By Christian Harding

[Ed Note: Chris, age 14, is the son of Pastors John Harding and Deb Scheffey. Chris is the youth in the blue shorts and white t-shirt in the picture above. His dad is in the red t-shirt. Chris accompanied a group to Biloxi, Mississippi, in late September. He wrote this journal as a school assignment.]

Day One
Mom wakes me up at 6:00 a.m., as if it were a normal school day. I get up, eat breakfast, get changed, and say my goodbyes.

My dad and I drive to Ruby’s house and pick her up. Ruby is a member of my mom’s church. The three of us drive for another twenty minutes and pick up Annie, a member of my dad’s church. We then drive to my dad’s church and pick up two others, Brian and Jeannette.

We drive for awhile, get some gas, and I do some homework. The group stops for lunch at a restaurant in Virginia. As we wait, I use the peg-game they provide for us. After lunch, I purchase one to use on the way there. Then we’re on the road again.

Around 4:00 p.m., while we are on the freeway, the car in front of us suddenly stops. Luckily, the cars behind us stopped in time, or they would’ve creamed us. In Georgia, around 9:00 p.m., we stop at Wendy’s for dinner. Another hour of driving, and we stop at a hotel outside of Knoxville, Tennessee.

Day Two
I wake up, have waffles, and we’re on the road again. Another three hours and we stop for lunch. Five hours later we’re in Mississippi. We stop at a gas station that is very “different” from the others – there are bugs mating everywhere.

We finally get to Biloxi. The damage is terrible. It is so humid and every day it’s at least 95 degrees. Once we get to the church where we are staying, we are introduced to everyone who works there. They run “The Shop,” a store where people without supplies come in and take what they need, for free. My job is to take the supplies out to their cars for them. It isn’t as easy as it sounds.

Days Three through Six
Every morning is the same routine. I wake up at 7:00 a.m., eat breakfast, get changed into work clothes, and go to work. Each day I work some place different. Some days I work at The Shop. Some days I work on houses.

On the days I work on houses, our crew takes our equipment with us in a van that seats eleven people. When we get to the house, we unload equipment from the van. Each worker has a different job. My dad and I work on taking the walls apart. Others break up the tiles from the floor, and still others tear the paneling and the electric circuits from the walls. All the sinks, tubs, kitchen appliances, and cabinets are taken out, too. When we are finished at the end of the day, the house is down to the wood framing.

Every hour, I’d take a five minute break. At the end of the first day, one member takes us on a tour of the damages. The damages are awful. Some of the people who live in Biloxi tell us that over half of the city was destroyed by two waves. One wave was 28 feet high and the other was 40 feet high. The storm surges (that is what they call the waves) met in the middle of the city from two different directions. The rest of the city lost roofs and had terrible water damage.

On Wednesday, my dad and I work on trees. My dad and a few others cut down the trees that are leaning on people’s houses. Some others and I take the branches and logs and hurl them onto a pile.

Each night when we get back from working we have dinner. The Shop closes at 6:00 p.m. Usually after dinner we carry in more supplies from tractor trailers that were unloaded outside during the day. The tractor trailers bring food, water, cleaning supplies, and baby clothes. Then we line up to take a shower in the one shower available to everyone (40-70 people, depending on the number of volunteers working that day). After that we are free to do what we want.

The only thing open is Walmart down the street, which is open to volunteer workers after 8:00 p.m. and closed to everybody else. We go there nearly every night to hang out.

Each night we watch the same movie: “Men in Black.”

Days Seven and Eight
I get up on Thursday and get some breakfast. We and the people from Virginia, Wisconsin, South Carolina, and Georgia, are leaving today. The groups from Washington, California, Kansas, and Michigan and some more of our group from East Stroudsburg and Kresgeville are staying.

When I am in regular clothes and everybody is packed, we say goodbye and hit the road. After a long day of driving and getting stuck in traffic around Sweetwater, Tennessee, our group finally stops for dinner. Ironically, it is the same place where we had lunch on Day One.

The group then stops at a hotel. We fall asleep watching the movie “The Rundown” with the Rock. Next morning we are up about 7:30 a.m. and drive home with a few stops for food and gas. We get home about 10:00 p.m. on Friday night. I sleep well!

Final Thoughts
When I get back from Mississippi, I realize how lucky we are to have all of the things we do while half the people living in Biloxi have almost nothing except the clothes on their backs. I also notice how everybody in the southern states is so kind to each other, while up here, not everyone gets along with each other. I was glad to see that we could help the people who had nothing. It was overall a great experience.