Cayuga-Syracuse Presbytery's Mission & Ministry Team - Gautier, Mississippi

February 23, 2006
M&M Main Page | Day One | Day Two | Day Three | PDA CAMP GAUTIER

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There is so much damage and work to be done to help people get back into their homes.
 
This house is across the street from the home we worked on today. From the front, the blue plastic covered roof indicates wind damage. Interior work can't begin till the roof is repaired. We walked around the block and saw that the entire back wall of the house was missing, too. Other homes in the neighbor hood had substantial damage or were waiting to be torn-down. There were many vacant lots with just a concrete slab left behind where a home once stood.

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February 23, 2006

Each volunteer group that comes to the PDA Camp appoints a site-coordinator and an office manager, who assists the camp director in planning the daily work assignments. The site-coordinator provides the site team leaders with a daily work order. With a daily work order in-hand, the team members gather tools and materials they will need from the PDA camp’s tool an supply pods.

 

On the way to the work sites, some teams need to stop by the neighborhood Lowe’s or Wal-Mart stores to obtain additional tools or supplies. The PDA camps use gift-cards as their form of currency. Financial donations made to PDA, provide the funds for the gift cards.

 

Team leaders are given maps and directions on how to get to their work site. The major highway signs and traffic lights are in fairly good working order, but neighborhood traffic and street signs, or house numbers may or may-not be where you’d expect them. Some signs are missing completely. Others are twisted and bent so you can’t tell if they are properly aligned and pointing in the right direction.

 

The work teams are comprised of people who have various levels of construction abilities. Those with more experience, help train those will less experience. Everyone is challenged to step out of their comfort zone, and to show patience, courage and understanding as they learn new things.

 

We have been called to Mississippi to be a blessing to those whose need is great. We hear stories: one household was slowly replacing the wallboard in their house, one-sheet at-a-time. As they were able, they would buy a single sheet of drywall and install it. With the funds that have been donated to the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance agency, we were able to buy all the materials needed to complete the sheet-rocking project for this home. Over the coming days and weeks, work crews will install insulation, hang dry-wall and apply joint-compound to the sheetrock in preparation for painting.

 

At another household, a family member will be having major surgery soon. Our teams were sent to the house to help finish the mudding of the drywall that had been installed by previous teams. The goal is to complete this as quickly as possible, so that this individual will be able to occupy a bedroom in the house following surgery, and not have to get in and out of the small confines of the FEMA trailer they are presently living in, which is parked in the driveway.

 

Thanks for reading.  Check out the pictures, keep us and the people along the Gulf Coast in your prayers, and check back soon.

 

Your Presbyterian Southern Comfort Team

Be sure to check back for updates on our Febuary, 2006 Mission Trip and for additional Ministry and Mission project initiatives.