Tales from the Trip

There's so much to say and tell about this trip.  I'll start at the beginning, of course, but it's liable to take many twists and turns before we get to the end.  So just come along for the ride and enjoy the scenery.

• Bug spray and sunscreen....It is no small wonder that none of us had massive physical reactions to the amount of bug spray and sunscreen that we put on every day, I'm just sayin'!  (Love you, Cherene!) There's no way to exist in that part of the world without it.  And you better buy the sweat-proof kind, because you're going to need it.  Don't even bother with anything BUT the sweat-proof...it would be an exercise in futility.
• The heat...heavens to Easy-Bake Oven....it was HHHHHHHHHHOOOTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!  But not just regular hot.  It was wet hot...steamy...like walking around in a perpetual sauna!  If it had been possible, I would have unzipped my skin and sat around in my bones...it was JUST that hot!  You sweat in places that you were previously ignorant of and a cold shower becomes the prized commodity!  And by the way, when buying powder...to use to keep your delicate skin from chapping, make sure that you get the BODY powder in the gold bottle...not the FOOT powder in the blue bottle.  Desperate times call for desperate measures...the foot powder worked in a pinch and has a really great cooling sensation.
• Girls and bugs....mind you, I am no fan of the insect portion of God's animal kingdom.  Never have been...never will be.  There are some that I find more interesting than others, but as my precious FILove was fond of saying, "Mickers don't do bugs!"  And I don't.  It was obvious that some of our girls were even more bug phobic....if I had a dollar for every scream that a bug induced, I'd be ROLLING in the dough!!  Being surprised that there are bugs in the woods...in the jungle...is like being in the ocean and being surprised that you get shark bit!  I mean, come on people!
• Lakeshore MS...the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over this small town, bringing 30-40 feet of water with it.  Not much survived.  We were HQ'd at Lakeshore Baptist Church and every building/structure that was part of the church campus was washed away.  Some weeks after the storm, the pulpit and steeple were found in the woods and brought back to the church property.  A couple of large beams that had been part of the church buildings were also found.  The pulpit sits inside of the Quonset hut sanctuary...in the exact condition in which it was found...still in one piece.  The cross behind the pulpit is fashioned out of those two beams.  The steeple?  Well, it sits beside the road in front of the sanctuary...a monument for the community and a landmark for the many mission teams still making the trips to Lakeshore.  And that's where it will stay...ground will be broken for the new church buildings in August...but the old steeple will remain where it currently rests.
• We were the 600th mission team...600th!  And the most amazing part of that is our team was largely made of children...ranging from 9-18.  There were 44 of us...and only 7 adults.  We took care of things that many college groups and adult groups wouldn't touch.  We tore up two concrete pads and the second one required the concrete saw before the boys could take after it with the sledge hammers.  So, two concrete pads and the removal of the associated rubble, cleared a fence line that included roots that had been in the ground since God was a boy!  I kid you not...three of our older boys dug for two days on a tuber that looked like a ten pound baby!  We painted the pilings under Bro. Don's house, moved a pile of bricks from one side of campus to the other.  We moved a broken down fork lift off the church property and even tore down a blighted house.  We cleaned and weeded and sorted and organized.  They kept revamping the list to find us things to do.
• For many, many months after Katrina blew threw, there were no birds in Lakeshore MS.  No birds.  And no crickets.  Bro. Don said that when you went outside at night, there was silence...complete silence. I have carried this thought with me since hearing it.  We have lots of song birds around the house...because we have lots of oak and hickory trees.  There's a regular cacophony of bird sounds in our neighborhood.  Not to hear that would be misery.  The ecosystem was wiped out...and when things started to return, it was the bottom of the food chain that showed up first.  Bro. Don said there were Brown Recluse spiders everywhere.  As if having your home and all of your belongings washed to Kingdom Come wasn't bad enough, you THEN had to worry about fatal spider bites.  Slowly but surely, the natural world began to return.  Bro. Don pointed out all sorts of natural oddities.  He said about a year after the storm, his wife noticed a butterfly...for the first time SINCE the storm.  You work that out in your head...what do caterpillars need in order to make that metamorphic leap to butterfly?  It took a year...a solid year. 
• Learned how to eat steamed crab and crawfish...serious good stuff.  The crab is a LOT of work and I'd rather eat it if someone picked it for me.  I know...seriously lazy, but I'm just being honest. 
• Did you know that donkeys can be used in the same fashion a guard dog is?  Sure enough!  One of the houses in the community where we were passing out VBS fliers had a guard donkey.  It was a street over from where my group was.  Talk about a racket!  We were talking to "Uncle John" and his sister-in-law, Mrs. Annette when we heard the braying.  They just kept talking like it was no big deal.  Uncle John was a character...it's hotter than a pepper sprout outside and he's got on sweat pants!!!!  I was sweating just seeing the sweat pants.
