Spring Break Mission Trip

Sunday: 8.51 AM
9 College students and Pastor Jack went on a long road trip to the Alabama Gulf Coast. We left Muncie Indiana on Saturday morning at 7:11 am while attempting to leave at 6:30 am. Do I need to add that lots of people slept for a nice portion of the ride down there? College students are just not used to get up this early any day of the week. Jack was the only person allowed to drive due to insurance reasons. The other students were Roger, Katie, Ali, Aaron, Allison, Tyson, Bill, Jessie, and Me (Robert). The drive was a long one; it took us over 14 hours to eventually get down here. Along the way there was lots of talking and sleeping, some singing and card playing, and (welcome technology) some DVD watching. The mood – next to being tired – was good. We arrived around 9:15 local time. Everybody was glad that we made it without any greater issues – we even found it right away. Upon arrival, J.V., Salomon, Barbara (Barbie) and Robert were there. We checked in with J.V. and he gave us some background on what has happened down here. People were poor here before hurricane Kathrina hit as the government had “outsourced” there fishing economy to the Chinese. Yep, they will be the next super power and you wonder why? It will be interesting to see the different struggles that people have mastered and how. Salomon supposedly just showed up sleeping outside by the clothing that is for anybody to take. They were donated. Robert lived in the bunker (our place to stay). Here, where now we have ten bunked beds in the main room with four tables and four fridges. On the right there is a division built up by dry wall to create three smaller sleeping rooms with more bunked beds, one of which was chosen by our female companions. Storage along the walls is used for a lot of food. So is the church – a smaller church full of canned goods. We asked Salomon where he sleeps and he replied outside. We suggested he should sleep in one of the bunked beds as there is plenty of space. But Salomon declined, we don’t know why he doesn’t want to but I am sure he has his reason. After our arrival and quick chats it was time to eat supper – BBQ on buns. Then a quick happy birthday to Allison, some singing and prayer time, and everybody is getting ready to go to bed. We (the guys) can hear the girls chat yet as everybody is settling down. A long day and everybody is exhausted. Good that we have one rest day tomorrow – Sunday.
Today things are interesting – our first day with daylight where we can actually see what is going on around here. Tyson and I got up at 7am to get a run in. The weather is great – nice and warm, perfect for a morning run! At first it just seems a little dirty and some stuff seems odd, but along 188E things seem to be almost back to normal. We turn on Railroad and here it is obvious that something has happened in the past that has not been fixed yet. There is a lot of debris lying on the side of the roads. It almost seems that every other house has one or two dogs watching us as we run by. Every once in a while a distinct rotten smell fills the air. Tyson turns around and I keep going. Along Railroad until I hit Niolon which leads right to the ocean shore. There is no beach here. One can see all kinds of interesting things that have happened along the side of the road. Some houses are completely demolished. Some seem abandoned – the FEMA numbers and some insurance numbers are written on boards that are hung on trees by what used to be houses. The road along the water is bad and mostly closed. At some points the sand underneath has been washed out and the road is not drivable. In these instances the road itself seems like a frozen wave of water. Bridges are closed because the road doesn’t quite connect with it; there is a foot or so drop of the road on each side of the concrete bridge. I was told by J.V. that if I take the right road far enough I’d see some fishing ships in the middle of the woods – but I missed it. Some people that drive by as I run look at me funny – I am not surprised as I assume they haven’t seen a skinny runner at 8 am in the morning on Sunday running along the road often lately. Maybe that seems a little too normal to them, but when considering everything that these people have gone through I cannot blame them.
Today we’ll head to the beach and tomorrow the work starts. I cannot wait to really get to know J.V., Barbie, Salomon, and Robert, as well as everybody else that we will get in contact with. People are afraid to loose everything they have had; leaving just doesn’t seem like an answer to them. J.V. already told us interesting stories how some crooks tried to abuse the situation in their favor, creating casinos along the place and change the whole infrastructure. An interesting thought as the economy has been declining in this area in the first place before the Kathrina ever hit the coast. Others have tried to receive money for rebuilding houses and then run with the money. It is gorgeous outside and one must abuse the weather while it lasts.

