I thought you all might be interested in the recent spring break trip our Principia Humanitarian Relief Club took to Meridian, Mississippi. Meridian is not on the gulf coast but was hit by Hurricane Katrina. By the time it reached them, it had slowed to a hurricane 1, but their situation was complicated by the fact that they had hundreds of evacuees who had come from the gulf coast and who thought they would be returning home any day. Those folks had very little with them, and some of them lost their homes. The Habitat group in Meridian has spent the last few years working non-stop to provide housing for some of these people. This build is one of the first ones not related to Katrina, and they were very joyful about reaching that milestone (one the rest of the Gulf Coast won't reach for years to come). These two homes that we worked on are for foster children who reach the age of 18. These children are cut loose from the system at the age of 18, and every year, about 20,000 of them become homeless. These two transitional homes will help the foster children in the Meridian area transition more gradually to independence. Workers from Hope Village, a home for foster children, will teach them life skills such as planning a budget and using a check book. The young adults will have two years to live in the houses and get their feet under them. Meridian will be just one of three places in the country that have built such transitional housing.

Besides reveling in the joy of building as opposed to house gutting--a new experience for our group--we had many opportunities to clear up misconceptions about Principia and Christian Science with both the Habitat workers and the college students from University of Chicago who were also on the build. No, we are not Scientologists! Our Principia students had multiple conversations about Christian Science. I remember coming around a corner and hearing one of our students talking to a U of C student up on a scaffold about the synonyms of God. At the end of the trip, another of our students shared a copy of Science and Health with one of the U of C students (we almost always take copies of Science and Health on our trips). We so appreciated our Chicago friends and our new friends in Mississippi.

Enjoy!
Heidi Snow