• Hydration...of the utmost importance when dealing with heat like that of The Devil's crock pot.  Right there with hydration is remembering that the increased intake of fluid increases the need for output....which, when on a country dirt road in Mississippi leads to the necessity of remembering what Poison Ivy looks like.  Thankfully, the poison ivy was confined to the insides of my ankles and after getting some really good over the counter medication, it has nearly disappeared.  Having itchy ankles was a VERY small price to pay for not humiliating myself in front of a bunch of teen- agers!
• New Orleans:  I know why people in that town are crazy.  The heat, the booze and Satan.  He lives there.  No, seriously!  Y2 and I were standing in Jackson Square looking at St. Louis' Cathedral.  I looked to my right and was nearly scared witless...to the point of screaming.  Walking towards us was this man...black open vest...no shirt.  Black pants and black combat boots.  His skin was painted red...long black curly hair and two HUGE red goat horns coming out of his head.  There is NO way that he mistook the look on my face as one of amusement.  He leered at me and Y2 and said, "Bring me that little boy!"  I.  kid.  you.  not!  I looked at that Devil-man and said to him, "THE BLOOD OF JESUS!"  Grabbed Y2's hand and ran back to the safety of our group.  The kids were just flabbergasted to see him...I kept muttering, "The blood!  The blood of Jesus!"  One of our kids thought that was hysterical...told his folks, "Mrs. Michelle wasn't playing...she got the LORD after him!"  Goat-Head danced his way down the street and the rest of us found ourselves playing with a percussion ensemble that was set up just down from the Cathedral.  Gloryoski...that was fun!!!  We danced and laughed....and then we went in search of food.  We ate at Deannies on Iberville St. and it was SOME good!  There were so many LOVELY shops...but at the pace we were moving and having to keep up with our kids, there was no way to stop and look.  Mr. Snark promised me he'd take me back...in the spring...when it's not so hot.  We ended our night on the town at Cafe DuMonde...beignets are divine...and so is iced cafe au lait!
• The TA station in Slidell plays really good music. They were killing me with that playlist...all the great 60's-surfer-beach-Motown tunes.  I know this because as I stood outside Mr. Snark's locked truck....keys inside locked truck...waiting for the locksmith to arrive, I really wanted to dance.  But I didn't...as it really contradicted the SERIOUS pout I had going on because *I* was the one who locked us out of the truck.  
• You know you are heat crazed when a trip to the local WalMart becomes the highlight of the day...and the first stop when going inside is to the McDonald's for a large iced coffee!
• Leatha's BBQ Inn...Hattiesburg MS.....it's a dive sitting off of the main road...sitting behind something that sits off the main road.  Our youth pastor called ahead so all we had to do was come in and sit down.  They were waiting for us.  I'll say it this way and maybe you'll understand just how good this food is....every other BBQ I've eaten falls short...and I'm going to venture to say that any that I eat in the future will be hard pressed to rise to this standard.  Chicken wings...y'all know how stingy chicken wings can be with their meat...there's always something holding onto the bone.  Not these...no, sir!  They were smoked into submission and Lawd have mercy....I get all slobbery thinking about it.  Mrs. YouthPastor's Wife came around asking what our favorite sides were...through the mess that was my sauce covered face, I asked, "There were sides?"  The slaw and potato salad were good...honey mustard based...good, but I really wasn't as concerned about the sides as I was the meat.  The coolest thing about this joint is how Mrs. Leatha's daughter takes the orders.  Say you have a table of ten.  She goes around and gets all the drink orders and then recites them back...recites.  Not reads...recites!  Then she goes around and gets everyone's meat order...chicken, pulled pork, ribs, or turkey.  Then she goes around and gets everyone's side orders.  AND THEN...she recites it all back...drink order, meat and sides for each person.  All the while, she's joking and carrying on with the customers.  It was like watching a master craftsman at work!  Several of us had seconds and some of us...some of our GIRLS...had thirds.  A few of the boys made friends with the man who was serving the meat...I think they really like him!
• What I learned about myself....I would rather stay indoors and clean a hundred bathrooms or file a stack of papers as big as the Eiffel Tower than to spend the day outdoors in the heat...but I'll do whatever you need me to do and I can do it without complaining.  I learned that teen age girls really aren't as scary as they seem.  OK, some of them are but the ones on this trip were all very sweet and kind and were quick to welcome me into their circle.  I forgot what living with girls is like....and I think that living with boys might be easier!  Life is full of surprises and as off guard as we might be caught, God NEVER is.  Bro. Don spoke about this Wednesday night in worship service...if God had so chosen, he could have stood on the beach and outstretched those mighty hands and held back the storm...but he didn't.  Yes, a great deal of tragedy came out of that hurricane...but there was also a great deal of blessing, too.  Look how many people have been able to come through and give of themselves for the rebuilding of this community!  And of those people, how many have gone home to find mission projects closer to home?  How many seeds of faith have been planted because of something as simple as a bag of ice and a bottle of water?  Tearing apart a concrete pad doesn't sound like something that is spiritually edifying...but if you had been there...watching the other kids rally around our hammer team (not Hammer Time) and cheer them on...you would understand the spiritual ramifications of something like that. 

That was our week....busy, hard, tiring, SMELLY, sweaty (even with the mistaken body powder), HOT but we all came home with smiles on our faces, stories to share and hearts blessed because of our efforts.  So, was it worth it....oh my!  It was so worth it....so worth it.