Monday 7:41 am
It is Monday today and the time to start working is getting closer. Yesterday was an awesome day. We went to church where at bible study we covered 1. Timothy 2. The church service went well and we got to know a lot of people from the community. After church we went back to the bunker for lunch. Lots of great food was prepared. Here I meet Tammie, a 23 year old girl who just had her “husband” put into jail as he had hit her when she tried to leave him. This is a rough situation. She has two little children. I don’t envy her. We leave to head to Gulf Shores on the other side of the bay area. We spent some time at the beach together with Rita and Gene. Gulf Shores seems mostly rebuilt and in good shape. This is probably also because the more wealthy people live on this side of the bay. The weather is nice and warm – perfect shirt and shorts weather with the sun shining. The water seems a little cold and nobody has the guts to jump in, but we all get our feet wet. We do a variety of things. Some play football while others just take a walk along the beach. Next we hurried to visit Bob as we sadly ran out of time. He has his own property on the backside of the beach which was very quiet and enjoyable. The sunshine was awesome. After two individuals wanted to see how far they can throw a football straight without falling into the water we left to go to church. After church we went out to eat at a burger place right at the beach – that was pretty neat but also cold and pretty expensive. Well, you only live once. Upon arrival back at the bunker we were surprised by several other people. Another group from North Carolina arrived bringing the total of volunteers from 10 up to about 30 or something along these lines. I was dead tired and one of the first to head to bed. I didn’t even get to listen to Jack explain how to roof a house. Learning by doing I guess.
With so many people in the house I knew it would be troublesome finding a time to shower but we made it all alright. Breakfast was good, a birthday song for me plus a couple pancakes and a piece of cake. Everybody seems excited to see how the building process will go.

Tuesday 7:11 am
Yesterday was the first day that we were let loose to pretend to help fix things around here. What a day, what a long day. We went to a house about a good mile from our bunker. It was right by the shipyard and pretty run down. Right next to it was a crab place which contributed nicely to the smell. The outside didn’t look extremely bad; however, the inside was just a skeleton. No shower or electricity – an electrician was working on some outlets. Cheryl and Terry have been living in these conditions for weeks. Although they are not the owners of the house they do have permission to stay there. The first thing to do was to take a little crusty wall in the entry room down so we could rebuild it. The women worked on the rebuilding with Leo – the construction worker that guided us through our task. The guys started in the bedroom – first putting in a ceiling out of plywood and then using more plywood to hide the skeleton side, creating the inside wall. I was getting tired later in the morning already. It was a struggle sometimes as there wasn’t always stuff to do for all people. Not everybody knew what to do and how to do it so the expertise of Jack and Leo was well needed. Jack of course worked a lot since he was almost, maybe with the exception of Bill, the only person with construction experience in our group. Lunch was back at the bunker and was very good. It was a deserved quick break from work, and then we went straight back to work. There was and still is much to do. I am not sure how much of the house we are supposed to rebuild. Rumor has it that we are supposed to do the roof as well, but that is far from us so far I’d guess. First we have to finish the bedroom – the walls and finish putting a new window in – a window that Jack had to make a hole for in the wall. In the afternoon, we were also able to drag Salomon along with us which was good. He sometimes seems extremely mellow and it is a little frustrating at times when you ask him to do something that he doesn’t get going right away, but I can’t blame it. He has been here for months, day in and day out with the same things. It doesn’t appear to me that he has great amounts to do throughout the day. Now, if I wouldn’t have much to do every day, it would also be hard for me to get it done right away. But he seems to slowly warm up to us which is a very good thing.
In the evening after coming back, a group of six (Jesse, Tyson, Katie, Salomon, Bill, and I) went running too. Nice and easy down to the shore. Salomon took a couple breaks walking, and after turning around Salomon and Tyson walked back. It was a lot of fun. We had supper, a devotional and prayer time (Micah 6:6-8, Math 5:7 & 9:10-13) with the other group, and then people started playing games and hung out. Several people are not feeling up to par today. Ali is not feeling great.. Jack is also still struggling with his not feeling well. Aaron seems to be getting better with his little sickness. I start feeling bad after the afternoon run. People started playing balderdash as well as chess and card games. I tried to head to bed early but I didn’t sleep well. The gamers were not the quietest I have ever seen. We were able to convince Salomon to stay in the bunker for the night. The night was short and its time to get going again. I hope people will get better so we can continue to work hard and make a difference in people’s lives.

Wednesday 8:01 am
It is amazing how many people are not really feeling to well. It all started with Aaron on the way down; from there it reached Ali, Bill, and me. Luckily for myself, I am starting to feel a little better day by day, but it is hard to tell about Ali and Bill. Aaron seems to be much better. Yesterday we finally got the first room completely done as far as I am aware of. Maybe some wiring needs to be finished but it is a good start. It’s the bed room too which is helpful as we won’t have to move their bed anymore before we can start working. However we did have some trouble with it. I ran a wire under the house in the morning and we found out that it was a little to short. So in the afternoon when we had another, longer, wire the outlet had already been hid behind a wall. This resulted in a lot of crawling under the house for Jack and me, but we got it all figured out. Some of the women seem a little lost sometimes as they are not sure what to do. We have two people that know what they are doing: Jack and Leo, so it is hard to keep everyone busy all the time. We also have the back door put in and the window Jack put in the bedroom. The entrance room is also looking better by the day, only a few boards left and we have all the walls up. Although it seems rather slow throughout the day because we don’t have a multitude of the tools we need, there is a progress visible comparing the mornings with the evenings. It is amazing how much time goes into the little things throughout the day. Bill had trouble yesterday as he felt horrible, so he stopped working halfway through the morning – laying in the van – and stayed in the bunker after lunch just sleeping and resting. In the evening things were pretty mellow. Some people watched the first portion of “Samurai” and there was a lot of card playing and ‘Sudoku’ puzzling going on. Bill will be with us this morning and try out again.

