So much has happened since the last time that I wrote, but I will try and condense as much as possible. My head is spinning with so many different emotions that I don't even know where to begin. It amazes me how I can go from utter joy to sadness, to thankfulness, and back to absolute confusion all in a matter of minutes. Over fall break, I went with the BSU to Pascagoula, Mississippi to do hurricane relief work. It was an amazing experience, but throughout it I was kind of numb for some reason. I have never really experienced any kind of natural disaster, at least not that I can remember, so it was an eye-opening trip. The city where we were staying did not look that bad just driving through, because most of the houses were still standing and most of the restaurants and stores were up and running. However, many of the houses had to be totally gutted because the water level was so high.
The first day of work, I didn't do "mud-out", but went to work on a feeding unit with the Georgia Baptist people and the Red Cross. The whole operation was pretty impressive because they were cooking lunch and dinner for about 8500 people and delivering throughout the area. We started working about 6 am cooking beef stew for lunch. It was pretty funny actually, because there were 5 college students with about 20 Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief people with the average age of about 65. Most of them were retired and had come down to help out several times already, working for weeks at a time. They were so funny talking to us and telling us about all the different disasters they had worked at and singing old hymns to pass the time. Of course they didn't know any David Crowder or Chris Tomlin stuff, so it was interesting to find any music that we had in common. The best we could come up with was Amazing Grace, random little kid Bible songs, and finally resorting to Christmas songs including Jingle Bells. I'm sure that I was a pretty funny sight stirring mass quantities of beef stew in a big cauldron looking pot. I had to stand on a stepstool with a stirrer that looked like a canoe paddle using all of my strength just to make it around the pot once! My arms were really sore when it was finally done and I don't know if I'll ever be able to eat beef stew again. Around 9 am, we started cooking dinner- bbq chicken. We dumped about 75 cans of greasy chicken into big vats and stirred it all up. I have never seen so much chicken in my life nor do I ever want to again. Then we packed up all of the food into these things called cambros that keep the food warm for like ever. Weird. 25 Red Cross vans picked up all the food and took it out. We took a break for lunch and had the option of eating the food that we fixed, but most of us opted for the pb & j. Lunch was fun because we got to listen to all of the old people's stories. It made me kind of sad, because it reminded me of Gammy who used to tell us stories for hours at a time. At the time, I was irritated when she started the stories that we had all heard about 100 times, but now that she's gone I appreciate it. The old man that we started calling Johnny Cash because he was dressed in all black kept us entertained for the afternoon. We spent the rest of the day cleaning/ pressure washing all of the tools and ovens. By the time we were finished, we were all so tired that we could have gone to sleep at 6 pm and slept through the night.
The second day, we worked on Miss Magdy's house. She was a Hispanic woman, probably in her late 50's who had been living in a tent for the past 2 months. She was a very interesting lady who had 6 pet poodles all decked out with sweaters and a pet goose. It was so sad to mud out her house, because it didn't look all that bad. Putting nostalgia aside, it was pretty fun to swing a hammer or a crow bar at the wall as hard as I could- good stress relief. The mold on the walls and in the installation was pretty disgusting. Some of the installation was still soaking wet after all that time. By the time we were finished the house looked like it was under construction. The boys chasing the goose and getting bit by the goose was one of the funniest moments of the trip.
The third day our team went to Waveland, Mississippi to help the Underwood family clean out their yard. They had moved to Waveland 3 weeks before the hurricane hit from Snellville and had just gotten all settled in when they were evacuated. They showed us the before and after pictures and it was so sad. They said that everything was floating in a pile of mud in the house when they got back. They had already cleared everything out of the house and into the yard when we got there, so we were just hauling all of it to the street. It was so sad to find broken picture frames, old prom dresses, etc buried under piles of moldy sheetrock and pinestraw. They had a fence in the yard from 4 houses down the street. It was horrible, but they were so inspiring because they just kept saying how blessed they were. After we were finished, we drove down by the beach and saw where all of the houses were just piles of trash with nothing left standing. We didn't really know what to say, but it definitely showed how fleeting our material possessions are. When we got back to Pascagoula, we all sat around the tables in a big circle telling about our day and what God had done. It was really cool to hear about everybody's different experiences and how humbling the trip was. It was a long drive back to Athens, but we had fun listening to Backstreet Boys on the bus! I have never been so tired in my entire life- my scrawny arms aren't used to manual labor!
Monday was a crazy day, but it ended perfectly with the David Crowder concert. It was so good to see so many of my favorite people in the world, but it went by way too fast. The David Crowder part was amazing. There are no words to describe the feeling of worshipping God "in the company of all who love the King". God's presence was there. I thought it was really cool how David Crowder talked about giving God the glory even in times of pain and sorrow with the death of his pastor. The bluegrass part was really fun too- Ben doing his little dance with his hood on made me laugh.
The rest of the week was kind of dull in comparison, but I should probably start studying one of these days! I told Kelly that I really wanted a kitchen counter in my dorm room to study at; kind of random but at that moment all I wanted was a kitchen counter!
This weekend was very eventful. I got to see my cousin Julie for the first time in months and it was so good to see her and catch up. Friday night we celebrated Aunt Peg's 84th birthday and it made my day to hear Uncle Bill tell the story of how they met and fell in love. Old people are so cute! We went on a little "hike" on Saturday at Chateau Elan, but it wasn't very hardcore. Mom's Star Wars trail mix was interesting though. I freaked out at the mall about having to buy new jeans.. I will not gain the freshman 15! I interrupted the boy's poker night @ the Brown household and went through a very long secret voting process to decide on whether or not they wanted to play putt-putt with us. The reasons were amusing. We ended up staying and making s'mores on the patio and of course running to Wendy's to get 5 more cups for Josh's collection. Ben was the champion of Egyptian Ratscrew, but I was a very close 2nd. Taping for the Cross Pointe video on Sunday just reminded me how blessed I am to have been a part of youth and small group @ CP. There was much needed girl talk. Life is confusing, but at least I have incredible people there for me to catch me when I fall. And this is officially really long, considering I started it a week ago! Off to study for psychology... yippee.
