On top of that we were to have a team of mostly rising college sophomores from Arkansas at our camp in Gulfport and a new work site manager. To top that off, our work site manager in Pearlington was slowed down quite a bit (90%?) from a mishap he had previously. Add to that a staff meeting Thursday in Houma, Louisiana. Nevertheless, the week took an interesting turn.
I spent the week driving back and forth from Pascagoula where half the Arkansas group was working and our Pearlington sites. Our Gulfport work site manager supervised the other half of the Arkansas group who were working closer to Gulfport. Pascagoula is quite a ways from Pearlington, east of Biloxi and Ocean Springs, almost at the Alabama state line.
Even Pascagoula on the other side of the state suffered the surge that baptized Pearlington. The house across the street from the home we were working offered a good idea of how the water rose in Pascagoula. We are about a seven minute walk to the ocean here at the house. You see in the picture the brick lamppost across the street. The water rose to the fourth brick from the top.
Mr. Gary told us he was sitting in his living room and he noticed a wet spot on the floor under his TV. Within minutes the water rose into his house about 2 ½ feet, just below the TV base. And like a surging wave at the beach, as fast as it rose, it fell in the space of a minute or two. Unfortunately it ruined drywall, flooring, food, appliances and anything else that close to the floor.
From the lamppost you can see it also pretty well soaked any cars in the driveway.
Mr. Gary was so happy we were there - of course the charm of our work crew had something to do with it. He brought us crawfish and for me, a shrimp poor boy sandwich. Excellent. I feel so bad that it has taken us 2 ½ years to get to him and his house, but our crew, thanks to the work site manager, completed everything but painting a few baseboards and replacing a column in the car port. They were so good.Even though I wanted to be sure this crew was well established I had to go to Pearlington Monday to be sure the three teams there were set up right. I didn’t make it to Pearlington until after lunch and then didn’t make it back again until Friday.
I rushed over Friday because I wanted to meet the Davidson crew. I knew JoeB attended there and I had some peculiar sense about needing to meet the group.
What a surprise! As soon as I arrived Friday morning, I got the work location from Heather the village manager and located them about 8:30AM. I introduced myself to the team leader, the associate minister from Westminster PC. I knew she was a true trooper because as I looked up the steps of the house to the deck, there she stood with like the captain of a ship but with her very young infant daughter in her arms.
I introduced myself and mentioned Jodi and JoeB, my pastors at Northside in Chattanooga. She had this big, effusive smile and said,
“Jodi! She and I were classmates in seminary. I’m Kathy Beach-Verhey.”
After I finished talking with her about Jodi and Northside she asked if I knew Rachel Taylor!
‘Of course! Sometimes when I’m not singing in the choir I find myself sitting behind her.”
“Her daughter is in the other room.”
“Really?”
"Meet Linda Steber.”
Well Linda and I spent quite a few minutes talking about Rachel and how small the Presbyterian Church seems some times when these events happen. (I may have mentioned a few weeks ago that a daughter and son-in law of some Southwest Pennsylvania Presbyterian volunteers in Gulfport live in my old house in New Kensington, PA.)
Linda asked me if I knew Mary and Dennis Goodwin. I never had time to me to explain that when I sat behind Rachel it usually was also behind them.
It is written for us to be kind to strangers; one never knows when one is entertaining an angel. I’m not sure I believe in coincidences, only in mysterious ways.
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