Biloxi Trip: Days 2 & 3

After worshiping at Covenant Presbyterian in Birmingham, we arrived safely at the First Presbyterian Church in Biloxi at about 3:00, unloaded, unpacked, unfurled our sleeping bags and got acquainted with the surroundings.

Sadly, things don't look much different than they did last year. There's still a lot of destruction. The only noticeable change is that most of the debris is now out of the trees, and the beach looks like a beach and not a junkyard. They've removed all the grounded gambling barges, but most of the hotels are still being reconstructed or lay gutted just like last year. We saw no new home construction adjacent to the Gulf. Rumor has it that the casinos are even laying off people. As Bob Bolitho, the MNA supervisor whose been here for about a year, said of the whole region: “there's a whole lot of nothin' goin' on.”

Fortunately, that's not the case for those of us who are part of the mission. We're one of several teams here, for a total count of about 50 volunteers this week. Our first assignment was to go to a large two-story house to do rough framing, insulation and sheetrock. As it turned out, a leaky roof hadn't been replaced, and it's supposed to rain all week. So they sent us to another job in Gulf Port, where we met Angelina Ball.

Angelina is buying all her own materials and is having us do the labor. Apparently this has become a common arrangement over the past year. Today we roughed out her kitchen ceiling in order to lower it; tomorrow we'll be finishing that, then drywalling, and eventually mudding and taping. We're planning on finishing up there on Wednesday. Tomorrow, I'll include a photo of Angelina and her house.

Everybody gives a hearty thanks to Doris German for her care packages, bucket of tools, and especially the Milwaukee V28 lithium-ion long-life cordless drills she gave each of us. Thanks again, Doris!