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name Tim C Hose
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birthday 03.27.81

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Friday, April 07, 2006

Right away after lunch, our happily free group of friends set out down the street to start our day off by finishing some work we had to do at a lady's house that we had been to previously. As we walked down the street, we happened to look behind us to see more and more Wesley students following us up the street. Apparently they were just as annoyed with their jobs as we were, so they joined us up the street.
Once we got there, Carl and I took charge directing people to different jobs, which was a lot of fun. Amy and Michael bagged over TWENTY bags of cans from this lady's yard, Chris, Matt and Steven threw out a mountain of debris and limbs, and Roy Carl, Krystle and I filled in everywhere else we could.
After working on her yard until it was properly finished, Carl, Michael and I decided to walk up the street to find our next job while everyone else cleared the site away. After walking through the neighborhood for about ten minutes, we came upon this little black woman named Josie. Carl walked right up and talked to her, because Carl can talk to anybody, and we got a conversation started. She looked a little wary that three white guys just wanted to help her out for free, but we explained that we were missionaries and had some other friends with us and didn't want any money, and she brightened right up.
Leading us around her house, she showed us her property and the damage that Katrina had done to her place. Everything actually looked pretty nice from the outside, but the inside of her home was a wreck.
She told us that water had been inside her house up to seven feet deep, and that she had been inside of it for almost the entire thing. She sat on her freezer with her sister and brother, and was scared out of her mind. Then, from her story, they all prayed together, and the water started to go down right then. Not quickly, I'm sure, but it stopped rising.
Anyways, her main problem was that FEMA (Federal Emergency Managment Agency) had given her a trailer to live in, which was great. What wasn't so great was that they had had to run her water line underneath her house to get it to the trailer, but had used cracked water pipe to do it, so there was water just spewing underneath her house. That meant that she still had no water in her trailer. She was pretty sure that she was going to have to try to call FEMA to repair it, but once I looked under there, I was sure that I could make the repair pretty easily. While Michael and I checked out that, Miss Josie showed Carl what everyone else from the group could help with in the morning. Since the day was almost over, we went back to the church to tell everyone else what we were going to do the next day. It was greeted with general happiness and excitement, because the day had gone so well since lunch.
That night we dealt with some scheduling conflicts that had come up during the day. We were supposed to work the first half of the day and then leave to Pensacola for our one half day of fun, but since everybody had been so stressed, they had decided to switch it so that we could leave in the morning and come back for dinner at the church. A really nice thought, but it put a cramp in the promise we'd made to this woman. We obviously didn't want to keep anyone from having their fun day, so a couple of us volunteered to stay behind and do the work instead of going to Pensacola, which I thought was a pretty good deal, but everyone else had different ideas.
Turns out, nobody wanted to leave. It came down to a vote that was unanimous for us to all stay in Biloxi and to work in the morning. Everybody else had things that they wanted to finish at their job sites, and we decided to work until lunch and then kind of hang out there. Either way, we were out of town, so it wasn't a bad deal.
I was just so... impressed with everyone. I'd been worried that people would be upset, but I should have had more faith in the faith of my friends.
At any rate, the entire mood of the trip changed from one of frustration to one of excitement.
The next day, we almost bounced out of our beds ready to work. With our enormous workgroup, everyone piled into the back of the church truck like true Arkansans, and we tore off down the road to the work site. Dropping everyone else off, Michael and I went to pick up the plumbing supplies and then headed back to the site.
It was awesome having Micheal do this stuff with me. I'd done plumbing before, but I didn't have a doubt in my mind that he would pick it up as easily as breathing, which he did. He's got one of the most amazing brains in the world, for real.
Anyways, we crawl under the house to get to this pipe break, where we set to work while the rest of the group cleans out Miss Josie's garage of all of the moldy stuff that got destroyed in the flooding. It looked like some hard, dirty work and my friend Matt took a good knock on the chin from an iron pot he accidentally fell on. He just kind of kept working, though, so it was cool.

Okay. Under the house. This is the sick part.

The underside of the house was pretty clean, so we had no trouble getting to the break point. After sawing out the messed up section and replacing one side, I started to crawl around to the other side to replace it, when I saw it.

A foot away from me.

Looking at me.

It was a dog's skull.

There we were, under the house, staring at each other. I looked down and saw more bones right under me. Somehow, I hadn't touched any of them yet, which was awesome. I kind of went "Michael?"

He looked over and said "Yeah ma-AAAAH! Dude!"

Without anything else to do, I just kind of crawled over the thing being careful not to touch it or anywhere close to it. Michael said that I got "Dirty Dog Award" for doing that, but I really didn't have a lot of options.
So, after we patched up that side we told people about Francois (The name we gave the dog) and my friend Ryan looked under the house and goes "There's still SKIN on it!"
Sure enough, the side facing me was skull, but the other side?
Oh yes. Mummified doggy.

Anyways. We never did tell Miss Josie about the dog under the house. I figured if it was hers, she was better off thinking that it had escaped the flood.

After that, we invited Miss Josie to dinner, which was authentic Gumbo and Jambalaya. She was worried about driving after dark, so Carl, Michael and I promised to come and pick her up.

As weird as the trip started, it turned out almost magical. We ended up doing some really good meaningful work for a total stranger who was really appreciative. Everyone gave up most of their fun time to do the work that we'd gone down there to do, and a really special lady named Miss Josie came to dinner with us. We all took pictures with her and then drove her home. After checking that her water line was holding (It was. Score!) we walked back to the church in the dark.

Sometimes, it's a very hard thing to feel humble.

Sometimes, though, it's like the whole world is humble with you.

It's an interesting feeling, though, to go through a week just desperate to help somebody and to truly not want anything in return except for them to maybe really start to believe that some people just want to help, and to serve the Lord.
At the end of the trip, I was really content with how it had turned out not because we'd done something amazing for somebody, because we really hadn't. But we had done something for God, and had stepped out with a strong desire to really do the work that we felt He wanted us to do down there in Biloxi.

I love my friends, everyone. They're amazing people, and if you haven't all met each other, then you really should. If you have met already, then take some more time to get to know each other, because you'll find out that the person you only know casually has something incredible inside of them.

Alright, I'm off the soap box. God is amazing, Biloxi is rebuilding, and the sun is going down here in Arkansas. Have a great night.

TimChose [ 7:56 AM ]