Before we tell you about tonight’s “Back to School Blast” at Port Sulphur Baptist Church, here’s a run down of the odd jobs we were able to finish this week:

Cleaned out the warehouse/fellowship hall (take note of the before and after pictures!)
Built a new closet in the church office
Set up pre-K and K-2 classrooms for Solid Rock academy
Stained and finished cabinets in the church nursery
Organized and carpeted the PSBC sound booth
Installed shelves over the water fountains
Moved the ice maker to the church kitchen
Cut grass at Venice Community Church
Installed toe molding at an off-site house
Touched up paint all over the church building
Setup a computer and a couple of printers
Cut and installed replacement ceiling tiles in the sanctuary

As you can see, we have accomplished a lot this week, especially considering that we only worked until lunchtime!  We’ve been trying this week to get some rest in the afternoons so that we can be at our best for our evening concerts.

Tonight we were able to enjoy time with our friends from PSBC.  It was nice to end our run of concerts here at home base!  We had lots of kids, and lots more parents at this party than at the previous ones.  It was bittersweet, though, because it was our last concert with our new friend drummer Stephen!  All the sound equipment is back in the trailer, and we’re about to enjoy a shrimp dinner, provided by Bruce and Erin.  We head out very early tomorrow morning.  Tyler will be home tomorrow afternoon, and the rest of us will be there on Sunday.  Pray for us as we travel this weekend, that we have safe and restful travels–well, as restful as they can be, anyway!  We look forward to telling all of you about our experience!

You’ve heard plenty so far this week about the odd jobs we’ve been working on for Port Sulphur Baptist Church.  We’ve had fun doing this work, and we’re glad we can help with these things, but our primary purpose for coming was to provide music for events around Plaquemine’s Parish. Pictures from our block party at Ms. Goose’s, and pictures from the PSBC Revival, are on the website.  Last night, we had our first “Back to School Blast” at Venice Community Church.

Venice is about 35 miles south of Port Sulphur, and sits between the banks of the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico.  They don’t call it the “end of the road” for no reason; just a few miles past the town of Venice, the road stops! Venice Community Church was completely destroyed in the storm.  The building has been rebuilt, but it’s still just a shell, and the congregation hasn’t met since before the storm.  A new pastor (from Alaska!) has been called for this congregation, but with the congregation dispersed, some rebuilding is necessary.  We took our band equipment, the moonwalk, popcorn and orange drink, and a bunch of door prizes down to the building shell and had a big party for kids in the area.  We were a little worried at first–when it was time to “start”, we had no partygoers!  But God always provides, and within a half hour, we had about 15 kids–approximately half of the kids who live in that part of the parish.

We had fun playing music, but more than that, we had fun interacting with the kids.  Julie Carr is terrific at engaging kids and getting them involved in what we’re doing.  We taught them how to sing “Ain’t Nobody”.  They even got some practice time with Glenn before we did it for real!  Greg made lots of new friends manning the moonwalk, and Glenn, Mitchell, and Stephen played lots of frisbee!  Melody was a big hit as the keeper of the prizes, and Molly had popcorn–’nuff said! Stephen even gave away a set of his drumsticks as a doorprize! John Anthony loved his new drumsticks, but he asked Stephen to hold on to them for him so he could go play!

It’s hard to convey in a blog entry or a group of pictures just how special it was to be part of an event like this.  We have talked as a group this week about how we have to change our notion of success.  We tend to think that if we don’t pack the house, then an event hasn’t been successful.  But for the 15 kids and the few parents who came to the party last night, it was a success.  We don’t always know what God is trying to accomplish; if one kid that we saw last night comes to Christ, then we’ve accomplished something.  We may not see the fruits of our labors this week, or on our next trip–in fact, maybe we never see them ourselves.  But if we are answering God’s call, and faithful to the work he has called us to do, then we can be confident that he’ll work through us to do what HE wants to do!

Mission trips are more about the people we meet than the things that we do.  Tonight, we’d like to share with you the story of Brother Houston.

Brother Houston is in Port Sulphur as a guest of Brother John, our revival preacher from Tuesday night. Brother Houston has been floating around our various work sites–in the school, in the church office, in the warehouse–looking for ways he could help.  In fact, on Tuesday, he drove to Belle Chasse just to get popcorn supplies for us.  He has always seemed happy and joyful.  We were especially privileged to hear Brother Houston give his testimony at last night’s revival, and were left feeling that we wanted to know more about him.  He has endured many hardships in his life, yet he still believes firmly in God’s promises.  Brother Houston told about how he was saved as a child, but he fell away, and found himself struggling with alcoholism.  After many years of struggle, he went back to church to make his uncle happy–in his words, he thought he’d “go just to shut him up”.  The result?  He rededicated his life to Christ.  Some time after that, on his way to go hunting with his dog, God called him to preach.  He turned his truck around right then and went home to tell his wife that he was becoming a preacher. 

