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It’s lights-out time at our housing center. Lorin stayed up, almost lost her writings and stuck it out because she wanted to write something on the blog for you guys.

Well, we are on our 2nd day in Biloxi and have finished our first day of work in Pascagoula. I’m blessed and amazed by the number of wonderful people here who are willing to volunteer their time and efforts towards this project. It’s encouraging to see God working through the team and others so that His love is expressed in the work of our hands.

We are working on a special type of Habitat home. It’s called LEED home and I think it stands for Leader in Energy and Enviroment Design. The home has some extra bells and whistles that make it energy efficient and that helps save the future home owner money and helps out the enviroment at the same time.

Our group worked on making stairways, installing doors, adding trim, completed a wall for a storage shed, made a platform for an HVAC unit, and stained boards for the deck. The weather is great! It’s cool and a bit breezy and everyone is enjoying it.

We also got to meet the possible future owners or partner family. They currently live in the neighborhood and Jackie, her son-in-law Demetrius, and her nephew Jamarius all worked side by side with the team putting up. It’s exciting and all went well. Even when Jackie lost her cell phone and was really bummed we were able to find it in the supply truck in the returned tool bag. She’d forgotten it was in there. She was able to return to the site and pick up her phone. She was relieved and could go home with peace of mind.

It’s been great to renew aquaintances from last year and to make new ones. We’ve been praying for 2 new friends, Diane and Tomme, who are here for their 3rd year. They are praying for parents in their area to become involved with their teens at church. They’d like the parents participate with their children instead of merely dropping them off at the church. They are both wonderful hard working women who are trying to serve the Lord.

All for now. Lorin

Saw our old friends Brad and Paul…it was like coming back to family.

Brad greeted us with a big hand painted banner, and a trumpet blare of questionable skill.

It was a great way to start the week.

We’re working on a special kind of house. Habitat has always wanted to use energy efficient options in their homes. It saves the environment, but also saves the homeowner costs as well. Leeds is a special energy rating system for structures in the U.S. We’re working on such a house.

It not only goes over the construction materials, but we learned this week, it can also have to do with the construction site and practices. We’re being encouraged to use less plastic bottles (we have our own water bottles) and are creating less waste.

Brad goes over some of the aspects of the home in this video (thanks to Art for shooting it, and Gary for editing it [from Los Angeles])

We got to work with two women that are staying with us from Northern Mississippi, Diane and Tomme (pronounced “Tommy”), and we’re learning a bit about Southern Hospitality.

We also got to meet Miss Jackie and two members of her family, J and Demetrius. Miss Jackie grew up about two blocks away from here.. and has seen the neighborhood go through a number of changes. She thinks it’s on its way up, and hopes that she’ll be considered for this home when it’s finished.