Month: May 2011

Mosaic
After our night at Antioch, we left right after breakfast to attend Mosaic.

When we arrived, we saw best bud Brad (in his “Newsies” outfit–sorry Brad, but we gotta call it as we see it…)

Although half of us had only been here once, the week before, it seemed almost like home. Matt, who had worked with us the day before on the job site, showed up as well. He had recently moved to the area, and was looking for a church and we invited him to join us at Mosaic. He was very moved because the first worship song we sang was his favorite, he felt it was a sign from God. Very cool for God to move through the music that way. It was funny that as we were walking away, we heard Brad saying to Dustin, the Sr. Pastor, “No, it was the asian guys that invited him..” and laughing.

Gary and Peter toured the extensive Childrens’ ministries area, which is partially within the Skating Rink building that Mosaic uses, and partially rented space in a gym two doors down. The site is incredibly friendly yet secure. Jessica, the Family Minister, gave us a tour that encompassed not only the physical and logical aspects of the Kids’ area, but really shared her heart for the kids, and how to connect them and their families to Christ. It was an added treat to see our Habitat bud Denise working with the kids.

The message was on Colossians, and really matched up with our efforts to reflect God in our attitudes and lifestyles.

Flight
We went to the airport, and found that the flight was full, with one of us on standby. Fortunately, no one had to spend the night, and we were able to fly out as a group.

When we touched down at LAX, we were greeted with a roar of cheers, as you can see in the video below…

Hugs, tears and smiles were shared with a group so large, we could have been our own church.

Unfortunately, we found out that all of our luggage had been delayed, and would arrive later that evening. Deliveries were made to our home the next day, Craig details this in one of his reflections..

But whether it was the work on the site, our friendships with our Habitat staff, encouraging Matt to try out Mosaic, or even coming up with a list of all our cell numbers, we’re just trying to listen to God, do what we’re supposed to do, and trust Him for all the rest. It’s a big world, He’s a big God, and the way it’s all orchestrated is beyond the scope of our minds or imagination.

The more things happen, and if we can just get a glimpse of Him at work, then it reassures us to trust Him for the rest. And that’s a lot of what this trip was about. We trust Him for taking care of the Mississippi Gulf Coast recovery, to take care of our friends there that we’ve met, and to care for our friends and family in our absence.
God is good, even when we don’t realize it.

Craig, team leader, reflects on our return…

Craig’s Family greeting him at LAX upon the return

It was a glorious trip that ended on a somewhat less than desirable note.  Upon returning to LAX, we discovered that our luggage failed to make the flight.  That’s sixteen lost suitcases and bags containing dirty laundry, work boots, tool belts, Stiletto hammers, and dry rub from The Shed BBQ.  Yet, to a man, this became so insignificant compared to the blessings received from God during our time in Mississippi.  This is only a “minor inconvenience,” a “small bump in the road,” or “don’t want to let the enemy distract us in any way from what the Lord has achieve to and through us in Mississippi” were some of the responses to the situation.  Commendable, indeed.  But why did it happen?  1 Corinthians 2:11 says:  “For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.“  Was the Lord somehow using this for his purposes?  We may never know.

As me and my family, Steve and Shirley Ogata, and their “son,” Pastor Ian Nagata, exited the baggage claim area, the last Evergreeners at the airport, Steve received a call on his cell phone.  “Let’s go back in” was the instruction he gave me, “They need the phone numbers of the men in order to deliver the luggage.”  Great.  Why didn’t they tell us that before everyone left the baggage claim office? (Note, “inept” was one of the words used to describe the service we received but, hey, I’ll let Steve share about that)  Then, it dawned on me.  Peter Lau created and gave each team member a small card listing everyone’s cell phone number in case someone got separated while in Mississippi.  Or, in case Continental Airlines needed the phone numbers of team members so lost luggage could be delivered.  Who knew that card would come in handy?  Maybe Peter, but certainly God did.

As far as I know, everyone’s luggage was delivered successfully on Monday thanks to that small card.  Praise God for his perfect plan.

