Short term Mission Trips: The restoration project in Pearlington has become a national affair. With the four year anniversary of Katrina making land coming up in August, Pearlington is still in need of volunteer efforts to completely recover. In the last two weeks, youth mission trip teams from California, Chicago and Houston have come to Pearlington to play a part in the rebuilding effort following Hurricane Katrina. The groups have made significant progress on houses for four deserving families in the community, including an elderly woman who looks to move into her finished home in three weeks.

The mission trip teams have been working hard on insulating the walls, installing hardwood flooring, tiling the bathrooms and getting the electrical outlets up and running. In the two weeks that teams have been over at the O’Neal house, the site has been transformed from an empty house that had just been walled in, into a beautiful home that is a couple weeks of touchup work away from being completed.

Every week, Ms. O’Neal, a vivacious 76 year old woman who doesn’t look a day over 50, stops buy to offer her encouragement to the teams and tell them how inspirational they are for the community. On Friday the 19th, Ms. O’Neal and her fiancée cooked up 30 pounds of turkey necks, an enormous pot of sausage as well as corn on the cob for lunch for the mission trip team from Chicago. We ate and laughed and talked about the future of Pearlington and the importance of a continued rebuilding effort. Ms O’Neal had to fight legislation for nearly three years before her plans for a house were finally approved and properly funded. After partnering with community member Glenn Locklin and Experience Mission, her dreams are finally coming to fruition. She told us that “without people like y’all, we wouldn’t ever have our homes back.”

Ms. O’Neal has been an inspiration for the Experience Mission staff in Pearlington, and her incredible attitude is a driving force for every group that comes to her house. We are excited to finish her house soon, and look forward to seeing how God uses her testimony as an example of hope for the community.

*Note: Check out our website at www.ExperienceMission.org for information about upcoming Summer 2010 mission trips.