Saturday and Sunday, June 21-22

Saturday was an uneventful travel day. We flew from National Airport to New Orleans and rented vans for the drive to Pass Christian. Unfortunately, Budget rental car gave us an unexpected upgrade from two minivans to a Suburban and an Expedition. We can literally watch the gas gauge move. On the upside, each of these monsters has some unbelievable features. The best is probably air conditioning that can be digitally set for each side and each row of seats. Our accomodations at The Village are a little rustic, army tents that hold nine beds. An added feature is the roaches and mice that roam freely. We see them so frequently, we hardly pay attention now. Another surprise is that we are within a couple of football fields of the railroad tracks, and trains pass every couple of hours all day and night. Saturday night was rough because we had not learned the key to a good night's sleep, "drugs and plugs." Don't worry, we mean sleeping pills and ear plugs.

On Sunday, we worshiped at St. Paul United Methodist Church and those of us who worked on it two years ago got to see how great it looked. We also finally got to meet Revered Williams, the pastor, who was away at Emory University the past two times we visited. Everyone was pleased at how shiny and new everything looked. After the service, we drove to our favorite restaurant, the Cajun Crawfish Hut for some southern Mississippi cuisine. We feasted on fried alligator, fried pickles, fried shrimp (are you sensing a theme?), and for variety, spicy boiled shrimp. In the afternoon, a large group went shoping for groceries and other supplies, while Lee went with Jocelyn McBride, the volunteer coordinator, to view our job site. This year we are working on Lou Orduna's house. Lou is a mechanic who lost his house and various cars and car parts during Katrina. Lou's house has been rebuilt on 10 foot stilts and he is now adding a wrap around porch that will cover a garage where he can work on cars. We are hanging doors, trimming doors, installing baseboards, and finishing the kitchen and bathroom plumbing. On Sunday evening we were joined at The Village by a large group of Catholic youth from Easton, CT, and two other groups. The Village is full and very lively, especially when a roach is spotted in a tent full of girls. We also got an indoctrination from Kim, the head of Grey Hut, which was interupted twice by her jumping on to a chair to avoid a mouse running across the floor.