Work Day 3 and Pictures!!

Another glorious day in Mississippi, ya'lls and all.

Today started off warm, and just kept getting hotter!

We all started off by finishing our projects that we started yesterday.

The main project of the day was to complete all the work on the exterior of the house and take down the scaffolding. We also finished the painting on the inside and started painting the doors.

All the doors are hung and all the windows are installed and most of the baseboards are on.

Habitat for Humanity expected us to finish this house before Friday but they didn't know exactly when. Tomorrow, only half of us are staying at the house to put on the finishing touches of our job. The other half will be going to Habitat's huge new warehouse to help organize and set things up there.

We met the whole family today who we are building the house for. Their names are: Trey, Tonya, and Tamara. They also have a four-year-old boy but we didn't meet him.

Waiting for instructions.

Eating and hanging out at lunchtime.

Sam G, Hannah, Sarah, and Katie M. cleaning paint brushes!

Our faithful trooper, we named him Fred.

The Goodwill Missionary Baptist Church in Pass Christian.

Our good friend, Billy Morgan.

Thanks again for all your prayers!

Katie, Bronwyn, and Judith

Mississippi Work Days 1 & 2

Hi Ya'll!

How ya'll doin'?

Okay, enough of the southern accent, time for some Canadian eh?

Our first work day was yesterday (Monday) and we were all assigned to the same house (that means 44 people including our chaperones and bus drivers). The house we were assigned to had one weeks worth of work done on it before we started and the first thing we had to do was to paint everything in sight. Or at least, it seemed that way. Really, we had to paint the exterior siding heron grey and the interior walls first with primer and then with eggshell. Something we found amazing was that within one hour we completed the amount of work that one person would be able to do in a week. We work seven to eight hour days and if you start adding, you'll come to the conclusion we did.

Both yesterday and today we did more than just painting and some of those things included: making railings for the deck, scraping mud (both real and building mud) and sweeping the floors, finishing the outside trim, putting in soffet and fascia, installing doors, and putting down flooring materials. I think that the biggest hand has to go to the many people that did the caulking both yesterday and today. They did such a meticulous job and it really is important to seal all the little holes everywhere even if they seem insignificant. Good job guys!

Our temporary home on the Habitat site is in bunkhouses, the RJC girls being in one called Waveland, and the RJC guys being in one called Pass Christian.

They are quite comfortable and just the right temperature: not hot!

In our free time we have a number of things we could be doing including playing board games, basketball, volleyball, reading, eating, watching TV, and contacting home on the lovely computers.

Tonight we went to Goodwill Missionary Baptist Church in Pass Christian for a revival service. This church is Billy Morgan's church. Billy is a man whose house RJC built two years ago with MDS, in Pass Christian.

The service was unlike any other we had ever experienced before. Forget anything like Saskatchewan Mennonite services because this was the farthest thing from it except for one thing: praising the Lord. They sang differently, they preached differently, they even prayed differently, but that one thing stayed the same. They praised the Lord as we praise the Lord. AMEN!

Now, here are the pictures we promised you! Hope you like them!

Playing UNO on the bus to pass the time.

Graceland!

The cathedral in the French Quarter, New Orleans.

Thats all for now folks, more pictures tomorrow!

Thanks for all your prayers and support, God bless you!

Katie, Bronwyn, and Judith

ALSO Saskatoon Day 2

The ALSO Saskatoon group continued with day 2 of the CHALO program at the MCC Centre. The day started with another session with Dana Barrand. The first assignment was to describe what 'privileged' and 'under-privileged' looked liked. The stereotypes and single stories were explored and challenged. The students participated in a discussion and brain-stormed solutions for closing the distance between the two groups.

Yuri Yuel leading his group that consisted of Kiersten Cancade, Carly Dyck, Brooklin Perran and Caitlyn Hegedus.

Dana Barrand leads the large group in a discussion.

Carmen Pauls offers a few suggestions to Kaitlyn Baker, Torrey Falconer, Suzanne Luitjens, Jessie Ho, John Baker and Luke Driedger-Enns.

We then went out to volunteer for the rest of the day at two organizations. One group of students went to 'The Bridge', a drop in centre in the inner core of Saskatoon. The students help clean both outdoors and indoors. They also help serve the noon meal to the clients.

Caitlyn with Carmen clean up the perimeter.

Kiersten and Brooklin help outside as well.

Yuri is on indoor clean up detail.

Carly helps ladle out soup from the huge vat.

Brooklin joins in serving the noon meal.

Yuri and Carly receives instructions from one of the permanent staff at the Bridge.

The second organization was Chep - a Child Hunger and Education Program. The students cleaned up a community garden plot and divided the area into equal sizes.

Jesse and Kaitlyn work as a team.

Luke and Torrey measure lengths of twine.

Hammer away Suzanne!

Luke and John stake the area.

ALSO Saskatoon Day 1

Well our week of learning outside of the classroom has begun! ALSO Missinipe, Calgary and Winnipeg hit the road early this morning in hopes of reaching their respective destinations this evening.

ALSO Saskatoon headed to the MCC center to begin our week with the CHALO program. We began our day by exploring and putting a face to the issues of poverty, disability, sustainable living and immigration. Our stereotypes were challenged to be not necessarily incorrect but rather an incomplete description of individuals. The rest of the day was spent on a "Race for Understanding". Each group travelled on foot or by city transit to a list of destinations. We visited numerous organization who provide services for each of these areas. A few of the organizations we visited were:

International Women of Saskatoon

Saskatchewan Intercultural Association Inc.

