This wonderful group of volunteers from Georgia are not new to P.O.P. or the Gulf Coast of MS. They have been coming since Katrina helping many, many families rebuild their homes and lives.
What an extraordinary time of learning flexibility and patience while finding out exactly what God's plan was for the work week! All of our best laid plans were not what He had in mind. So after doors were shut tight in two different places with two different ministry goals, the servants proceeded with what they were led by God to do.
This mission team also divided up into three major groups. One of the groups performed construction skills working to complete sheetrock work on a home whose owner recently lost his job of oyster harvesting due to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf. They also painted his home on the exterior. Both jobs were beautiful and the homeowner is thrilled to have this work done.
The evangelism team went to Dunbar Village, an assisted living facility where they had an amazing time of fun and fellowship with the very appreciative elderly people at the home. They played games and sang songs with the residents who had a wonderful time with them and especially the young people. They also had a very blessed time of visiting the shut-ins in their rooms. After the fourth day, the center was so grateful for all of the attention given the residents that they returned the blessing by fixing the group desert and refreshments. Awesome!
This team also mowed and cleaned a yard for one of our elderly neighbors. She really was thankful for this help.
Another interesting thing that this team did was divide their youth into three groups at Wal-Mart to purchase groceries for the Lakeshore Baptist Distribution Center. They made a contest out of it giving each group money and ideas for food. They had fun while serving in this much needed ministry. They delivered all of the food, plus more food they had collected from their church members before they came. They also helped the center organize it on the empty shelves. Then they helped sort winter and summer clothes. The center feeds over 250 families weekly and the number is growing due to the economy and the oil spill.
The third ministry was, of course, the food. Feeding the church groups three meals a day is not an easy task and two of the ladies on the mission team were happy to perform this necessity. They also had a Wednesday night dinner for the people whose homes they worked on this time and in the past. It was an awesome time of great food, fun and fellowship where we shared our experiences of Katrina.
