Dear Church Members and Parents of Mission Trippers,

    Well, it’s just past midnight on Monday and I finally found a few minutes to let you know how things are.   They are great!  The kids are having a great time, we have gotten one day of work under our belts, and our accommodations are out of this world.

    Our travels down were also great!  The rental vans we got had 2 and 3 miles on them.  The church van, driven by Jeff Dahl (and accompanied by his fearless sidekick Don White) led the way.  It did fine except the a/c was barely functioning and then the one working window got stuck in the down position.  That was real fun in the rainstorm we hit.

    Despite the inconvenience, we were consistently ahead of time the whole 18 hours down.  We even left the church 15 minutes early.  On Saturday night we stayed at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, NC. We had a great time blowing off some steam in their recreation facility (Think of something just a little less than Rowan's Rec Center and you are getting the idea.). Best of all, it had showers!!!!!

    On Sunday am we attended the 8:30 service in the chapel and were warmly welcomed by the pastors and congregation (although it was about as formal of a service as Presbyterians can pull off and not be Catholic). We bought the kids lunch at Mickey D's and arrived in Anniston about 5:00 our time (4:00 their time). 

    Bill Wright and the 3 full time construction supervisors greeted us and gave us the history of this Habitat Chapter (Building 28 houses this year) and the safety lecture, which we were all for.  After pizza dinner, we had some free time and then did some truly spirited singing and some team-building exercises.  We are closing each night with an informal time for all students to share their joys and challenges and then read a story. It seems to get them settled down and for that the adults are truly grateful.

    We are staying at a very nice Methodist church.  We have three big rooms (one for the adult women sponsors, one for the girls, one for the all the guys).  Next to it is a really nice TV/Game room/discussion pit.  Best of all, the air conditioning is powerful!

Monday, June26

    Today was the grunt day of work: lots of landscaping, spackling, reorganizing tools, etc.  It wasn't too hot (86) but it was hot enough.  After work we went to the YMCA across the road and took glorious showers.  Dinner was spaghetti.  Then a lesson on Belonging, and some free time for swimming, weightlifting, running, and b-ball at the Y.  And here we are... All things considered this has been about the smoothest mission trip I've been a part of. 

    The local support has been great!  they Provide breakfast and lunch at the work site.  We will do dinner tomorrow night also, but Weds we are at KFC, Thursday the Presbyterians do a potluck dinner, Friday the Methodist.  Folks are really friendly and appreciative! Tomorrow about 1/2 of the group will lay the floor on a new building they have been getting ready for us.  Weds we are at an amusement park.  On Thursday we will raise the walls.  On Friday we'll put up the roof.  Thursday and Friday we will all work together on the same site...something we have never done.  The feeling of accomplishment should be awesome.   This is a very organized chapter! All sponsors are well and we have only lost one, maybe two, youth :).   All are getting along well. 

    Praise the Lord!!!  Please keep praying.  I will try to steal away some more time later.  It's 12:30 now and we're up at 6:30, so it's time to call it a day.

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Bill

Parents and friends:

    Today was the second day of work and it was very hot.  We were all split up between 4 different sites doing various jobs. Some of which included, landscaping, caulking, flooring, and cement work.  Another group went to the site we will all be working on Thursday and Friday.  When they arrived all they had was the foundation.  When they left, the floor was done.  A lot was accomplished during today’s work.  Each day at the work site we have been provided Lunch, today was from Long John Silver.  Everyone has been extremely kind to us. The most exciting thing about after work is getting to ride in the beds of the pick-up trucks.  Everyone runs to get the chance to have a seat in the back (one person being Mick White and he tripped trying to get in). 

    We are all looking forward to tomorrow’s adventures at Vision Land and the extra one and half hours of sleep.  An extra plus is that we have only had to make two meals--yesterday's and today’s.  Tomorrow we are eating at KFC, Thursday we are getting dinner from a Presbyterian Church here in Anniston, and Friday we are getting dinner from The First United Methodist Church we are staying at (as if they haven’t done enough already).  Hope to hear from everyone soon!!!

 

Wednesday, June 28

Dear Friends,

    Today was our day off, so we got to sleep in all the way to 8:00!  It was fantastic!  Unfortunately, the weather was not.   It rained hard on and off the entire day.  We drove about 1 1/2 hours to Visionland with high hopes.  Unfortunately, just when you would get to a ride another round of thunderclouds and lightning would close it down.  It was pretty bleak until we got the great idea of taking a group picture-you know, in one of those old west photo galleries.   So there we were like a bunch of wet rats, changing into saloon girl, flapper, cowboy and sheriff's costumes.   Their previous record was 14 people in one photo, so our 32 was quite an accomplishment.   Everybody had a great time and it was a bright spot in a rather dismal day off.

    Another bright spot was showers and dinner at KFC.  Then we had a fun time of spirited singing and a good discussion on Materialism.  After free time, it was off to bed about 11:30.    All is well and we are going with the flow on all this rain. As somebody once said-write God all of your plans and then give Him the eraser.

--Pastor Bill

    Today we all started working on a new work site.   We were hammering, and putting up walls. We started to really get into the work, until it started to rain really badly. We had to leave the site and come back to the church where we are staying because of safety hazards. Everyone is just hangin' out, playing ping-pong etc.

    At 1:15 we are going to the town museum and shopping. Tonight the Presbyterian Church of Anniston is giving us a pizza supper. Everyone is having a lot of fun, and the people show so much southern hospitality. After we returned we had another group discussion and some karaoke.  I hope we come back here next year; it was well worth the long ride in the uncomfortable vans.

--Meya Jackson

Hi all,

    Pastor Bill won't have time today to write this, so he asked me to pass on some news.  First off, today was a great day for the group as they got the exterior of the house about 99% done.  In fact, the kids (yes, I'm talking about your kids) decided they would get up 1/2 hour early this morning (yes, I'm still talking about your kids) so they could get to the work site early.   

    The first thing they did was put up the remaining walls and the front porch.  Habitat was great about training the kids and then and letting them operate power tools.  After that there was some down time as Habitat's four full-time supervisors got the house ready to put up the trusses.  Then the trusses went up--the most dangerous part of the operation, apparently.  Once they were up those over 18 could go up and put on the roof!  It was an amazing experience to work together and see a house go up so quickly!

  Tonight they will have communion and wrap up their time together.  Last night they had a great time at a Presbyterian church that had a pizza party for them.  However, they are eager to get home. They plan to be up at 5am and hope to be back in Glassboro by midnight.  

Bill thanks you for all your prayers.

Rebecca O’Connell