Thoughts on the first day from American Baptist Churches Volunteers

Mary Jo Laupp, Greenfield Baptist Church, ABCUSA said...
The day started with a simple ceremony in which each the hands of each house leader were washed as a symbol of the momentous undertaking about to begin. After a brief safety meeting, it was time to get underway. Under the watchful eye of the volunteer house leader, high school students, retirees, school teachers, pastors, and other volunteers worked side by side under the hot Louisiana sun. They braced up walls, drove nails, held ladders – in short, they performed whatever task was asked of them. In the amount of time that those teenagers would have normally spent in school, a house had taken shape where an empty cement slab had stood only that morning. True, there was no roof and the walls were not finished but there was no doubt that it was beginning to resemble a house. Actually, those bare studs and window openings stood for so much more than just a place to live. This house meant a chance to start over, a safe place to live; for Tangela Coston and her four children, this house represented hope.