Two years ago, in the span of three months, Brother Houston had open heart surgery, then endured a car accident that most people wouldn’t have survived.  Most tragically, his only son was killed in a car accident.  Even through all of these trials, Brother Houston’s faith has endured. Not only does he seem joyful, he is joyful! His faith is visible in his face, in the way he quietly helps the people of Port Sulphur, and in the way he worships.  Brother Houston has been an inspiration to us this week, and we’re glad that we can share his story with you. In fact, Brother Houston wants to join HRBC in Port Sulphur with a team from his church sometime in the future.  Make sure to come to Port Sulphur so that you can meet Brother Houston!

We’re writing this on the way home from New Orleans.  After spending the morning continuing our work from yesterday, we headed to the city for a little sightseeing.  We toured Mardi Gras world, then Greg gave us the Greg Carr tour of the Garden District.  Now, we’re all a little sleepy from the beignets, so until tomorrow….

Today we’ve continued to work on projects that we started yesterday, and we’re making good progress!  We took some time after lunch to rest so that we’d be fresh and ready to provide worship music for the Port Sulphur Baptist Church revival.  The revival allowed us to see how the Holy Spirit is moving in Port Sulphur, even though they are few in number.

Since we don’t have many new activities to report, we thought we’d dedicate this blog to telling you what we’ve learned on our trip so far.  Some of our “learnings” are funny, some are serious, some will require you to ask us in person about our experience; but all of them help us to know each other, our Port Sulphur family, and our God more.  So what did we learn?

• Molly hates snakes in her bed.
• Mitchell loves cheese.
• People in Port Sulphur show up for a 6:30 service at 5:55.
• Big boys (i.e. Stephen) like cookies!
• Tyler doesn’t like cold eggs, but he loves pickles.
• You can’t always trust GPS (it sent Melody and Stephen to the ferry–which was closed!)
• Laura does not like to dance.  Mitchell likes to dance, but no one wants to watch.
• Stephen is a sass (so he fits right in!), but he did learn to play all of our songs in one hour.
• We can tear down sound equipment in record time when it rains!
• It doesn’t matter when Jill joins the game, she can beat Glenn in cards anytime!
• People in PS are appreciative of anything you can do to help them.
• Being away from our normal lives is refreshing–no tv gives you time to think and reflect!
• We were moved–and at times entertained–by the revival, even though the style of preaching was a little different than we’re used to.
• Life in Port Sulphur changed forever in August 2005. We marvel at the difficulty of living in the kind of chaos that our Port Sulphur family endures on a day-to-day basis, month after month and year after year, and the grace with which they do it.

We’re probably not done learning yet, but we hope our observations give you a little taste of what it’s like to be on mission here.  See you tomorrow!

We are fortunate to have 2 people join us from Jackson, Mississippi.  Melody Hanberry, a former HRBC-er, is helping us this week.  She volunteered to give up a week of her summer to see what’s going on in Port Sulphur, Louisiana.  We are excited to have her musical expertise and joyful spirit around here.  Very rarely do we see her without a smile.  Well … maybe first thing in the morning!

Melody brought along a very talented drummer.  When we learned that both our As One drummers wouldn’t be able to make the trip, we were a little stressed — maybe even panicked!!  After doing a little networking, Melody said “I know someone who may be interested.”  So we have a substitute drummer named Stephen.  How ironic it’s the exact same name as our very own Stephen Wood!!!  However, our Port Sulphur Stephen is about 6′5″.  Finally, somone who can see eye-to-eye with Greg Carr!!

God knew exactly what he was doing when he put this team together.  Stephen is a wonderful asset to our group.  He has meshed perfectly with our music style.  It doesn’t matter what kind of faces we make or hand signals we give during a song, he seems to know exactly what to do!

We’re counting our blessings everyday!

Before we tell you about our day, we are fine….the storm is not a problem for us….there is not water coming over the levee….it’s been a little windy (yea!) and cloudy (double yea!!)….and we’ve had very little rain. Thank you for all the prayers and concern, but don’t worry anymore about the “storm”! We’re not!!

Well, we were off and running early this morning fueled by our breakfast prepared and set out by Chef Greg. He even cooked some of that sausage you saw in our pictures…it was delicious and there is more being thawed for tomorrow!