One side of our cell phone card

New Life Goodbye
What a way to wrap up the week(s)

We had a bittersweet goodbye with Ken, from New Life Christian. We joked, praised and prayed, but soon had to be off for our last work day.

We left our accommodations and home for the last couple weeks, and hit the road for Pascagoula.

Our long goodbye prevented us from having breakfast before we left, so each of the five cars stopped by and picked up something for breakfast along the way. One car went to Hardees. We went just because we’d never been before, totally expecting it to be Carl’s Jr. with a different name. We were wrong. But now Peter really likes the Cinnamon Raisin Biscuits there.

Work Site
Once we hit the work site, we met a partner family, Tish and her family (brother “J”, Aunt Annie, Mom Gloria and Cousin Leslie) and a few more volunteers.

Emily and Phillip, both in the Air Force’s meteorology division, were taking a class locally and wanted to contribute some volunteer hours to Habitat. They worked hard, and were a real joy to work, talk and joke with, while painting the siding in the blazing sun. We learned a bit about meteorology

Matt had recently moved to the area, and wanted to do something with his extra time. He was assigned to work with the self-named “A-Team” on drywall. Found out during the day that he was looking for a new church, so we’re probably going to see him trying out Mosaic when we attend there Sunday at 9am.

It was a good hard day, and the other peopled changed the atmosphere a little bit. Made it a little more of a community effort, but the guys really were going full throttle to get as much as possible. Tommy didn’t even realize that he was putting in the last piece of siding as the last act for our entire group.

The work was excellent, as the drywall crew did all the key components of the green house, while they did all the ceiling work on the blue house.

“J”
Of note, was “J,” brother of partner family, a young man who had just graduated from college, he was a skilled, hard working man. Humble in speech, dutiful on the job. When a phone call came in, he would politely tell the party he was working and would have to call them back later. He treated his volunteer hours with the same respect as a job.

There were other things, including a dueling guitars with Brad and Rich.

We closed out the day with prayers for the houses, the neighborhood and of course, Brad and Denise. Denise read from the Bible for us that brought us to watery eyes, as we share a common goal and common God.

 
Philippians 1

Thanksgiving and Prayer

³ I thank my God every time I remember you. ⁴ In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy ⁵ because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, ⁶ being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
⁷ It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. ⁸ God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
⁹ And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, ¹⁰ so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, ¹¹ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

and then Philippians 2:

Imitating Christ’s Humility

¹ Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

Of many things we come here for, and we also take with us, it is our brother/sisterhood with Brad, Denise, and the many others we came to meet.

We debriefed at Antioch house, a tradition we missed with the CoEd team.

The debriefing is a time or reflection, praise and even confession of offense or failure.

Each person spoke about what they learned, enjoyed, where they grew. Leader Craig asked that we keep things “personal,” in the sense that if you had something to say about someone, to first talk about yourself. In this environment, that was a good encouragement, as it’s often easier to praise others, but taking the time to see and admit where God grew you.

Since some of the guys are typically more reserved, their honesty and candor was appreciated. Some even spoke about preconceptions about the South, and how impressed we all were with the Southern Hospitality.

Whoops.. gotta go, we’re arriving at Mosaic for our last service, our service to God.
more pics and video later!

It’s coming to a close. It’s surprising. As a member of the 2-Week (yes, we know, 14-day….) team, we arrived with the CoEd, had one day of solitude, and one more week with the Men’s 1-Week team.

During that time, it was fun, moving, task-oriented, familiar and new.

At the half-way point, while we were saying goodbye to one team, and awaiting another, yes, the thought of “what did I sign up for?” entered a few of our heads. Working on the house for 2-weeks had a physical cost, but being away from home and work for twice as long was hard. But today, as we were working, it was hard to believe that we would only be seeing this home and our friends for one day more.

Pretty much, all the siding has been done, save the front of the blue house.
More surprising is the amount of drywall put in at the green house. They really moved fast. It’s getting there, and we’ll see what tomorrow holds.

