Em-Eye-Ess-Ess-Eye-Ess-Ess-Eye-Pee-Pee-Eye

(That's spells Mississippi, btw).

As soon as our last team member gets here, we're leaving the church to head down to Nicholson, MS. Our church is partnering with FBC Nicholson to help them and their community get back on their feet after Hurricane Katrina. This trip is mostly for us to do some assessment to see what they need and how we can help over the next couple of years, but we know we'll be helping a couple of elderly families clean up mold (and possibly just see what of their stuff we can salvage, if the houses are too far gone), and pulling up some carpet (possibly at the church). The big thing we'll do, however is to have a big "block party" or carnival on Thursday night. The minister of music (who's the pastor leading this trip), another lady, and myself will be providing the evening's musical entertainment, we're hoping to rent a moonbounce, and we've got sno-cone and popcorn machines. Hopefully it'll give people a welcome and needed distraction from their current situations. In the future, we hope to bring down trained counselors since that's really what they need the most right now.

So y'all be thinking of us. It's a 24-hr drive each way with a week of work in the middle. Also be thinking of VNB since he's graciously doing without me for yet another week (he'd be there with us in a heartbeat if he had the leave, but he seems to think that having enough vacation for a honeymoon is important for some reason... ;p ).

I hope I'll have internet access at least for one hour this week as I've got a web-based quiz that's due before Thursday. We download it from a website, then have an hour before we have to upload it again, but we have until next Thursday to do it. But I can't make any promises that I'll blog while I'm there. I'll definitely let y'all know when I'm back though!