Sunday

After a long trip, our 'Sabbath rest' came as a great blessing! We had breakfast from 8 to 9 a.m. The cafeteria is located within the large barn that serves as the main facility of the Langniappe church. The bathrooms and showers are also located in this facility as are the administrative offices of the Langniappe church.

This is where we eat all our meals...

...and on the flip side of the cafeteria area is where our worship service was held. In the pic below we are just getting settled in. The service was packed, with several work groups like ours in attendance plus the Langiappe 'family' and prospective church members :

The Langniappe church (who took its name from the Cajun word for 'giving a little something extra') is a mission project of the Presbyterian Church in America. Before Sunday morning's worship service, they had a membership class for 40 plus new members.

They are excited to see how the Lord has blessed this work over the past 3 years. Their goal in helping to rebuild their community of Bay St. Louis is to 'move toward people' with the love of Christ. This purpose and goal was also emphasized in the minister's sermon on Sunday morning.

The worship service itself consisted of singing, prayer, Scripture, and the sermon. Here, Rev. Davis took his turn leading the praise team:

JUST KIDDING! Actually Rev. Davis was snapping some photos before the service and couldn't resist the opportunity to snap one of himself at the microphone...not preaching on Sunday must have left him yearning to get behind the mike.

Our youth group was in charge of cleanup after all three meals on Sunday. Because there is no janitorial staff at the church, during the week, every work group will get a turn cleaning the cafeteria and kitchen, the bath houses, and the grounds. Tomorrow mornig at 7 a.m. the boys get to clean the boys bathroom! Here are a couple of our guys in the kitchen with Josh cleaning dishes:

After worship services we teamed up with the group from Redeemer URC and we took the opportunity to drive around a bit and see the Bay St. Louis area.

It's been three years since Hurricane Katrina ripped through here (Bay St. Loius and nearby Waveland, Mississippi took the full brunt of the storm--water levels reached over 40 feet inland!!) and while most of the debris has been carted off, every where we drove along the water front we saw empty lots; vacant concrete slabs; sets of front steps which used to lead to a front door but now lead to nowhere; we saw wooden stilts that used to support a house, but now they're just pieces of wood sticking out of the ground; we even saw a bank vault with the vault door standing open...but no building around it.

These errie sights are grim reminders of the extent of the devastation.

Besides our little tour, we also took advantage of the beautiful beachfront to enjoy the warm weather. We really hate to mention this to our friends and family back home, but the temps down here today were in the mid-70's. A few of us even got sunburned (but we know we won't get much sympathy from you at the moment)! Here's a team picture of us at the beach:

Well, tomorrow morning we have to be at breakfast at 6:30 a.m. and report for duty by 7 a.m. That's when the Langniappe supervisor meets with us to assign us our job for the day/week. If we have time, we hope to keep you up to date and informed about our trip. Hopefully our pics will bring a smile or two to your faces.

We do miss all of you and the Lynwood and Redeemer work groups covet your prayers in the coming week. Pray for strength, safety and a spirit of eagerness and cooperation as we go about our tasks. Pray especially for team leaders from both churches (Josh Zylstra and Trent Vander Zee) as they have the responsibility of keeping our groups running smoothly.

Thank you so much!