post yesterday. So this is two days of updates. Please bear with us!

Friday was a busy, hot day. We came up with a Top 10 list for you to enjoy, so here goes...

Top 10 interesting things that happened on Friday:

10. Catfish Friday lunch with inmate workers at First Missionary Baptist Church

9. Rapid adaptation of the southern accent

8. Distraction Disaster--the dog

7. Lizards, frogs, massive spiders and flies the size of Rhode Island.

6. 6 inch wide, 1 foot deep archaeological dig

5. Surviving heatstroke--ice water never tasted so good

4. Egg on a hot tin roof

3. Box 'o' shrimp with eyes for dinner--fresh off the boat

2. CSI: Motel 6

1. Ladders, unexpected haircuts and superglue

It was a good day. We're noticing that things look cleaner this time around. There isn't as much debris around, which is a great sign of renewal. There are 230 people staying at Pearlington Recovery Center this week. That doesn't count all the people who are at the Presbyterian Camp and us! Every street seems to have at least one work crew on it. Things are bustling in Pearlington!

Saturday:

Today got off to an early start for a couple of our crew who left at 6am to go put in insulation at Ms. P's home. Did I mention that it's hot? Yeah, it's hot. Really, really, really hot. And muggy. Oh. my. goodness. Today has been the day of bathroom adventures. One crew had the blue sauna, another had a close encounter with ants and the last crew had a duck pond in their bathroom. Most of the other people in town took the day off, so we didn't see as many work crews. The folks we worked for were very happy to see us, surprised even. But not one turned us away.

Many of us spent the day painting. Some learned how to lay tile, others finished sheet rock and electrical work. Some of the work is tedious, like filling nail holes with caulk so that we can repaint the exterior of a house, but the smiles of the homeowners are worth every single minute on a ladder. There's a feeling in the air of accomplishment. Each team is reporting that their lists keep getting checked off, but there's always more to do. Every step means that the people we are working for are getting a little closer to having a home again. We are doing good work.

The story of the day came from one of our home owners Ms. E. We started talking about the local wildlife and she recounted driving home one night with her husband and seeing what looked like a shredded tire on the road. Her husband was sure that it was an alligator so they turned around to investigate. Sure enough, there was an alligator that had been hit by a car. It's jaw was broken and it looked dead, so they decided to take it home (because "we eat gator"). Ms. E opened the trunk of her car and grabbed the upper body of the gator and loaded it into the car. As she and her husband tried to figure out how to get the tail of the alligator into the trunk they came to the realization that the gator was still alive. They managed to get it shoved in the trunk. Ms. E's husband and stepson managed to get the gator out of the car where they proceeded to "humanely euthanize" it...but it was an angry gator and it didn't go easily. 8 rounds later from a shotgun the angry alligator finally died...and wound up as dinner. Life is different here in the south.

We would appreciate your prayers as we continue our week for rest and health. A couple of our team members have been ill today, though we have been injury free! (Yo Momma was our casualty). We're headed to the beach, for a ride around Mississippi and free time tomorrow. We'll blog more about our adventures, or just maybe show more pictures. In the meantime, thanks for your support and prayers! We can tell that we are being blanketed in prayer this week. God is good, all the time, God is good.