Biloxi Trip: Day 4

The sanctuary of 1st Presbyterian where our teams stayed this year and last.
They've made a whole lot of progress...Katrina had gutted the place.

We had a productive full day of work today. We finished roughing-out the ceiling and then sheetrocked it, rewired for a kitchen light, and rerouted a duct. We also put the first layer of mud and tape in the bedroom. Our group is now split into two different groups: Keith Beerbower, Eric Bellas, Christopher Lechman and Robert Forney will continue to drywall, mud and tape tomorrow; Keith Short, Hunter Turner, and Marc Brunner will be doing some rough carpentry back in East Biloxi.

Angelina brought her eight year old daughter, Christian, today to look at the house after she got out of school. She was ecstatic when she saw that her bedroom had been drywalled—Eric and Keith Short think they saw her cry. It turns out that we're helping a sister-in-Christ, as Angelina is currently taking up residency in her pastor's home until her house is completed, which will be some time. There's still a lot of work to do: kitchen cabinets, several new windows, flooring, weather-sealing and many other things. As I said yesterday, Angelina is paying for all her own materials by working as a hair dresser. Keep her in your prayers.

We did have one tragedy today. Keith “Fruit Loops” Short and Robert “Lucky Charms” Forney were returning from one of their interminably long supply runs—this time of gypsum, joint compound and lumber—when Keith decided to accelerate on a slight incline, losing all of the supplies out of his pick-up bed onto a busy intersection on Division Street. Understand, this was two five gallons buckets of joint compound, sixteen 8' and 12' sheets of drywall, five 12' 2x6s, and a 2'x4' ceiling light (the last one in the store) all scattered about one of the busiest streets of Gulfport. Fortunately, it was close enough to our worksite that Robert was able to run to the house, whereupon he busted through the door and breathlessly screamed, “Fruit Loops has lost it!” By the time the rest of the crew got there, some good Samaritans from a nearby paint store had lent a hand, and much of the material was put back in the truck bed. By they way, Angelina had bought this material, trusting it was in good hands. Miraculously, nothing was broken, but Lucky Charm's luck has run out.