Christian Mission Trips: Team Pearlington reporting again from the heart of the south where our short term mission trip teams continue to take huge strides in the post-Katrina rebuilding effort. This week, First United Methodist Church of Dallas and Roseville Christian Church made significant progress on five different worksites, while making a lasting impression on the community.

The Bennett house continues to take shape before our eyes. Where only six weeks ago there was only interior framing, there is now beautiful hardwood flooring, an enormous front deck with a split staircase and porch cover, and exquisite interior tiling. However, perhaps the most stunning of all the work at the house so far is the brilliant orange and pink stripes that make up Miranda Bennett’s room. The Summer Staff is thrilled with the progress that has been made on this house, and we are pushing hard to finish it in our two remaining weeks in Pearlington.

The other “top-to-bottom” project that we have been working hard to finish this summer is Nick Narvaes’ house. This week, the team at this site put up siding, finished the deck and handrails, built a hip roof and nearly finished shingling. Nick’s vision is finally starting to come to life thanks to the hard work of this summer’s teams.

This week, we also had a youth mission trips team at Phillip Willis’ house, painting a shed, building porch covers, planting a row of shrubs and staining two decks. Mr. Willis works at Stennis Space Center, where he helps manufacture a variety of important parts for integral weather watching systems. He was deeply grateful for all of the love and support that the teams were providing for the community and for him.

This group also started working with Joe Vincent and his daughter, Jessica. The Vincents are a passionate family who haven’t let personal tragedy bring down their commendable character. The team that worked with the Vincents helped by completely demolishing the interior of Jessica’s home, which hadn’t been restored since the floodwaters nearly completely destroyed her home in 2005. The Vincents are excited about working with future teams because of the efforts poured forth this week.

Along with all of this, teams spent time all over town putting the finishing touches on several work projects that were started last week. From finishing a porch cover at Billy Raines’ house to painting at Joe Vince’s house to staining a deck for Tommy Joe and his mom, this group made a huge impact on the community of Pearlington this week. We were sad to see them leave, but we have faith that the final two weeks of work down here will be just as amazing and productive as this one.

With Love,

Team Pearlington

*Note: Check out Experience Mission’s website at mission trips for information about upcoming Summer 2010 mission trips.