Rebuild Lakeshore

In the news:

The summer of 1911 saw a new church planted in Hancock County Mississippi. The Lakeshore Baptist Church began with just a hand full of hopeful Christians desiring to establish an ongoing work of gospel proclamation and ministry. Speaking of the church’s history, Pastor Don Elbourne said, “We have inherited a rich legacy of Christ-empowered endurance and dependance on the sovereignty of God over all things. We look to extend that legacy into the future as a hope-inspiring presence in the community.” Lakeshore Baptist invites everyone, especially those touched by her ministry in the past, to join them on Sunday June 8, 2008 for “Homecoming” as they celebrate this 97 year heritage of hope. Services begin at 11:00 am at the Lakeshore Baptist Church, 6028 Lakeshore Road in Lakeshore MS. An old-fashioned “dinner on the grounds” will follow the morning service. For more information call the church office at (228) 469-0110 or on the web at http://lakeshorebaptist.net/

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I just wanted to remind everyone planning a trip to Lakeshore this summer to please read the “Frequently Asked Questions” page (FAQ) of our web site. You can find links in the toolbar across the top and the sidebar to the right. There you will find information about meals, housing arrangements, restroom facilities, job assignments etc. We ask that all teams planning a trip read through the entire document. We have found it also very helpful if the team leader direct every member of the trip to our site as well. The better informed everyone is, the more productive we will all be.

One of the more important sections explains how we do the meals. Look under “Food” on the FAQ. We explain how every week one of the teams takes the lead in cooking. While we do not have many rules here, I do stress that we do not want any teams soliciting donations from other teams. We have several reasons for this, but at the risk of sounding alarmist, if team-to-team donations cut us out of the loop we will not have the finances to continue our relief efforts. While we do not charge anything for folks to come stay and work with us, we do assume that most teams have some sort of budget for their trip. Most teams have part of their budget set aside for a donation to the cause. If that donation goes straight to the group preparing the meals for the week, we will not have money for electricity, propane, upkeep, and overhead involved with keeping the Lakeshore operation going. Instead, we ask the cooks to utilize donated food items already present in the kitchen as much as possible and then to supplement that with purchases made from their groups budget. If the need exceeds the available finances, the church office will provide supplemental funds. We have found this method to work well so far.

I hope the time we took to put together this Frequently Asked Questions page will prove helpful for you as you plan your trip to Lakeshore. If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact us. We are excited about you coming to be with us and we praise God for your generosity, dedication, and service.

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My son, Zack, and Mike from Seattle are hauling donated concrete blocks today. these blocks came from underneath decommissioned FEMA trailers. The contractors found it cheaper to give them to us than to haul them off for resale. We plan to use them in future building projects.

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I’ve been hearing a lot about the social networking and micro-blogging service called Twitter. At first, every description seemed uninspiring. Its basically a micro-blog for 140 character or less entries. In answer to the question “what are you doing?” people post what they are eating for breakfast, what ball game they are watching, or what’s playing on their ipod (or blue alien). Its sort of like the status thing on Facebook. Seems like one of those things where people say, “doesn’t he have anything better to do?”

I doubt anyone wants to know what I’m having for lunch, or when my wife takes our dogs to the vet, but we do have a lot of friends around the country wanting to keep up-to-date with the progress in Lakeshore. So I decided to try an experiment with another Web 2.0 technology and opened an @lakeshore account on Twitter. In contrast to the longer posts here on Rebuild Lakeshore I can post things like when a team arrives, what houses received attention today, short special needs, etc. Depending on the interest, I may even announce what the cooks are preparing for supper.

A nifty feature of the system allows you to receive the short updates via text message on your cell phone, if you would like, or via your instant message client. How cool is that?

Still confused? Just go to twitter.com and click the “Get Started - Join” button to sign up. Then link to our @lakeshore account and click “follow” to start receiving quick updates about the progress here. While you’re at it - share the love and tell a friend about us. Its just another way to partner with us to rebuild Lakeshore to the glory of God.

