Keith & Martha Crawford

Hey All! We have returned to Michigan, and I am writing my final post about the Mississippi trip. It makes me sad; it was such an awesome experience and I wish, as the rest of the team does, that there was more that we could do and accomplish while we were there. It seems like we did so little, but I know that what we did do made a small dent. We have aided the healing process for the community. Praise God for giving us all the strength to help out and make a difference.

Here is a group photo we took on the last day in front of Billy’s house. Billy is a 14 year old who touched the heart of one of our team members, Tim, by just being Billy. He took it upon himself to gut his house out and took out all the appliances without the aid of his parents; he just did what needed to be done, and thus it has become to all there “Billy’s House”. What a special kid; he is the blond with longish hair in the front row.

Going to Mississippi was one of the most powerful experiences of my life. Meeting the folks whose homes were destroyed and working alongside of others who wanted nothing more than to help is truly a wondrous thing. It restores a bit of faith in humanity. This post would not be complete without mentioning the leaders who coordinate the operation. Rev. Jones, who has opened his church to aid in relief. Sam and Richard who help to lead. And Bro. Benny, who is living a sacrificial life. His personality is as big as his voice, and he is truly a man living for God, unafraid to bare his soul and unashamed of who he is; humbled because of where he has been. What a wonderful man:

This last photo really holds the spirit of those affected by Katrina. Weather worn, yes, but not beaten. I like the symbolism of this photo.

Here are a few more pics from Mississippi. This is a schoolteachers house. Diana and I ripped out all the windows. Woohoo!

And this is how, apparently, you remove vents from the rafters. Of course, you have to be part monkey to want to do that on cathedral ceilings….

And here is the garage at that house:

Here is the house across the street. I don’t think it is salvageable.

Here is another schoolteachers house where a bunch of our team was working.

Working on a wall in that same house:

This is a vacation cottage that we are working on. It is being given to a family whose house was completely destroyed. The owner has been in MS helping with rebuilding and is allowing use to a family they met here. Wow.

Overall here, it is overwhelming. There is so much damage and destruction that it seems more like a war zone than a community. It doesn’t seem like we are doing much, but when the owner comes to the house and sees the progress that we’ve made, it is truly powerful. One person said it so well when they said that we are turning their homes from hopeless disaster areas to hopeful construction sites.

One thing we learned is that FEMA charges the communities for the trailers (Tin Castles to the locals) and the cleanup. One good thing is that the city can claim from between $7-10 per hour for the volunteers who come down and do work as part of their repayment. So we are making an impact there too.

What an experience we all are having.

Hi All!

So we’ve made it to Mississippi in one piece. It took a while, but we are here. We spent the day in New Orleans after getting settled in. We arrived very late last night. The team here prefer takes Sundays off as their day of rest, so we again took to the road. Here is a pic of our team in New Orleans:

Here are some pictures of the damage. We will be spending most of our time doing repair work and reconstructing: drywalling, roofing, painting, subfloors, etc. We don’t have internet access at the church, so I don’t know when the next update will be.

Pray for our team!

Keith and Martha

Oops, I lied. We do have internet access at the church. Check out our site for updates and more pics.