The journey begins. We leave at 11:00 AM in the church bus. We'll drive for 12 hours spend the night on the floor of a church and drive another 3 hours to our destination of Gautier, Mississippi.

There's been somewhat of a snowball effect in our family. I signed up as soon as I saw that I'd be finished working in time to go on the trip. Brady came back from college and signed up shortly after. Yesterday a friend of Casey's, Chris Lindgren, was over. He just graduated from college and had hoped to go into the Peace Corps but wasn't accepted. He's been bummed about that. When I talked with him I suggested he come with us and he called this evening and wants to go, too. Wouldn't it be nice to be that flexible and free? I'd been working on Casey for several weeks trying to persuade him to come with us but he said he needed to get a summer job (so true!) and blah blah blah. Tonight he jumped on the band wagon. Of course, he got a call 5 minutes later asking him to come in for a job interview . He told them he'd be out of town for a week helping out the hurricane folks. (mixed feeling on how he handled that one) They told him to call when he got back.

Anyway, we're off on this crazy adventure, 14 of us in all. We'll hook up with 50 or or so other people down there. It's an ongoing thing, continuous and slow going. Casey's friend, Caleb, went down in February and was surprised how bad things were still. Another friend, Erica, went with a college volunteer group in March. She said it was hard, nasty, smelly, hot work and she didn't like it...but was glad she went. I'm not sure what area either of them were in. I don't know exactly what we will be doing either. It depends on what needs there are when we get there.

I'm just a bit apprehensive about my ability to do hard work for a week and also about the bus ride down there. I'm such a bad traveler! (I've loaded up on Dramamine) But I really am so excited about the rest of it all. Such an opportunity to be traveling and working side by side with these new and old friends and family, to be helping folks in need and serving God! I expect to learn a lot.

I'm restless and it is 2:20 AM! Gotta go finish packing. Please keep us in your prayers as we travel and help us to be a blessing everyone we encounter along the way.