Well, I said
before that at some point I’d like to do a special post on our previous
missions trips that we’ve taken as a family with the ministry Eight Days of
Hope. Our friends are all currently
serving at Eight Days of Hope 10 in La Place, Louisiana, so what better time to
share our experiences than right now!?!?!
First of
all, we love this ministry so much. It
is truly CHRIST centered. Here’s a
little background. A small group from a
church in Tupelo, Mississippi wanted to help rebuild after Hurricane Katrina
hit. We all remember that, right? Well this small group kept growing and
growing and growing and going to different places all over the country offering
help (and hope) to natural disaster stricken areas.
They’ve
served multiple times near the gulf coast after Katrina, have been to Cedar
Rapids, Iowa and Nashville, Tennessee after severe flooding, and the last two
trips, which we participated in, where to Smithville, Mississippi/Hackleburg,
Alabama after these small towns were destroyed by tornadoes, and Pamlico
County, North Carolina after hurricane Irene.
Now, as I
said, they’re on a trip to Louisiana with 2500
volunteers!!!! That’s the most
people we’ve ever had on a trip. It’s
very exciting! We wish we could have
been part of the 2500!
Let me get
to our story. When volunteering at Eight
Days of Hope, all they ask is that you make your own way to whatever city they’re
serving in. Once you arrive your
housing, meals, and laundry service are all provided. It’s all very simple, nothing extravagant,
men’s and women’s sleeping quarters are separated, of course, and you sleep in
church gyms, classrooms, cabins, wherever.
The food is always good, all cooked and served by volunteers. Because they’re based out of Mississippi,
they usually slip in some southern cooking ;]
Your clothes are washed by volunteers at a local laundro-mat or some
laundry facility if one is available on site.
Anyway, we
did not initially have the extra money for gas and expenses to go on this trip,
so we asked God to provide it. We decided
to have a garage sale at our home. We
took a leap of faith and didn’t mark anything.
All we asked for were free will donations. We just got rid of things around our house,
nothing huge. We put an ad in the paper
sharing how, “All proceeds will go toward spreading the good news of Jesus
Christ.” And we had signs around at the
garage sale telling people what the money was for. We ended up with $795. Yah. I
know. I’ve never made that much at a
garage sale, and I’ve been doing them since I was a little kid! It was absolutely amazing!! We had more than enough to get there and home
again.
Our vehicle
needed a repair, so we had that taken care of before we left. With two little children (Roen was 2 at the
time, and Audrey was 4 months old) a packed roof rack carrier, and a rear end
full of our stuff for the trip, we headed to Mississippi! We had no idea what to expect. But we were planning to arrive early, so we
packed our camping gear and intended to camp for one day.
The kids
were great in the car. We stopped every
few hours or so to take restroom breaks and to feed the baby. They slept most of the way. It took us about 15 hours to get to Tupelo,
Mississippi, and we drove straight through.
We arrived at about 4:30 in the morning.
We were exhausted and decided to get a room for a few hours to sleep
comfortably. We got a really good deal
since we’d only be using the room for a short time. Of course, Audrey screamed nearly the whole “night”
at the hotel, so I didn’t get much sleep.
Sorry to whoever was In the rooms near us. You probably didn’t get much sleep either :P
After that we
found a state park to camp in. We fell
in love with Tombigbee State Park in Tupelo!
The park was beautiful and we were there at the perfect time. The leaves were just beginning to change down
south and all the colors were awesome. We
paid for our space intended to be there for just one night. It was reserved by someone else for the next
day. We set up our tent and cooked our
supper over a little propane stove. We
brought along our own non-perishable foods and simple things like bread and
peanut butter and jelly in an attempt to save ourselves time and money instead
of stopping to eat fast food all the time.
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| I love Mississippi in the fall!!! |
It looked
like rain as we were setting up our tent, so we decided to find a Walmart to
get some tarps to really seal ourselves up for the night ahead. As we were driving, we heard a really loud
WHOM WHOM WHOM WHOM!! That’s the noise
our car was making before we had it repaired before we left… oh dear.
