grace.kindness.peace.disruption.pain.processing.rinse.repeat.have a nice day.

Thanks, Weird Al.

The day has come and come again. I had not shaved my goatee area since January 27, 2006, my last day of work at a small pharmaceutical company. I hadn't shaved the remainder of my beard area since I got malaria in mid-May. The result was thick bush on my chin and a socially backward-looking beard. People prayed for me after a single look. It was a lot of fun while it lasted, but it was getting a little too fuzzy. After a new friend described it with a phrase of horrible accuracy that will not be repeated here, but will be told in person if you ask, I decided that the day had come.

I took over two inches off the chin and trimmed the sides. I decided to have some fun on the way down so I turned the shears off and left me some mutton chops. The result was a beautiful picture that can only be titled "Get off my land!"

I'm going to meet people today that I may one day need to think well of me. I didn't think showing up with joke mutton chops would be a good way to make a first impression that says, "I'm responsible, intelligent, and don't frighten children." As a result, the mutton chops are no more.

We're doing great down here in Mississippi. The weather has been cool and without humidity, allowing us to work hard for the last three days. The house I've been working on has almost all of the drywall hung. We would have finished hanging the drywall today, but we were pulled off to help jack up a woman's house. Now I know what you might be thinking. "Jack up" in the kids' slang these days typically refers to causing damage, or at least causing the object to be in something other than its normal state. In this case it refers to lifting the house to be 50 inches off the ground. Yep, that's the big 5-0. It is hovering around 38″ on one end to 45″ on the other right now. Thankfully the ground is uneven so these discrepancies don't imply that house has broken into two (or more) pieces. It is completely possible that the house will end up in two pieces, but we hope that does not happen.

We can't believe that the week is almost over. Tomorrow morning will find us on the road headed north. We're not quite sure where the setting sun will find us tonight. We're debating a trip into New Orleans to see the down, the damage, and the food. I'll let you know what we end up doing. It should be quite the adventure.

We've arrived. Fifteen hours of traveling has landed us in the midst of Camp Katrina, a jumping off point for work projects in the Waveland, MS community. Our team consists of ten people. Once again, the world is small. One of the ladies on this trip went to high school with my father. Crazy.

When we arrived the camp director interviewed us briefly to determine our skill set. We'll be assigned to hang and finish drywall, lay tile, paint, lay floorboards, cook, clean, and do pretty much whatever is needed based on the answers given in the interview. Through all of this we are expectant: God is going to meet us here. Our posture of service puts us in the position to hear from God as we serve him by serving those in need here in Mississippi. We're excited to serve. We're excited to hear from our Creator. We're excited to love the people of Waveland, MS. The result will be better homes and changed people from both sides of the Mason-Dixon line.