Blitz Build

This week I have been at Lagniappe working on their first attempt at blitz building a house. I arrived Wednesday and settled in. Thursday I spent 3 hours at Lowes picking up lumber for the house we were going to work on and watched a crew pour the foundation. Friday I helped build the subfloor on top of the foundation (from 9am to almost 11pm) our teams also arrived friday afternoon. Saturday our teams helped build the frame and start sheeting the sides of the house. Sunday I rested. Monday we began sheeting the roof, I built a deck, and we passed inspection. Tuesday we wrapped the house, put on shingles and siding, and installed windows and doors. All of the exterior of the house is complete in only 4 days!

The teams were composed of college students who are all involved with RUF(reformed university fellowship) on different campuses. I supervised the painting of siding and other things, screwed in boards for the deck, but mostly ran around getting stuff/supplies that were needed on the worksite-even meals.

My favorite thing about this week was seeing how we had an impact on the community. The house we built is on one of the main streets in town and people were constantly driving by and cheering us on. The fire trucks would drive by, honk, and turn on their sirens for us. The local paper and news station came out to do a piece on our work (I was interviewed for the paper). The community is so encouraged to see people still coming and caring about them and in turn want to do what they can for us. Many people stopped by to check out our work. Some construction workers even stopped by to tell us what a great job we were doing! Other people stopped by to bring us donuts, coffee, homemade bread, snacks, etc. My favorite part of it all, was being able to talk to the sweet neighbors who came out when we were working late into the night to tell us to keep hammering away and don't worry about disturbing them because they just wanted this family to have a home.

This week has been wonderful, but I can't wait to be home with my family and get some much needed rest.

Foy on the Today Show

For those who check on my website, sorry I haven't posted anything since Lagniappe. I am planning on posting about my summer over the holidays when life is a little slower paced(hopefully). In the mean time...
This was aired on the Today Show on November 27, 2007. I thought it was neat that Foy student union is famous. Foy was also featured in Oprah's magazine.

Trying to beat the Heat

Today is my last day to work at Lagniappe! I head out tomorrow morning for Tupelo, MS to visit a friend and then I am headed to Auburn on Tuesday. I am sad to leave because I know I will come back to Lagniappe throughout the year but it will never be exactly like it was this summer. Even though I'm sad to leave, I am glad that I am headed back to Auburn and will be taking classes for my major. No more core classes! I'll write a more detailed summary of my summer on sunday.
Today is so hot! The heat this week has been helping me want to leave because it is so unbearable! It is 9am right now and partly cloudy. The heat index is 100 degrees plus intense humidity! A sweet older friend from the community (his name is Jules) came to the church this morning to warn us about the heat and then started walking around the facilities telling our volunteers that they shouldn't work. Haha! Our social worker jokingly told him to go next door to the high school and tell them and don't talk to the volunteers. :) Not that we want our volunteers dropping like flies, but this week is our last big week of the summer and it would be nice to get some things completed. Please be praying that everyone will take time to drink plenty of water and that we will all stay safe in these working conditions.

Just for Andrew

Tonight's blog is a special blog just for Andrew McGinnis who is 3 years old(maybe 4?). He reads my blog everyday with his mom and I cannot wait to go visit the whole McGinnis family when I get back to Auburn.
Andrew, I hope you are enjoying your new baby sister and are having a fun summer. Thank you for praying for me and for the birthday card! When I come visit we will have to make a trip to the park. I love you and can't wait to see you!!

Some funny things

Here are some funny things that I've noticed while working at Lagniappe:

1. You know you are dirty when you rinse off in a mud puddle and actually feel cleaner!-- Yes, this has happened to me many times and probably to anyone else that has worked at Lagniappe.

2. You know you're dirty when you're showering and the water coming off of you is browner than the water coming out of the faucet!-- I know you're thinking "duh". I'm serious however. The tap water here at Lagniappe is a dark tan color. It is completely drinkable, but a little slimy.

Canoeing!

Saturday, Lagniappe paid for all of the staff and interns to go on a 4.5 mile canoe trip so we could have some time away from the worksites in order to rest (somewhat) and have fun.

We parked our cars and then were shuttled up river where our canoes were. During the bus ride, the driver told us that we will pass under two bridges and on the right after the second bridge is where we would be picked up at 3:30. We proceeded to get off the bus and into our canoes and headed down river. This picture is from the first time we stopped because some of the boys were enjoying dumping people out of their canoes. :)

We continued to head down river and continued to be dumped out of our canoes. Next we stopped for lunch on a sandy bank, but we soon heard thunder rumbling in the distance and decided to proceed down river, passing the first bridge. Not much later, we had to pull onto an embankment because it was storming too hard. There was lighting striking all around us and rain pelting our skin. The storm soon eased up, we got back in our canoes and continued down river, stopping for a couple of rope swings along the way.

After we stopped at the 2nd rope swing, it was close to 3pm, still sprinkling, and we figured we should hurry and try to find the 2nd bridge where we were supposed to get out. We were paddling furiously and singing to keep a good attitude, but we were always expecting to see the bridge around each river bend and it just wasn't appearing. 5pm came around and we finally saw the second bridge! However, our rejoicing came too soon. There was no sight of a spot for them to pick us up at. We all pulled over and one person had a phone that wasn't soaked by the rain and/or dunking and we called the canoeing company. They told us that we had passed our pick up spot by about 10 miles!! Luckily, instead of having to paddle 10 miles upstream they had another pick up spot 2 miles downstream and would be there waiting for us. In the end, we paddled about 16 miles over 6 hours and were sore and worn out, but it was a blast!

"A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones."

Proverbs 17:22 (ESV)

Home Visit

This week I get to start doing home visits to people who Lagniappe has helped. I am so excited about this! Our goal when doing these visits is to follow up and maintain relationships with the people in the community. And seeing as Lagniappe currently has over 800 work orders, there are more and more families that have been helped by Lagniappe, thus a growing need to maintain these relationships. Here's one story of a relationship that God has blessed me with:

Two weeks ago I was in Wal-Mart getting pictures developed and while I was in the craft section, a woman that worked there started a casual conversation with me (how are you? Where do you work? Where are you from?). After I told her that I work at Lagniappe and am volunteering all summer she began to tell me how thankful she and the whole town are for all of the volunteers and the work we are doing. She then proceeded to tell me her story of how she survived hurricane Katrina and broke down in tears while doing so.
This whole community is still hurting from the storm. You can see the pain and weariness in the eyes of people around town. Most are thankful for the volunteers, but some are bitter and can’t get over the fact that such a thing would happen to them. No matter what the people’s attitudes are, I love talking to the locals and building relationships with them. One of the things I like to do to get involved in the community is going to a local coffee shop and visiting with the owner and the regular customers. I also enjoy going to 2nd Saturday (all the shops downtown stay open late on the 2nd Saturday of each month and have snacks for the customers, everyone is excited and there are many opportunities to talk to the shop owners).
Last night I had to go get some things at Wal-Mart and I stopped by the craft section to visit my friend. Please be praying for my relationship with her to grow and that I would be a source of encouragement for her while she is facing these hardships.