Hope in Lucile

This week I spent my mornings with crew one at Grandma Judith’s house. She needed a new floor that had gotten wet during Katrina and continued to rot ever since. The crew started out by taking out the floor and found rotten beams underneath, so they replaced it all throughout the week. Because they had a big enough crew and I did not want to take away from their tasks I was able to spend quite a bit of time with the residents. Grandma Judith’s daughter Marsha was there everyday with her two children Lucile (16) and James (11). Her other grandson Doc (17) was also there when he wasn’t working.

They all helped to rebuild their grandma’s house. They made the entire group a homemade meal every day for lunch (spaghetti, sausage, hamburgers, and pork roast and always different sides). Early on in the week I was talking to Doc and found out that he had dropped out of school last year and was taking a “break” now before work. I found this sad that a complacency was being passed down by generations in many families I this community, but my hope was restored through Lucile. She has dreams to go to college and be a nurse. She also is a club leader of the red cross at her school and rallied for the most blood given in a year for the entire state of Mississippi! She seems very driven when she puts her mind to something. I was able to pour into her this week and encourage those dreams of hers! On Friday the group that was down, who were actually a choir at their church, gave a concert for the community and we fed the people who joined us. Judy, Marsha, Lucile and James came. They stayed for the concert and then even for our own Next Step worship after that. During worship every night we do a thing called “Yay God!”(s) where we share with our crew where we saw God that day. The four of them joined our crew and cried as they shared the ways they saw God through us. Lucile broke down and shared that she had been seeking for the Lord and asking Him to show Himself to her and that she saw Him through the work we did this week. James also cried sharing that he usually avoids work like the plague but that as we were there he was excited to join in and work hard, and that that had brought him closer to God. It was such an encouragement to see the effects on the community already!