Welcome to Hattiesburg, Mississippi

We will try to inform you of our life's happenings as we serve with Mennonite Disaster Service. This city of 50,000 is located about 75 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico and has been a lumber town since its beginnings in the late 1800's. It is named after the founders wife Hattie. On February 10th of this year an EF4 tornado struck the center of the city and the university area causing damage to many homes in the older part of the city.

Touring the grounds of the Hattiesburg Welcome/Convention Center.

This past week our MDS crew began work on Ms. Dorothy's house. Most of the damage came from the force of wind causing wall cracks in the drywall around doors and windows. After a valiant effort by four ladies to remove the layers of wallpaper, one bathroom needed all the wallboard replaced due to not being painted before wallpaper was applied originally. By the end of the first week much of the work was done, just a bit more mudding and painting and putting trims back on. Ms. Dorothy is a single parent of a handicapped daughter. But even so, she is so positive and thankful for the help she is receiving. On Monday our first day there she presented each couple with a bag of at least fourteen limes. Annette found a recipe for limeade and it is a nice refreshing drink. One window in her house needed to be replaced due to the shifting of the house and we were able to replace this for her. Her response when she was told that her window would be smaller than the original one was, she said "Thank you Jesus I wanted a smaller window."

Annette and Ms. Dorothy.

A gift of limes for each MDS couple from Ms. Dorothy.

Our MDS RV camp is located about seven miles north of the city, at Okatoma RV Park. This quiet rural setting has ample space for our numerous vehicles and trailers. The grounds are dotted with small fishing ponds - Jim has not tried his luck yet. Currently we are five couples here and waiting for the sixth couple to arrive in about a week. Our group will be evenly divided with three American and three Canadian couples.

Check back in another week - we plan to post weekly.