We stopped at Firestone Tire and they took a look at it. They said it looked like our wheel bearings
(what we JUST had fixed) were not put on right, and it was going to mess up our
front axels. We made an appointment to
have them fix it for the next day. Phew.
We pitched
our tent and covered it with huge tarps.
It didn’t look very pretty, but that’s the first time I’ve ever camped
without getting wet. The next day it
continued to rain. Derek took Roen to
get the car fixed and Audrey and I stayed at the camp site. A few hours later he called me and said, “They
took the car out for a test drive and the next thing I knew, the car was being
towed back to the lot.” Apparently as
they were test driving it, the front axle ceased up and the car wouldn’t move. All I could think was, we just drove hundreds
of miles in the rain, in the middle of the night, and for hours!! What if this
had happened while we were driving 70 mph down the interstate!!! God was definitely watching over us!!!
The
mechanics prediction came true. Our
front axel was ruined. And the parts
wouldn’t be in for days. And… we’re at a
camp site.. and we have to move our campsite in the rain because someone else
has our spot reserved… and …what are we
going to do? I hung up the phone with
Derek and I just prayed. I asked God to
please just work this all out and that we’ve trusted Him this far and we can’t
stop now.
Derek met a
man at the repair place who gave him and Roen a ride back to our campsite. He must have been an angel. As soon as he left, Derek and I just sat in
the tent looking at eachother wondering what we were going to do. Then we heard a voice outside calling for
Derek. It was the park ranger. She asked if we were having trouble. Derek explained the car situation. She said, “Well, someone just paid for y’all
to stay in a cabin.” WHAAAAAAAT!!!!! We
just couldn’t believe it! God is so
good!!!!! She helped us load all our
stuff into her truck and drove us to the cabin that had been rented for us and
it was just beautiful!!! We just kept
rejoicing and saying Praise the Lord!!! It was just too much!! Aah I get all choked up just thinking about
it all over again! :-D
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| the view off our back porch |
We called
Eight Days of Hope and explained our situation.
They said they’d send someone to pick us up so we could make it to the
orientation that evening. We got to
share our story again with two men that picked us up at the cabin. One was the husband of one of the ladies in
charge at Eight Days. The other was the
song leader during all the worship services (Mike). The actual headquarters for this EDOH trip
was in the town of Amory, Mississippi at Meadowood Baptist Church. Amory has become our home away from home!! :]
After the
orientation we were wondering how we’d get back to our cabin. Mike took us to Peggy (our driver’s wife) and
Peggy introduced us to John Riley, the afternoon radio host from American
Family Radio. She asked if he would be
able to take us back to Tombigbee because he lives near there. We were soooo excited!! We love John Riley!!
:D And we still love John Riley! Ahh we miss that family so much. Anyway, we rode back to the cabin with John
and one of his sons, Israel. Once
again, we shared our story. They couldn’t
believe it.
We had a
great night’s sleep in our cabin. One of
John’s other sons, Josh, picked us up with all of our belongings (everything we
neede, at least, all the extra stuff we kept in the car at the repair
shop). He delivered us back to begin
serving at Eight Days of Hope 8. Miss
Peggy asked where we were staying. Our
housing assignment had me and Audrey staying at the women’s church and Derek
and Roen at the men’s. She said, “I’m
going to make an executive decision. We’ve
been given the use a house, it’s a crisis pregnancy center. If you’d like you can all stay there
together.” WHAAAAAAT!! The blessings just kept coming and coming!! Of course we accepted. We would be staying with another family with
8 children from Virginia, and a couple from Texas. We love both of these families and miss
them!! We got to the “house” and it
turned out to be Sav-a-Life of Monroe County.
It was a huge house…a former boys’ home.
In it each family got their own bedroom and bathroom, and we had a
laundry room!! We got to ride to the
church headquarters every day and night with the Virginia family in their 15
passenger van. Praise God!!!
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| Sav-A-Life of Monroe County |
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| It's huuuuge... |
During the
days ahead, I was introduced to Steve Tybor.
He’s the president of Eight Days.