One of our teams was working on this really quite pretty design element, above the porch. We’re not sure who designed it, but it really gives the home character and style.

And yes, the A-Team as they call themselves, of Bu, Jeff H and “Ninja” Glenn did a lot of caulking today, which is a necessary, but unsung, job. Bu was working in the back of the house, by himself, paying painstaking detail to the job he had taken on. Caulk on his fingertip, filling in holes that some others might pass up. He said in a voice so boisterous, it betrayed the honesty beneath, that he was working for the Lord, and wanted to do a job of excellence. As much as we kidded about it, his detail to the small things was admirable.

The center was ours for the evening, as the Thrivent folks have gone home.

We’re packing up, loading the cars tomorrow, then leaving from the work site after we pray for the houses, then going to Antioch house, now a tradition, for our downtime and debrief. It’ll be a busy day.

We’re coming home soon.

click here for some pictures of the day

Katrina 2011 05 20

For those of you who care about the technical stuff (i.e. the CoEd team that can more clearly visualize what we’re up to..)
There were four teams today.

a) Green Front Porch crew: Mo, Tom, Ron working with Denise
b) Green house drywall: Jeff L, James, Craig, Richard, Kelly
c) Blue House siding: Gary, Chris, Tommy, Roy, Ken, Peter, Steve
d) Ninja caulking crew: Jeff H, Bu, Glenn

We’re guys. We’re trying to be relational, but man, do we like to work.

But as diligently as we worked, we tried to interact. There was a lot of fun, a lot of interaction, and the vets kept trying to make sure the newbies were comfortable, because they sure seemed capable.
The weather is slowly returning to “normal,” which means, hot and humid, but the guys seem to be managing it well. Fortunately, half of our team is working indoors or under an overhang, with the other half working under the shade of a tree for the morning hours, or caulking the siding, which is pretty exposed.

Ah, the caulkers. The jovial, vocal caulkers. It’s an unsung job, but somehow Bu, Jeff H and “Ninja” Glenn seemed to be making it fun and exciting. However, we must remember that last week, Esther was doing the unsung job pretty well without the support of two other men….

Work was good, and then it was a time of hanging out at The Shed again. We were pleased to have Rick and his daughter join us, as well as Ken’s family, Dawn, Elizabeth and Paulie. From the Habitat side, we had Brad and Paul, with the lovely Denise as well. We do have to say, they do clean up rather well.

The stories were fun, and sometimes touching, as Craig and Ken share similar stores about how to care for their wives in this particular season. Stories of volunteers and volunteering, motorcycles and relationships were shared over the BBQ. Oh, and speaking of which, due to them almost running out last week, we pre-ordered/warned The Shed of how many BBQ “rubs” we would be ordering.

Oh, also, we found out that Habitat made the news, and not in a good way.. .but it turned out well… Someone’s been stealing their tools, but they were caught.

Click here for photos from today

Katrina 2011 05 19

And some videos from today…

It’s day 2 on the work site with this team. You get to have just a glimmer of what it must be like to see teams come and go. Brad, Denise et al are greeting and acclamating to the new crew, and you realize just how good they are at it, much less adapting work assignments for unknown crews. You get a little more understanding of how much an individual does contribute to the whole, and how much the ones keeping each house moving really are Brad and the rest of the Habitat staff.

Brad really does view this as a war against poverty and unaffordable housing. He’s a smart, idealistic and charming guy, and I’m sure he’s said those words many times before, but it’s also quite apparent that he has meant them before, and means them today. And he invites you into the battle with him. It’s sad that as Brad makes an inspiring, fresh speech, I’ve grown a little too familiar with him and take him for granted, wanting to get to work. Then I realize that I have to appreciate him in the moment, as the good leader, good man and good inspiration he is. Check and re-check, I’m back where I’m supposed to be, in the moment.

The Work
We attacked the siding with full force today, with three teams working on siding on the two homes, and a whole ‘nother crew working on the interior with the drywall. A lot of our own team hasn’t known the others all that well, and we’re getting to know each other as we work together. As the housing, car rides and work details allow us to see more of the true character of each other, we learn to love them a little more.

