Comments from Friend's Volunteer Experience in Biloxi

Wanted to give you some insight into a friend of mine's experience during a volunteer mission in Biloxi. He went down with a group of 14 adults from a Lutheran Church the immediate week after we were there.

The reason I post these comments is to again commend, and give thanks for the leadership and coordination we had for our week. Plus, I think it will give some validation to some decisions we had made as to how to accomplish our mission.

All in all, he said it was good, but he was unsatisfied with the quantity of work they were able to accomplish. He attributed it all to lack of coordination, and poor upfront decision-making. They did roofing and dry wall work.

Here are some of the dissimilar issues with his trip, as compared to our trip:

They all flew, therefore were limited to checkable bags of hand tools, and had no trucks to move supplies around

They had no personal budget that they could use. They were reliant upon either home owners or their "agency" to purchase supplies

They had little up-front coordination of the worksites, the work that would be done, and the tools they would need

Consequently, they had several issues that cut into their productivity. There was a large "tool swap" area to which they had access, but this was certainly not as efficient as having several "sets" of their own tools. Plus, due to lack of coordination, they would frequently get to a new site, have to assess the tools they needed once there, and then drive back to the tool swap area to get the required tools. Without a budget, they had no way of purchasing materials (except through their own personal giving). He said that they frequently waited on supplies, frustrated that they didn't have a) their own truck, and b) a budget for purchasing.

These 3 points should provide validation for the 3 contrasting decisions we made:

Having 3 trucks drive down with tools

Our mission committee provided budget

All the hard work that Tom put in before the trip, and each day we were there

I didn't ask him specifically about the living arrangements or the food situation. I'll try to do so.