A taste of the South in your mouth.

Much of our experience today revolved around the unique tastes of the South. Billy Morgan, an MDS home owner joined us for lunch today in the Pass Christian Park. He brought along 25 pounds of spicy Cajun Crawfish for all of us to try. Jaci found their heads also made great finger puppets!


Most of us found them to be spicy, hot and delicious. We were taught to break them in half, eat the meat out of the tail and claws and suck the juice from whichever part of the crawfish we wanted.


This group of girls found another not so common Southern treat. Lead by Hanna Regier, all these girls accepted the dare of eating a common garden slug. They reported it tasted like dirt. Jessica and I will stick with crawfish.


This crew rarely goes outside of their home during the workday. They are busy inside putting on plaster board, mudding, taping and sanding. Alex Larabie deserves special mention for holding dozens of sheets of drywall over his head to attach to the roof. That is hard work!


This evening, we enjoyed a BBQ at the MDS site. It was fun to eat outside thinking of many of you still with snow on the ground.

In the evening, we went shopping in Gulf Port. Tomorrow we work all day and plan to leave for home at 6:30 pm.We will travel all night and hope to be in Bismarck Saturday in the evening. We are looking forward to be home Sunday evening.

Southern Hospitality

Sarah Martens brought her collection of Beanie Babies to Pass Christian. She wanted to donate them to children here.She brought them to the Good will Missionary Baptist Church where her donation was graciously accepted by Billy Morgan, an MDS home owner and member of the church. The toys are now in the church nursery.


The framing crew enjoys the break from work in the shade underneath the house they are building.


The crew is hard at work sheeting the walls they framed earlier in the week. They are actually building a house from the ground up!




The Baptist Church hosted us for lunch today. They feed all the area volunteers every wednesday.






The pastor invited us to attend their service in the evening. It was a Southern Baptist revival meeting complete with Gospel singing, clapping, Amens and a preacher like most of us have never heard before. Wow!




After the service, we were asked to sing for the people who had stayed to visit with us.

Life in Pass Christian

Our day involved another full day of work on our job sites. Some of us installed flooring, put up new walls and plastered. This group finished the framing for a deck and stairway. you can see the houses are being built 10 feet off the ground. Each post the house is on has a chain in it connecting the house to the cement floor.

Katrina changed the landscape of the region. The force of the hurricane can be seen in this devastated forest. We saw this on a tour of the area after work today.

Many homes are still damaged or destroyed. We saw this man looking over his damaged property on our tour, other yards have been cleaned up. Some homes looked like they did on TV right after Katrina.

The Andrew T is a shrimp boat from Pass Christian. We found it in the forest 10 km from the harbour. It had been carried there by the storm. We saw lots of other debris including furniture, boats, toys, nets and clothes.

In the evening, students do many things. Some sleep, others walk to the Shell station nearby, others read or visit and groups like this gathered in the dining room to play games.

Last, We want to talk about the food. It has been awesome. We have big breakfasts, homemade desserts at supper fresh out of the oven and the choices shown above for our make you own lunches, we take to the job sites everyday. Tomorrow's lunch is going to be great too; the local Baptist church has invited us to thank us for helping their community.

Jessica is Jim's fav student for life.

Yes, Jessica Mak chose the title for this blog entry, but Jim agreed since Jessica has spent every evening working with him on the blog. He could'nt have sent this information back home without her help. Thanks Jessica!!

Welcome to Pass Christian MDS Site. We have experienced great hospitality, fantastic food, wonderful people and comfortable accomodations. Jim is visiting with Kelvin, a long-term MDS volunteer here.






Hanna loved that :) Thank goodness for porta-potties on the job site.



Kaitlyn did a great job learning how to install laminate flooring.



Coby and Steven hung out in the rafters installing fibre glass insulation.



This group is literally building their house from the ground up. We were building walls and framing.

Billy is one of the client home owners. He was on site all day landscaping and telling great stories. His home is less than half completed but he already has a lawn chair on his deck and spends most afternoons there reading his mail and his newspaper. He is already making it his home.

Swimming with dolphins

Let's start with a really important stuff, there were DOLPHINS!

we travelled to Ship Island which is 11 miles off the coast in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. It was a one hour trip each way. This was our boat, we all travelled as foot passengers.

We spent a day swimming in the ocean, sun tanning, collecting seashells and having a spectaular day. We can't decide who is more sun burnt, Christy or Chelsea?

Ship Island is only 500 meters across and you travelled from one side to the other on the board walk.

We were all tired, especially Scott.

We are now in Pass Christian at the MDS site and are excited about beginning our work. We will be in 6 crews working on 6 different houses. We are off to bed, because our day begins at 6:30 tomorrow morning. I hope Jon Willie gets up on time!

Whirlwind tour of New Orleans

We travelled from Memphis to New Orleans in the morning. We drove part of the way on an elevated highway with Mangrove swamps all around us. We saw turtles sunning themselves on logs and yes we did see an alligator!

We knew we were in the deep South when we saw homes like this right in the middle of the Louisiana Swamp.

This was our view of the Riverwalk which leads tourists into the French Quarter.

Would you believe the captain of the Creole Queen has a daughter who lives in Saskatoon? He flew the Canadian flag in honour of our group and asked for a picture with us to send to his daughter.

David, Jeremy and Alex relaxing on board as we cruise the Mississippi River.

Our whole group posing below the Canadian flag

And now...........shopping!

Hanna, Erik and Devan patiently waiting for a taste of the South in a French Quarter restaurant. we ate lots of catfish and shrimps.

TOMORROW, we are travelling 11 miles offshore to Ship Island to spend the day on the beach. We hope for good weather and a chance to see dolphins.

Walking in Memphis

Hi. We spent a long 30plus hours on the bus seeing,among others,Estevan, Fargo, Sioux City, Kansas City, St. Louis, Booneville and finally Memphis.

We went to the National Civil Right Museum on the 40th Anniversary of Martin Luther King's death. Look WHO WE MET!

How could we come all the way to Memphis and not take a quick look at Graceland. Nobody saw Elvis.

Media were out in full force at the Civil Rights Museum. Rachel Stock and Jon Willie were interviewed. Did any of you see them on CNN??

The chance to be here on such an important day made our tour especially memorable.


Everyone is travelling well, and we are looking forward to a great day in New Orleans tomorrow. We will try to post another set of pictures tomorrow night.

Trip Itinerary

April 3, 2008, 4:00 am Depart RJC via bus

April 4, 2008, 12:00 noon (approximately) Arrive Memphis, Tennessee
Afternoon - tour National Civil Rights Museum
- explore historic downtown district

April 5, 2008, Travel to New Orleans
Boat tour of New Orleans
Exploring French Quarter and Lower Ninth Ward
Travel to Gulfport, Mississippi

April 6, 2008, 11:30 am - 5:00 pm, Excursion to Ship Island
5:00 pm Supper in Gulfport
Travel to Pass Christian MDS site
MDS Orientation

April 7 - 11 MDS Service work
Evening activities as schedule permits

April 11, 2008, after supper, begin trip home

April 12, 2008 Arrive Bismarck, ND for night

April 13, 2008 Travel to RJC

Trip details

On April 3, 25 RJC students plus staff, parents and some grandparents will begin their journey to Pass Christian, Mississippi for a service and learning trip, volunteering with Mennonite Disaster Service in the rebuilding following Hurricane Katrina. They will be on site from April 7-11, returning home to Rosthern on April 13. Watch this site for daily updates from the trip.