He wanted to hear our story. It’s
just such a crazy tale to tell, and so unbelievable!
Derek was on
a crew that traveled to Hackleburg, AL, an hour away, every day to rebuild from
the ground up a house for Ms. Betty
Commings. He loved it. He’d gained a ton of experience at some
recent job opportunities that he’d had.
Every day he and the foreman of his job would be the last volunteers to
return and the last ones in line to get their supper. Every one worked very hard. With only eight days to do the work, we all
wanted to be as much of a blessing to the homeowners as possible.
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| Rebuilding from the "slab" up. The point where Derek joined in. |
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| Ms. Betty, the homeowner. :] |
I guess I
should add this, almost all of the materials we work with are donated. If we have to purchase them, it’s done with
donated money. This is an all-volunteer
organization. Even the “president” is
just a volunteer. No one gets paid for
any of the work being done. Also, the
aim of this ministry is to help homeowners who had NO insurance, or didn’t have
the proper insurance at the time of the natural disaster. Before we came, these poor people had no hope
of there homes getting repaired unless they paid for it themselves. Which, for many of them, would be
impossible. This group comes in and
gives them hope. We do as much work as
possible on their home, but at the same time, we offer the hope of Jesus Christ. Steve Tybor has said, “Anyone can build a
house, not just anyone can build a house unto the Lord.” Amen!!
The children
and I worked around the church headquarters doing whatever jobs I could find in
between naps , feeding, and letting the children play. The church had a nice toddler room with lots
of toys and a separate nursery full of cribs.
It worked out for us perfectly.
Audrey could nap and roen could play.
It was in an area of the church that wasn’t used much for Eight Days, so
they could nap undisturbed during the day.
We found things to do like cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming in the lunch
room (which I did with Audrey in a front carrier), and raking leaves outside
the church. It was lots of fun keeping
busy with Roen “helping”.
All while we
were serving away, our car had been repaired as far as the axel being replaced
and the wheel bearings being put on correctly.
The business that originally did the work paid the bill, which Firestone
cut $200 off of, for no reason. Phew!!!
What a blessing! We had no idea how we
were going to pay for the repairs, but God knew and we trusted Him!! But after all the fixes, the car was still
making this very strange and loud grinding noise. It only happened when the car started going
about 35 mph. No one knew what it was,
but we were advised not to drive it. The
car was transported by an EDOH volunteer with a truck and trailer to another
city 90 miles away. We were hoping maybe
it was something that would be covered under warranty.
My favorite
day at Eight Days of Hope is always Thursday.
It’s a special night where, during our worship service, the volunteers
can share a testimony. We went up as a
family and Derek shared our story. We became
known as the “garage sale family.” ;] We
thought that was that. God had other
plans…
The next day
I was at the church headquarters and Derek was working in Hackleburg. Volunteers were coming up to both of us, at different
locations, and saying things like, “God told me to give this to you” and handed
us money. When we met up later, we
couldn’t wait to tell eachother! It just
kept coming and coming in different ways!
It was soo humbling! How can you
say thank you enough?!?! You can’t!! We
just wanted to cry! Praise God.
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| Saying goodbye. Job well done!!!! |
By the time
Eight Days was finished, the house Derek was helping with was totally
constructed on the outside. All that was
left to do was wall and floor coverings on the inside and other finishing
touches. Way to go!!! :-D
It was
really hard to say goodbye to so many new friends that we’d made, but the job
was done, so everyone parted ways. We
were told by Ms. Dana, the director of Sav-a-Life, whom we loooove!!!! ;] that
we could stay on at the pregnancy center for as long as we needed to. Praise God, again and again!!
After 5pm
and on weekends, we had the place all to ourselves! It was like home! We were able to cook, do laundry, shower,
etc. We could play outside (which the
weather was beautiful!!) And if we
needed anything for the children, we were allowed to use it (toys, baby items,
diapers, wipes, etc.) I mean… with small
children, we really could NOT have been put in a better place!!
