Starkville Group

The group from Starkville, Mississippi is here.  I love the Starkville group.  Really, I love all the groups.  Someone from Starkville has been with us every single year since 2001 except 2009 during the political crisis when no one came.

Starkville has built some houses, been to the dump and to Casa.  One thing that Starkville does that no one else does is go to the prison.  They did that on Friday.  Yesterday, they worked all day long at Casa.  Some of them worked on the wall and some began painting the outside of the buildings, a much needed.  I was a bit jealous, as I love to paint.  At times,  I wanted to go yank one of those rollers from someone's hands and start painting.  A great stress relief.

A few of them patiently taught the kids how to scrub the wall and/or paint.  I was most impressed that someone would let Maryuri near bleach or paint.  Most of the group left for lunch at the cafe.  But four of them stayed to finish painting what they had begun.

At the end of a hard day's work, they took the children down to the fair.  The kids were so excited.  The group even rode the rides with the kids.  Perhaps, more of a labor of love than painting in the hot sun.

As usual, it has been a great time with Starkville and a lot of things have been accomplished.  But, it has been a hard week for them as well.  Thursday, there was a chainsaw accident and Parker cut his leg.  Nicole called me and said it wasn't too bad and the leg would not have to be amputated or anything like that.  It did require 40 stitches though.  And, then last night, after I crawled in bed around 11:45, my phone rang at 12:00.  It was Wesley saying Tony had had a seizure.  I jumped up and dressed.  I was picked up at the back gate and we rushed to the hospital, after to make our way through the late night rowdiness of the fair.

We arrived at the hospital at 1:00 a.m.  As always, we were seen immediately.  Around 2:00, John left and found us some Dr. Peppers in the middle of the night.  Was I ever glad for that.  Wesley and John and I dozed on and off through the early morning hours.  After an IV all night and a CT scan at 6:30 this morning, it was deemed we could come home.  Tony was to rest, take his medication, and not watch TV.  Since there is no TV in the mission house any way, this is  kind of a mute point.

It was a long, long night.  I was glad to get home and get some coffee, a shower and some clean clothes.  But, more than that, I was thankful that Tony is okay.

The Starkville group has three more days here.  Please pray for their safety and protection.