Thursday 7:54 am
Yesterday was another long and rough day. There are more and more people getting sick now too. Katie was under the weather as well, and lots of us are just coughing like it’s none of our business. We cleaned up at the house some more. We put in the front door and the entry room is basically done. Jack worked on the ceiling some more and hand to crawl up there to do some of the work. Allison and I worked in the bedroom in the morning, removing some old flooring that was glued to the boards. We got to talk to Cheryl – the house keeper – which was very interesting. Her story is quite amazing. She grew up in the south in a very faithful family. Growing up she received a higher education in the health sector. At first she was a surgical help during operations, but some physical condition stopped her from doing so. Then she went into nursing as she was getting more interested in people. After several twists and turns she ends up in Bayou La Batre. She says that her family has a history of healing people, something that her grandmother and her mother were able to do. A couple healing and nature books are sitting on the bed. To date she is working in the crab factory next door. The predominantly Asian workers do not like her so she works after hours and cleans up the floor. Before our group came to Alabama, Cheryl and Terry had nothing in the house. They were sleeping on two benches with a piece of plywood on top. By now the church was able to give them a decent bed as well as a couch to increase their living situation.
In the evening we made it over to Gulf Shores for church. Jack and I also went into the Ocean so he could baptize me. Church was fun and afterwards we ate at Chic-Fil-E. We came back late so I went straight to bed while others stayed up watching DVDs on the laptop.

Friday 7:11 am
It is time to wake up once again. Today is the last day for our project. Tomorrow morning we will leave to make space for a new group to come in maybe Sunday and replace our somewhat tired bodies. It is amazing to see things slowly fall together at the house. There is still much work to do, but basically we are working in only one portion of the house, everything else is done now. Then of course it needs some paint etc, but that is not our job. We put up the walls and ceilings and that is so important. We put in another few windows yesterday. Cheryl and Terrie are very thankful for all the work we have done so far on their house. Before we came they were sleeping in a skeleton, now they have rooms, walls, doors and windows. People overall also seem to recover from the sickness that has been going around. Besides a little sneezer or cough overall people are much quieter and look better. I don’t cough as much anymore myself, but therefore my cough is deeper, it doesn’t sound very good to be honest. After we got done working on the house yesterday, Bill, Katie, Allison and I decided to walk back as it was nice out and rain was coming in. We didn’t get rained on but took a couple fun pictures and just relaxed. After supper we got our group as well as the North Carolina group together to do ‘Peaks & Valleys’. For this we split up into three smaller groups which then discuss the great things that have happen to us over the last week as well as the troublesome things that have happened in our life or things that are on our minds. My valley was that I anticipate a lot of struggles with all this emotionally and with my faith in the future as I head back to Germany to see my family and friends over there.

Saturday 5:40 pm
We are on our way back to Muncie now. Wow, what a nice last day in Bayou La Batre we had! Everybody seemed a little tired as it had been four days of working for us – the last day on the job. It was amazing how much we actually accomplished in just five days of work, especially when considering that most of us did not have any experience with this type of work before. By the end we had all kinds of people using the power tools, everything went much smoother and faster. To our surprise we didn’t get to see much of Cheryl and Terry. She was in the bedroom most of the time – the one room that was completely finished coming into Friday, and he was around for short and then vanished. It rained a little in the morning while we had to unload a small truck load of more supplies, such as 2x4s. By the end of the day we had all the windows put in and most walls completed. It was overall a very strong effort from everybody. It was sad to say bye to Leo since we worked a lot with him together. We didn’t get around to say goodbye to Cheryl and Terry as they weren’t around when we left, but we tried to sweep everything clean so if a new group comes in next Monday they would find a decent working environment. When we left we took a detour to Dauphin Island which was about 20 min away to see some beach and enjoy our last evening in Alabama. At first we went to an old fort and then to the beach. Most people decided it was time to jump into the water. The only two individuals that did not go in were the two that already had been completely in the water on Wednesday night. Pictures were taken and lots of laughs were exchanged. I went on to walk along the beach by myself taking pictures and letting my mind wonder. Katie and Allison caught up with me to bring me back to the group, and we took off to get back home to the bunker for the evening. There we ate left over hot dogs from lunch and people took some very needed showers as they were still wet from the beach. With this the evening slowed down. Eventually we started playing Balderdash which took quite a while. We stopped after 11pm as some people had already gone to bed and the plan was to leave at 6:00 am. So quietness filled the bunker around 11:30 pm for the first time since we arrived in Bayou La Batre. We were almost the only people there, our group, Robert and Salomon and Clay who would be there for a week to help once again.

At 5:30 am it was lights on and quick packing time. At exactly 6:18 am the van accompanied by the trailer left the parking lot of the bunker to head back towards Muncie Indiana.

“It has been an amazing week!”