the real Breakfast of Champions

Exhibit A: Isaiah Twitty (a.k.a. Twitty) student at Northwestern College and all-round athlete extraordinaire, about to dive into a bowl of the good stuff.

Why the world needs more female roofers

Erin, up on the roof today with the Wittenberg/Northwestern College team from Cary Christian Center, celebrating the wind. . .

Planting seeds and changing lives

Another crazy day for the Wittenberg and Northwestern folks, this one packed with gardening with kids, painting houses, roofing, tutoring, playing on the playground, shooting portraits of young moms-to-be, and cooking after-school treats for 50 students and dinner for 30 hungry volunteers.

Photos (above): Tyler and Kirstie show students how to lay black plastic in the flower bed. (below): 1) Fist bump! 2) Nickie's prenatal class gets crazy; 3) Mica and new friends on the playground; 4) Cathy gets tickled at Karl's rendition of the Taboo Rap; 5) the Wednesday Night team of tortilla chefs: Erin, Tori, Clint, and Kirstie.

A job well done

Under the guidance of Ryan and Karlos (the adult volunteers who had headed up this project had to hit the road for Michigan this morning), today's team of painters finished Sandra's house. She was thrilled with her home's makeover. . . and we were pretty happy ourselves.

Photos: At top, Karlos and Ryan pose with Sandra outside her freshly-painted house. Above, today's crew.

Daily routine, morning and evening

Each day at Cary Christian Center begins with morning devotions (which always ends—as a sort of benediction—with somebody saying "Be a blessing!"), attended by all volunteers and staff. At day's end, our two volunteer groups meet separately so that members can share their experiences of the day with one another.

Photos: 1) Tyler leads devotions; 2) Karlos and Rahn share a Bible; 3) Tyler leads the Witt group in reflection about the days events

THE most contagious laugh

Robert Jackson, our fearless project leader (and back-in-the-day football star for Rolling Fork High School, whom he contends BEAT our Leland High when he was playing in 1978. Cathy and I are scrambling to find records to prove otherwise!)

Everybody, paint!

Monday and Tuesday found us painting two different houses. Here are a few shots of the volunteers hard at work. . .

So where are we going, again?

We're heading to Cary, Mississippi, a tiny little town on the famed Blues Highway (Hwy 61), situated between the big city of Rolling Fork (population about 2,500) and the intriguingly named Onward, Mississippi. (Onward is famous for the fact that Theodore Roosevelt's famous bear hunt was held there in 1902.) According to our friends at Wikipedia, as of the 2000 census, there were 427 people living in Cary. It'll be interesting to see how many of them we get to meet. . .