It’s really dark in those tents…this morning, I rubbed toothpaste on my hand, instead of sunscreen…I’m glad I didn’t do that the other way around.
Anyway, Wednesday was absolutely magnificent! The St. Lou Crew split up into two groups, one going back to the house we demolished on Tuesday, the other going to a new (to us) site, a little further inland near the town of Kiln.
At the Kiln site, our task was to finish a demolition job—only the floorboards and foundation remained of the house at the site; we made quick work of tearing it apart and then jumped into the more time-intensive task of removing nails. We were very fortunate to have been working mostly in the shade; the temperature was in the 100s, and there were a lot of worries about heat exhaustion. All of our group came through the day, just fine. We’ve been stressing the importance of taking breaks and drinking lots of fluids.
At the other site, we did a bit more debris removal…I’m getting the picture that debris removal and nail pulling are the bread-and-butter of working here. It’s not so bad, actually. ..I was not on this crew, but I heard about two exciting events during the morning. First, some of the debris was burnable, so several of the crew leaders put together a bonfire (the landfills around here can only handle but so much trash) Our crew worked efficiently to ensure that the blaze did not spread beyond the designated circle of bare earth. Secondly, Jon managed to step on a nail during the process, and made a side-trip to the hospital to make sure it was properly taken care-of. He is ok, but very glad to have a good excuse to not be the adult accompanying the morning runners. ☺ Early to rise, hard to keep up.
After all of that, both groups met up at the dump, unloaded…guess what…debris, and came back to camp, stopping for ice cream at Sno-palace along the way…they had about a thousand flavors of ice cream and snow cones. We met the owner, Mike—who, as it turned out, is a member here at Christ Church. He introduced us to his blue crawfish (they’re rare, one in about 20,000) that he kept in a tank in the shop. We came back, briefly rested, then worked on preparing, serving, and cleaning up from dinner (our duty for the day). The cook had a day off, so our main dish was Popeye’s chicken and biscuits. We also got together green beans, mashed potatoes, and pineapple.
After dinner, the group that had been at Kiln led our evening devotions, down at the beach. Two of our youth related stories of meeting local folks earlier in the day. I’ll put up video of those stories soon. The service was short, simple, and quite nicely done. We smoothly transitioned into journaling time, as the light faded and the stars began to shine. The beach is very nice in the early evening. We’ll be back again tonight.
There have been internet issues, and we have breakfast duty this morning, so if I don’t get pictures up now, I’ll try to make that happen soon.
Peace and grace be with you; take care!
m@
