Serving in Mississippi

Our first day of work got off to a great start. After a breakfast of pancakes Kelly arrived to divide us into four groups. Each group did a different job.

Dave, Janet, Fabio, McKenzie, Angel, and Derek P. worked on sheds. They tore off old wood and replaced it with good stuff. They they painted the new parts. They also got to build a new door for one of the sheds. They are confident they can finish their job by noon on Friday. They met Bubba, who liked to supervise and chat with them. He challenged Angel to play a little football, so the kids got a big kick out of him.

working on the shed

Linda, Jacob, Andrew, and Catherine worked at Sacred Heart School. They weeded gardens and hauled those weeds through the school and out to the dumpster. The students in this school like to find turtles and bring them to the garden. They consider it their own special turtle sanctuary. The missioners came across the turtle sanctuary as they were weeding. They also caught a blue skink, which Jacob placed on his cap for a photo op.

cutting boards

Stu, Kevin, Maggie, Shelby, Elizabeth worked at the home of Billy and Dee Dee Cornelius. Billy and Dee Dee were both laid off from their Fed Ex jobs a bit over two years ago. Because of that, they didn't have money for their utility bills, so their utilities were turned off. They were using candles for light and one day a candle did not get blown out when both of them left the house. They think one of their animals knocked over the candle and started the house on fire. The house has to be totally rebuilt, but they had no jobs or money. So over the past two years, Sacred Heart Southern Missions has been rebuilding their home. Today our missioners were helping this couple put down carpet in their house. The carpet was donated to Sacred Heart Southern Missions. Upon their return, these missioners should be able to help you with your carpet installations!

Jacob's skink friend

Fr. Ries, Ryan, Derek B., Abby, Joe Mayrose, and I worked in Holly Springs at St. Joseph's. Our jobs included building a compost bin from scrap wood, picking up and disposing of branches, raking leaves, cleaning the planter boxes, building three new planter boxes from scrap material, tilling the garden, and cleaning out the mulch from inside a small fenced area. The area we are working in is about half an acre. They also are going to have us dig a trench tomorrow and lay pipe for a watering system for the new planter boxes. YES! We are going to be pick axing! It's a water project in Mississippi. We met Sr. Linda there, who told us that do social services with their clients. They help them with money management, work on budgets, and encourage those who have not finished high school to get their GED. In fact, there was a GED class going on when we were there.

building a compost bin

Those were the basic activities of the day. By the way, Jacob says Madeline may use his laptop for 27 minutes today and he has no idea where the glove is. We are greatly enjoying your comments to our blog.

The team is meshing well. It's obvious by the amount of time it took to get through tonight's junta. There were giggles and stories and comments that kept interrupting our normal conversations. There was a lot of laughing tonight.

Today Abby performed the 'ant dance.' That's the dance a missioner performs when they stand atop an ant pile until ants are crawling up your legs and biting. We got her into the bathroom so she could make sure all ants had been removed and then had her lather up with benadryl ointment.

The carpet-laying group enjoyed time with Whiskey, the dog. He's really the neighbor's dog, but Billy and Dee Dee don't think they take care of him, so they've sort of adopted him. He walks around carrying a big stick on which he constantly chews. I thought he wanted to play and tried to get it the stick, but he wouldn't let anyone touch it.

As you can see, it was a fun-filled eventful day. Although Lois told us our jobs would take us the full time that we're here, we're pretty sure we'll finish them by tomorrow or Saturday. She just isn't used to our Iowa work ethic. Go missioners!