Mission Mississippi

Wow...  That one word says so much about our mission trip to Mississippi.  I know I was going to blog while I was down there, however by the time I had free time I was drained and ready for bed, sleep won over blogging.  =)  Since we've been home there has been so many times I've thought I really need to blog, but got busy with life - kids, hubby, house, laundry, school - it consumes me.  

Today however my wonderful hubby is off work and I decided to take my laptop and sneak off into our room and write.  It is funny how it is so hard to find the time to sit and here and write, but once I do it is so relaxing and much needed.  I love writing, always have.  I think part of the difficulty with blogging about the mission trip is I'm not sure where to start and where to end.  God was and is so incredible that it is really hard to put some of this to words.  I don't want to leave anything out, but I also don't want you to get bored and stop reading, so stay with me.  

God provided in so many ways, even before we left.  Back in the planning stage there was a moment where we questioned even going after having said yes.  At one of the meetings we found out that the plan was to divide into women and men for sleeping arrangements.  Well this normally wouldn't be a problem, but with us being so new to Crosswinds and not really knowing people along with the fact that this would mean Andy had to manage 3 kids while I only had 1 and the lack of privacy (Andy is pretty private) it was a concern.  We decided to turn it over to God and asked for His guidance.  We agreed to give it to God around 9ish Monday evening and by Tuesday early afternoon I had an email saying that family rooms would be available to those who wanted them.  Back on!

We left for Mississippi on Saturday after Christmas.  God was gracious in holding off that slow moving storm (it eventually dumped 8 inches of snow) until we were all out of the area.  There were 42 of us total that went from Crosswinds, no car trouble, no accidents, no injuries, no sickness!  His hands were all over us.

Financially we found out we were within around $12 of the money the church had determined we needed to raise to go. In fact at one point while building the cabin it was discovered that money was needed to finish the deck, God literally provided the money the day it was needed.  

Now imagine 42 people working together, living together, sharing 2 showers and a stackable washer/dryer!!  We had schedules for everything and it worked phenomenally!  We signed up each night for a 15 minute shower, we had teams that took turns doing breakfast, lunch, dinner and cleaning up the church.  We worked together on the job site like we all had done this before (some had) and knew exactly what we were doing.  Nobody complained or argued, it was obvious we were all being led by the hand of God.  It may not sound that amazing, but believe me it was.

Within a week we went from a foundation to a log cabin, roof and all.  Not only did we build a log cabin, but we built relationships.  I loved what Pastor Nelson Roth from the church that hosted us said, "Here we see the hands and feet of Jesus in action. Just serving and blessing folks here in Mississippi. And what a great thing it is to see, how the Lord keeps working and blessing and doing good things here after such a horrible storm,".

If your interested there are lots of pictures posted by church members, http://c3missionmississippitrip2009.shutterfly.com/19.