Nashville!

Last spring the Cumberland River (which runs through Nashville, TN) and the Harpeth River flooded their banks.



Last week ICC yg took a trip down to Nashville with World Relief to help rebuild houses. WR is stationed at a Christian summer camp in the hills west of Nashville. The camp had bunk rooms for us, which was really nice. Each room had its own shower and only six bunks!

my bunk room

The Camp

We went to Nashville church on Sunday and after church we had orientation and learned what we would be doing all week. As is usual with a group of hyper college students we didn't go to bed until well after mid-night. :)

6:00 am - alarm goes off
6:15- roll out of bed
6:30- dressed and ready, packing lunches
7:00- breakfast and job assignments
8:00 - we arrived at the job site
12:00pm- lunch break
4:45- clean up
5:00- back at camp
6:00- supper
7:00- Bible study
9:00- games
12:00? - maybe we should go to bed ...:)


That was the schedule almost every day. So, its needless to say Monday was full of rude awakenings. I hadn't gotten up that early and worked that hard in a long time. Also, the hot water heaters didn't work, so... yah. There were a lot of shouts and shrieks and quick showers.

My job on Monday was at the McCutcheon house. I grouted kitchen floor all day long.
Tuesday I switched job sites to the Nelson house. There I scrubbed the tile floor, sealed the grout, and scrubbed it again. My knees kill.

The rest of the week I stayed at Nelson's and did odd jobs. I stained, painted, cut and hung trim, built and installed cabinets, dug up garbage from the flood, helped hang doors and put on door stops, and ran back and forth from the trailer grabbing whatever I was sent for.

The Nelson's house

We took a hike to a tunnel sunday after church :)

Another hike we took on one of the shorter work days.

lunch on the job

paint fight with Brooke :)

This was my little box. I spent a very long time cramped in here sanding and then painting it.

my crazy crew rode back to camp like this

my crew for the majority of the week

Jeremiah Sundown.

He is a home owner who comes and performs for WR on Tuesday nights. He sang, played guitar, and the harmonica. He sang the orange blossom special, Long Black Train, Ring of Fire, Angel Band, Country Roads, and a lot of other good country/gospel songs.

By Friday, they didn't have enough work for us, so we quit at noon. One of the home owners, Dave, owns Foggy Bottoms Canoe Rental, and gave us a free canoe trip down the Harpeth river. It didn't take long before we were all soaking wet. :) I was stupid and took my camera. It was in my pocket, in a zip-lock bag when I fell into the river. The bag must have had a hole because my camera was floating in water the next time I looked at it. :( My camera no longer works.

I learned a few things down south. Poor people in Tennessee all have a lot of dogs and when it floods you save all nine of them before your wife, they like hush puppies and fried sweet 'taters, rules of the road aren't that important, and if its not fried chicken its shake 'n bake. :) It was hilarious to hear them talking about "ya'll a-po-stolics," "them folks from Ill-ee-noise", "the big ol' state up by Minnesota" (referring to Canada), and washing down in the "crick."

The week was very eye-opening. Most of the homeowners lost everything in the flood. They all had amazing stories to tell. Some of them were overflowing with gratitude, and others just wanted us to leave and finally have control of their lives again. It was tough not to feel appreciated but, the whole group learned the blessing of serving either way. It was a very good experience for me. I wish I could have stayed another week.

"Except the LORD build the house, they labor in vain that build it." Psalm 127:1

In Christ

~Michelle