To try and
give back at least a little bit, we tried to do whatever we could to help out
at the pregnancy center. Derek was doing
light repair work, I was busy, busy putting their provision closets back in
order (after the tornado they became like a hub for disaster relief and they
put pregnancy stuff on hold, so they were needing help!) and Derek and I both cleaned and cleaned in
the evenings, mopping floors, cleaning bathrooms, etc. etc. Whatever we thought would be helpful to Ms.
Dana and the center volunteers.
We’re so
thankful that we were able to stay on at Sav-a-Life. Thus far our car had been at this second
repair shop for 2 weeks, and they weren’t finding a cause for the noise. So Firestone towed it back to Tupelo, MS FOR
FREE!! to a third place, which specialized in transmissions. Yuck.
I don’t even like the word Transmission… all I think of is money out the
window.. Money we didn’t have!! They kept checking thing after thing, trying
this and that, with no end in sight.
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| With John Riley from AFR and his family on Thanksgiving Day |
Soon enough,
Thanksgiving was upon us. We spent the
day with John Riley and his family and we had a blast!!! We laughed so much that day. It was great.
And it was so nice to have “northern” food again!! ;] We
got to spend a lot of time with the Rileys.
They would pick us up at Sav-a-Life and we’d spend the day with
them. Derek was doing a lot of
remodeling for them on their home. Just
light stuff. Then they asked if he could
remodel their laundry room and build John’s wife, Lennie, a big walk-in-closet that she’s been dreaming
of! He did, with the help of one of
their sons. He was told that they wanted
to pay him for the work, and if he wouldn’t let them pay him, he couldn’t do
the job. Ok! Can’t argue with that! But really, we just wanted to try and thank
the family and help them for helping us.
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| Steve Tybor and his family |
Steve Tybor
found out we were still stuck in Mississippi and he offered Derek lots of
work! They were in the process of
selling their house, so they needed a handy man. It really was a huge gift to us because we
still had bills to pay back home and we still had needs where we were at.
Please
understand, I’m leaving out a ton of details, but I’m trying to condense the
story, which is really, really difficult because there is soo much awesomeness
to share!!
Derek was
very excited to be given 3 opportunities to preach at two different churches
and at a Rotary Club meeting while we were down south. Because we didn’t have a vehicle, we walked
everywhere, to the grocery store (Piggly Wiggly), Dollar General, to a
neighborhood church, and to a little mom and pop store, literally owned by a
mom and pop, Mr. Owens and his wife. A
very sweet elderly couple in an all-black neighborhood who ran a little snack
store and used it as a place to reach out to youth and hold Bible studies. It really was nice because I lost 15 pounds,
the baby weight from carrying Audrey, during that time!! :D (Of course, I gained it all back, and then
some, while pregnant with Hannah!!)
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| Our family interviewed by the local newspaper in Amory, Ms |
Christmas
was right around the corner, and we were still not home. The repair shop got so desperate that they
brought in a specialist who hooked up microphones all over the car to try to
pinpoint where the noise was coming from.
During the test drive, it was discovered that the noise was not coming
from under the car, but from the roof.
Turns out, we had stayed in Amory, Mississippi
for TWO MONTHS due to the STRAP on our ROOF TOP CARRIER FLAPPING IN THE WIND,
making the horrible noise……………….. God
definitely has a sense of humor.
The End.
But
wait! Just wanted to throw some figures
at you:
·
** Derek
did the math. On the day our car was
pronounced “fixed” we had spent 40 days and 40 nights in Amory.
·
** If
we had to stay in a hotel, it would have run us approximately over $4300.00. We spent a total of $80 on housing for two months.
This included our hotel stay the first night we arrived in Mississippi
and our camp site fee.
·
** Car
repairs should have totaled near $3600.00. We spent a grand total of $0!!!!!!!!!!! Can you believe that?!? The repair places either lowered the bill, or
didn’t charge us. At the final repair
place, they did have to charge us labor for something that they did, even though
it didn’t solve the supposed issue. And
do you know who covered that for us? The
leaders of Eight Days of Hope…
*tears!*
As I said… we LOVE this ministry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
