Team Pearlington is truly experiencing life in the deep south…and loving it. Cory and I arrived by car at the Pearlington recovery center late Friday night, while Mark Danielle flew into New Orleans the next day. Autumn Merritt, Trip Coordinator for the Pearlington EM site last summer and our Staff Advisor for this summer, accompanied them as well, and stayed until early Thursday morning to show us the ropes.

When I say “life in the deep south” I am referring to swimming in the Pearl River (the locals say alligators rarely come to that spot), rooting for a chicken to poop on the square for which you bid a dollar, looking forward to fried pickles after pouring concrete for three hours, and listening to hour upon hour of country songs sung by locals who sound just as if they could be on the radio. Of course those are classified as “highlights.” Also part of this reality is chasing cockroaches around the bunkhouse some nights before going to sleep and wondering if it’s worth showering when the humidity seems to eliminate its results ten minutes later anyway.

We are even more excited, however, about the relationships we have begun to build here, both with those who run the Recovery Center and also with some locals. Two of our very first contacts were Larry and Beth Randall, who have always lived in Pearlington and are helping realize plans to rebuild their hometown. Larry is one of the directors of the Recovery Center, the place where we all stay and through which we are working, and both he and Beth open their home daily to dozens of volunteers. The other director of the Pearlington Recovery Center is Glenn Locklin, also known as “Big Glenn.” He carries the title well, and still dresses in styles he learned from his biker days. Glenn has an incredible testimony and has definitely earned all of our respect; he left his home in Tennessee after Katrina to help out in Pearlington, and now his family lives here too. He oversees most of the construction along with Ricky, another local, whose church we visited on Sunday

Another highlight of the past week has been connecting with a returning volunteer, Tomyra Redman, who plans to help out in Pearlington until Thursday. She has joined us on all of our adventures since she arrived, helped us adjust to this foreign culture, and most importantly kept us laughing. The five of us, also joined by Larry, Beth, Glenn, and Ricky, enjoyed trying our voices at karaoke last night – a very serious pastime around here.

We are all very excited for our first team who is arriving on Sunday evening. Although a small team, we know God will work through them and us for His glory, and that relationships and Pearlington homes will continue to be built.

-Cheryl Knowles

“There’s enough work to be done around here for the next 25 years,” says our community partner Jack Fultz as we drive around McDowell County in his full size donated mini van. I take another drink of my fifth water bottle of the day as air conditioning are not commonly heard words down here, and the hot sticky air seems to be quite persistent. “There are good people here, and they really appreciate what we do, that’s why it’s just a good area to do this work, ” comments Jack as we go from house to house looking for ways to help. We have come to discover that this County is full of history and life, but many have maybe lost hope because of the living standards. Jack and Brenda Fultz, the full time missionaries living here, have helped build up those standards and with that bring even more hope.

McDowell County used to be the biggest coal-mining spot in the world, but has now been reduced to the poorest community in the country. Coal mining is still present today, but nowhere near the same scale it once was. The severe deterioration of the county is obvious from the dilapidated houses, lack of jobs, and shortage of hope. Our job this summer, partnering with the groups that come down, is to help repair and rebuild as much of that as we can.

Jack and Brenda own an old school in Gary that they have been working on and out of for about three years. It is now called the School for Life, and started our as just a ministry by Jack and Brenda that was teaching people marketable skills on the old and donated computers. A few years later they now have a thrift store, are very active in the area, and have opened their school to outside groups such as Experience Mission to use for housing for weeks of service in the community. They are an amazing couple and never stop working for the Lord and for this society.

We have only been here a few days, but have already seen some huge ways we can serve, and are excited for how God will move this summer. These past few days have been spent cleaning kitchens, rooms and bathrooms from top to bottom in order for the teams to arrive. The work is hard, and the heat is stifling, but the goal is great. We are in great anticipation for the coming summer and teams coming down. We ask for your prayer over safety and health this summer, that God’s hand would fall on this community, and that we would continue to further the work Jack and Brenda have already begun.