Resuming similar teams and tasks from yesterday, there was less training and trepidation than the day before.

Actually, although there haven’t been any incidents of conflict nor strife, I also know that some people that might have preferred working with certain others, I see unlikely pairings of the guys working together, and working together better than I would have imagined.

The good good weather
We can’t believe how good the weather has been.
We actually broke out the sweatshirts in the evenings and in the morning going to the site.
But we’re here for more than just hammering nails (or putting up siding). We’re going to our devotional meeting in a few minutes. We’re watching some of our video. Hopefully we’ll get some of it up this evening.

Devotional
Richard did double duty for guitar and the teaching last night. (Chris has been leading us in our singing every time we meet, with Carl helping us on guitar last week, and Richard for this week)

Richard spoke about being able to love people beyond our own means. Maybe not necessarily “difficult” people, but just people that we are difficult for us to personally extend grace (emphasis on our own efforts, not on the other person’s situation). And how sometimes the best method is trying to love them with all our heart, and with God’s heart too. We discussed how sometimes we do it based on our own abilities, but humbly putting our own agenda and feelings aside enough to let God extend to others.

Brad and Paul were kind enough to join us for our devotional/small group time last night. Able to pray for them with more intention, and mutually encourage each other.

Chris C really wanted this picture of Bu eating some ramen out of a large pot posted for you..

Click here for some pics from the day

Katrina 2011 05 18

And a video from the last couple days…

Sorry guys.. we’re really sleepy.
Perhaps it was the first day on the job.

Here’s a thumbnail of the day..

1. Jeff L did the devotional today on letting his reflection be a better representation of who he is on the inside (letting Christ move in us and be more of our identity)
2. Jeff L’s car wouldn’t start. Please ask for the details, you might get different answers
3. Jeff’s replacement car is a minivan, so we’re driving one less car now.
4. Brad welcomed us, putting the 2-weekers among the new guys to have them run different sections
5. A few of us worked with drywall for the first time.
6. Hillary, a volunteer, brought us some white and dark choco chip cookies. Some of us had a few too many of them, they were excellent.
7. Apparently the 1-week guys bring more munchies than the CoEd team.
8. The 2-Weekers felt they hit the ground running, where the 1-Weekers were still in a haze from the red eye flight
9. Had a brief catch-up meeting
10. Celebrated Uncle Roy’s Birthday, less out of actual date, but more out of tradition, with ice cream. Ate at “Quake’s.” The weird thing is, I think he treated….
11. We’ll try to have more later, but we tweeted some pictures this morning. You can look at the link to twitter above to help you.

We’ll try to have more later, but we’re beat and sleepy 🙂

The men’s one-week team arrived safely. We did a similar tour that we had with the CoEd team. Conner’s Garden, where we left a card for Kathy, the woman we spoke with last year; Biloxi Lighthouse and Pier, Katrina memorial, CoEd team’s site of last year; lunch at Cafe New Orleans, then back to our temporary home. The 1-Weekers then went to the Habitat office for orientation, and the 2-Weekers went to work.

The Pier, a place where many fish.
While at the pier, we had the opportunity to meet a couple of folks, Sean (sp?), who is suffering from a serious condition, as well as his friend Tony, who followed the fishing industry to Mississippi, but had his home was flooded by Katrina. We have to remember that even though his home wasn’t entirely submerged, the damage was devastating. We were able to pray for them respectively. On the way off the pier, Gary M spoke with Dave, who was smiling ear to ear. Dave explained that he was a Christian, and was strongly encouraged by our willingness to pray for folks that we were just meeting casually.

Work Day
Biloxi Christian Church is celebrating paying off their mortgage with a mortgage-burning celebration. Ken, our facility director, thought it’d be a nice idea if the church looked a little more spruced up for the celebration. We did gardening, painting, performed some minor repairs including fixing baseboards, windows and a deck.

Now, we’re minutes away from our evening devotional