Open door Society

Newcomer Information Centre

The Crocus Cooperative

Autism Services

Sherbrooke Community Centre

Eco-Waste Reduction Centre

CHEP-Community Gardening

Aqua-ponics Program

YWCA

Switch Drop in Centre

Salvation Army

Persons living with Aids Centre

And that just to name a few! We concluded the day back at the MCC building with all groups sharing what they had observed and learnt during the day.

Time was spent journaling and reflecting before returning to RJC for the evening.

The introduction to the CHALO program with Dana Barrand at MCC Sask

Torrey Falconer and Kiersten Cancade explain their poster on immigration

Brayden Holman was spokesperson for his group who worked with Disabilities

The "Race for Understanding" began at the bus mall in downtown Saskatoon.

Adam Ens organizes his group who was looking into sustainable living.

Lloyd Schmidt and several students study the bus routes.

Carmen Pauls, Brayden Holman, Jordan Wiens and Steven Tetreault take to the streets on foot.

Lunch was on the fly! Any comfortable spot will do. Jessie Ho, Kiersten Cancade and Torrey Falconer find a bit of shade.

The flags outlining the window are representative of only a few of the nationalities using the services of the Newcomer Information Centre.

Torrey leads the way to the Open Door Society

One group of students waiting patiently at the bus for the others to return after a long day walking and bussing through the Saskatoon inner core.

Debriefing at the MCC center.

Discussion groups.

Journaling at the end of the day.

Stephanie Willie and Brooklin Perran

Carly Dyck

Colton Regier

Jordan Wiens and David Wiebe

Luke Derksen and Steven Tetreault

Mississippi - The First Days

Hi Everybody!
Sorry this is so late, we've been really busy and didn't have access to a computer for the last four days.

Our first two days consisted mainly of sleeping, eating, sleeping, watching movies, sleeping, readjusting, sleeping, and lots more sleeping. In this time period we traveled from RJC to Memphis, TN. Unfortunately on the second day it was unbearably hot because our air conditioner broke down and that made the ride very much more than lukewarm and pleasant smelling.

Day two in the afternoon we reached Memphis and went directly to the National Civil Rights Museum and spent a couple hours there learning about the Civil Rights movement in the US that really wasn't that civil! The museum is located at the spot where Martin Luther King was assassinated and highlights the struggles of the black community in the US to achieve equality. It was sobering to see that black sanitation workers in Memphis in 1968 protested unfair working conditions that included wages so low they still qualified for welfare!

After buying souvenirs in the gift shop we headed on to Graceland to see Elvis and his stuff. We spent a lot more time with the stuff that with Elvis sadly enough. To get a tour it costs "an arm, a leg, and your firstborn." Quoted directly from our own Jim Epp. So instead we saw all of Elvis's lovely gift shops that all looked the same. Still, now we can say that we've been to Graceland.
After that we went to our classy hotel (Comfort Suites- which was extremely comfy by the way) and went to supper at the Bar-B-Que Pit for a traditional southern meal. They had an all you can eat BBQ rib dinner special. Our group ate all of the ribs the restaurant had! Following supper we all hung out in the high twenties weather on the hotel grounds and the adjoining parking lot of LOWE's hardware store.

The next morning we enjoyed a lovely continental breakfast and drove to New Orleans, Louisiana. We parked beside the Harrah's casino and walked into the French Quarter and spent the whole afternoon there buying cool things and eating good food, example: fried alligator tails and catfish. That night we spent at a sweet motel (Knights Inn- no knights, just friendly middle-aged bikers) in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. We sang lots of songs, played more football and Frisbee, and ate ice cream from Wendys.

This morning we woke up to another gorgeous day and drove to Gulfport where we first went to Walmart to buy cheap but nutritious food. Then we went to the docks to get on the Gulf Islander to sail to West Ship Island. We had just under four hours to swim and soak up the lovely sun. We must say that some people soak better than others judging by their wonderful warm glow. We also saw a record number of dolphins.

When we got back on the mainland it started pouring and it still is. We then drove to the Habitat for Humanity site where we'll be staying for the whole week. We received our orientation and had some free time before bed.

Tomorrow we will start our day bright (we hope) and early at 6 am to start work on our assigned house.

Your prayers and support are greatly appreciated.
Much love, your bloggers,
Katie M., Bronwyn W., and Judith S.
p.s. we will send pictures as soon as we figure out how.

Team Building for ALSO Week

After the ALSO Mississippi group left for their week of service in the wee hours of the morning on April 15th, the remainder of the student body was left to finish the school week! On Friday April 16th, the Faith and Life committee planned some team building activities for the Calgary, Winnipeg, Missinipe and Saskatoon ALSO groups during Chapel time. These groups are anticipating an exciting week to come and anxious to get going too!

Ryan Wood with the Missinipe ALSO group. Danika Epp checks to see if her group is ready to catch her in her trust fall.

Luke Driedger-Enns has complete confidence in his Shekinah ALSO group

Torrey Falconer overcomes her fear! No worries Torrey, team Pleasant Hill/W.P. Bates has your back covered!

Cassandra D'Amore has her ALSO Calgary group all tied in knots!

Games of concentration and cooperation.

Rachel Klaassen, Taylor Epp, Heather Epp and Aisha Friesen

Torrey Falconer, John Baker, Brittany Olsen and Brooklyn Perran.

Karalee Kuny with a few members of the Winnipeg ALSO group - Lyle Graham, Josh Lafreniere, Paul Ayres, Adam Rempel and Teresa Friesen

ALSO week begins

The Alternative Learning and Service Opportunities week begins on
Monday, April 19. A bus bound for Mississippi and a Habitat for
Humanity project left on Thursday, April 15. Other student groups
will be travelling to Calgary, Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Missinipe
(northern Saskatchewan) on Monday.

Watch this blog for updates during the week!