Pastor Lynn had given us a list of projects that needed to be done around the church, so everyone split into small teams to start on “the list”. While everyone was working at the church, Rachel and Molly took Magic Fingers (the blue van we brought down here) and made the all important grocery run for what we’ll need for the next couple of days.  Rachel couldn’t wait to get behind the wheel of a quality vehicle!!  Good job, girls!

At the church, Julie, Jill and Melody helped set up classrooms for the start of the school year that begins this Monday! Jill and Melody found some toy swords.  They relived their childhood days and broke into a dance-like duel!  Greg, Stephen, and Tyler laid baseboards in the bathrooms of the church building, while Laura and Glenn began to build a closet in the Pastor’s office. Upon their return from the grocery, Rachel and Molly touched up the wall paint around the building where it has been “dinged” during the continuing rebuilding process.

After lunch, we all loaded up and headed to our first site for our Block Party. We set up the band on Ms. Goose’s front porch and just in case it rained, Tyler mixed the sound from inside the trailer! The popcorn machine and orange drink (Thanks,Dwayne!) were a big hit.  However, the most popular activity, hands down, was the moonwalk!  The line was long and laughter could be heard everywhere.  It was a good thing we set up part of our sound system in the trailer!!  After about the 7th song, the rains came — and boy did they come hard!!  We condensed  and covered equipment, but most of us were soaked in seconds.  The amazing thing is that within 3 minutes the whole thing was over and skies began to clear.  At that point, everything was too wet to replug.  So we visited more with our new friends. 

After arriving back at Port Sulphur Baptist Church, we unloaded our damp equipment and started drying off every remaining drop.  The moonwalk was set up in the warehouse and it will dry all night long.  I bet those mice will have a great time bouncing around tonight!!

We spent some time after supper getting to know each other better.  We’ll be headed to bed in anticipation of the big breakfast planned for the a.m.  GO, GREG!!!

Thanks again for your prayers and communication.

Hello HRBC family!  We hope you’re still reading, even though there was no post last night!  We left HRBC at 8:30 Saturday morning, after a work-filled hour loading the trailer.  Boy did we have a lot of sound equipment to load! We all rode together until after lunch, when we picked up a second ride. Liberty Baptist Church in Tiger, GA has donated a van to Port Sulphur Baptist Church, and Pastor Lynn asked us to pick it up on the way down.  The folks from Tiger met us in Commerce, GA on Saturday with the vehicle we have dubbed “Magic Fingers”.  It’s an interesting ride–driving over 70 mph gives you a nice massage (thus the nickname) and the speedometer, when it works at all, seems to only register zero and 95!

This trip has started a new tradition that we hope will continue….if it doesn’t get anyone in trouble! When you are the last one to the van after a stop, be it a potty break or meal break, the doors are locked and you have to “dance” to get entrance to the van. We first tried this at the Mississippi welcome center and Mitchell was the first victim. Boy, you should have seen what we saw!! More and better than we ever imagined!!! Sorry there are no pictures from this momentous occasion.

We arrived in Port Sulphur today around 3:30 PST, after spending last night in Montgomery, AL.  We picked up Tyler on the way through New Orleans, and boy were we glad to see him!  We have missed our Tyler this summer, and are glad to have him back with us.  We’re anxiously awaiting the arrival of our last two team members.  Melody Hanberry, who attended HRBC while she lived in Richmond, is driving down from her home near Jackson, MS.  She’s also bringing us a drummer!  We’re looking forward to meeting our OTHER drummer Stephen!

After we arrived in Port Sulphur and got settled into our bunkhouses, we took a tour of the church–lots of new renovations–then went to scope out our site for tomorrow afternoon’s block party!  It looks like it will be really exciting. We’ll do a concert, set up the moonwalk, have a raffle, and just have an all-around good time!

Tomorrow morning we’ll set to work helping out with odd jobs around PSBC before we head off to practice for the block party.  Thank you so much for all of your prayers for our safe travel and our work here, and we keep you all in our prayers while we’re here. Check back tomorrow night for an update!

This is the place to keep in touch with As One as they are on mission with our partners in Port Sulphur, Louisiana.  You can read their updates and comment at the end of any blog. 

Come back and visit on Monday August 4 to see more.

As One will be arriving in Port Sulphur, Louisiana on August 3.  Their mission is to help Port Sulphur Baptist Church kick-off its fall ministries for children, youth and families.  They will provide concerts in various locations every night. 

Pray for their safe travel, healthy voices and open spirits as they meet, greet and share the love of Jesus through music.

Check back here to read stories and see photos from their time in southern Louisiana.