Ryan Goode: July 2008

For the past week I have been working hard in the state of Mississippi with 94 adults and teenagers from the Indianapolis District Church of the Nazarene NYI. All 94 of us traveled by bus and five 15 passenger vans to the town of Pascagoula Mississippi.

We partnered with Mission Encounter a missions ministry group out of Nashville Tennessee to pull of this trip.

Our team spent the week working on 8 different homes throughout the Pascagoula area. We did removal of old dry wall, installation of new, painting, bathroom remodels, brush removal, concrete work, and a list of other work. It was amazing to get the work done and see the progress that can be made by 94 teens and adults in just a few days of work.

I worked on and off throughout the week with teens from our church. When I was not working with them I traveled with our Mission Encounter director to every job site. I had an opportunity to see all of the work that was being done, talk with most of the home owners, and see students grow in their love for God and their neighbor!

There is so much work that still needs to be done in the Gulf coast region. I talked with directors from several different mission groups that shared with me that they may have to shut down their rebuilding efforts in Mississippi if more groups don't start signing on. In fact, this was the last weekend for one ministry group down there.

There is still so much work that needs to be done in this area. As you drive around the towns you still see people everywhere living in FEMA trailers provided to them by the government. One home we worked on still had wet carpet in it from the hurricane. The hurricane happened three years ago!

Check out our blog at to see some video of the work we did this week.

It was amazing to hear the stories we heard from different people about the Hurricane. I will end this blog with a few stories about people I met this week.

. I talked with one family that had major flooding in their home as Katrina hit. There home was so damaged and help was so slow they had to spend three months living in tents in their front yard. All of their meals were cooked on a grill they had. This month they may be able to finally move back into their home!

. One woman I met was able this week to use a bathroom in her home for the first time since Katrina. I asked here if she was happy with the work our teens were doing and she responded, "I couldn't be more happy! I was just able to pee in my own house for the first time in 3 years!"

. One woman shared with me how after the storm they had no water or food in their home. They had to go to a central point in town and wait for hours in line just to receive some water and some MRE's which are military food pouches. She told me she never travels anywhere without water now!

If you or someone you know is responsible for planning a missions trip in the next year I strongly encourage you to look into traveling the Mississippi and the rest of the Gulf coast area.

I was amazed to see how God used 94 people to make such a huge difference. Someone commented that they thought it was great that what the richest most powerful government in the world has been unable to do in three years a group off teens from Indiana compelled by the love of Christ pulled off in just 4 days!