Song of the South

It is hard to believe that we are fixin’ to leave

Southern Mississippi

.

We wrapped up our projects yesterday trying to finish before a big thunderstorm hit. It was a relatively cool day because the thunderstorms were developing and providing wind and shade. This area is just about perfect, from a meteorological standpoint, for producing storms. It is amazing during the day to watch the very rapid vertical development of these storms.

Each of the teams invited their respective families to dinner (they call it supper here) in the evening.

A lot of good work got done but the work was not as important and the hope was. People here are tired and have struggled long to recover to whatever normal will be here. It is important to realize that all of the landmarks and icons and even the daily familiar ways of driving past familiar houses has all been changed. All along the coast and back over a quarter of a mile are lots empty except for cement slabs or signs indicating that such and such a church used to stand here.

The people here at First United Methodist Church of Long Beach were moved that they are not on their own and forgotten. They say we brought a renewed work ethic and joy and… hope. The families we worked for said much the same.

Well, we finished up our projects and got back to the church in front of the thunderstorm. Actually, my group went to see the Friendship Oak on the campus of

University

of

Southern Mississippi

’ s campus on the beach.

It is an amazing tree.

A sapling when

Columbus

sailed to

America

and it is a huge sprawling tree today. It lived through Katrina. Anything in the first story of the campus buildings did not.

We looked into gutted classrooms and lecture halls. The images in my mind reminded me of imaged of blown out buildings in war zones like

Iraq

, though much of the debris has been cleared out. Restaurants, shops, casinos, gas stations, most were erased from the beach area and the recovery, while steady, is not instantaneous.

After this visit we went to the beach where we knew we could get sno-cones and we watched the storm come in. There was a tremendous squall line out about 8 miles and out of it dropped a waterspout.

When we arrived at the church the rain started. There was water everywhere, in the streets, in the yards, rushing down the streets, in a very few minutes. There was a lot of bright and loud lightning striking close. Two hours later it was over.

We ate dinner with the families we worked for and had a wonderful time.

Evening worship was built around Joshua 4 where the people of

Israel

crossed the Jordan River on dry group (a kind of mini parting of the

Red Sea

. A man from of the twelve tribes of

Israel

were instructed to carry a stone out of the riverbed and make a memorial so that, when future generations asked, “what do these stones mean?” they would remember the that the Lord had done a great thing and let the Israelites cross over the Jordan on dry land. So there was a time before the crossing and a time after.

The students were invited to place sticky notes on a pile of stones in the sanctuary and write on those notes how things were going to be different when they returned home. Worship was very good…and very loud.

This morning we are thinking about going home. We plan to eat some authentic Southern cooking which will include gumbo, crawfish dishes, alligator and who knows what else. We will probably have a little beach or mall time and then we will fly out this afternoon to arrive at PDX at about

11:30 pm

and home sometime thereafter.

To God be the glory!

Comments

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The trip sounds amazing I have always wanted to go there... Who knows maybe one day I will get a chance to go.