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Believe it or not, with only a few volunteers on site, its quiet here in Lakeshore today. That looks to change in about a week, as the summer gets in full swing. As of now, we have 35 teams scheduled for June-July with nearly 1,500 people planning to work with us in the next couple of months. That averages well over 100 a week. The intense long days will keep us moving forward in the relief, recovery, and rebuilding efforts.. Its shaping up to be a joy-filled, work- accomplishing, God-glorifying summer. I am excited about the prospects. We hope to finish up several houses that have been dragging along in their headway. We look to begin at least three more. Several families will move into their new homes this summer, due to the hard work of our generous volunteers and your sacrificial support. Thank you so much. Keep us in your prayers and check the web site often to follow the progress.

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Our friends from Rocky Bayou Baptist Church put together this great video from their recent trip to Lakeshore.

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Courtesy of the NOAA Satellite and Information Service

Hurricane Katrina regional imagery, 2005.08.28 at 1515Z.
Centerpoint Latitude: 26:13:59N Longitude: 88:08:03W.
Observation Device: GOES-12 4 km infrared imagery.
Visualization Date: August 28, 2005 12:03:14
See this higher resolution image.

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Amanda, from Michigan, reports on her mission trip to Lakeshore last month. Thanks so much Amanda.

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Nearly half of May has past and I have not yet posted the list of teams for last month. We praise God for the teams that worked with us in April.

• Augusta Baptist Disaster Relief Team – Augusta, GA
• Decatur Baptist Church – Decatur, AL
• First Baptist Church – Madisonville, TX
• First Baptist Church – Merritt Island, FL
• First Baptist Church – Tullahoma, TN
• First Congregational Church – Kingston, NH
• Jackson and Margret Lewis – Penson, AL
• Journey of Faith Church – Byron Center, MI
• Oak Grove Baptist Church – Monticello, KY
• Pleasant Gap Baptist Church – Charlotte, NC
• Providence Baptist Church – Franklin, MA
• Riverside Fellowship – New Port Richey, FL
• Roswell United Methodist Church – Atlanta, GA
• Southside Baptist Church – Huntsville, AL
• St. Luke Lutheran Church – Ann Arbor, MI

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As temperatures rise on the gulf coast, folks in Lakeshore have been coming by our our church property looking for help with clothing their kids and themselves for the summer. The bare shelves of our distribution center have not been able to keep up with the need. At one time we had to turn away clothing, because of limited storage availability. While I’m a little reluctant to open the flood gates with a clothes request, we do need summer clothing, in good condition, to provide for the families in our community still struggling to get on their feet. We especially can use clothes for men and children, like short pants, blue jeans, short sleeve shirts, T-shirts etc.

At the risk of sounding ungrateful, please do not send winter apparel at this time. We do not have space to store clothing during the summer months. We also want to be good stewards of your transportation costs and our dumpster fees, so we would greatly appreciate culling out moldy garments, threadbare pants, and shirts with holes or stains before sending them this way.

Many churches have found clothing drives very successful. Set aside some space to receive donations of clothing in your facilities. Promote the drive in a number of ways. Local newspapers often receive press releases for charitable efforts like this gladly. If you belong to an SBC church, contact your association and ask if they could spread the word to the sister churches in your area. Other denominations should have similar channels of communication. In your announcement, do not forget to point them to the Rebuild Lakeshore web site (rebuildlakeshore.com). Enlist volunteers to sort through the clothes, labeling according to gender and size. Fold clothing and place them in shipping boxes. Make the sorting date a church wide event as you pray for those in Lakeshore benefiting from your generosity. Investigate the most cost effective way to transport the clothing to Lakeshore. You may find someone willing to drive the clothing down more economically than commercial shipping. If you have a team coming this summer, perhaps they could carry the boxes with them. If you do need to mail the packages, you can find our address on our contact page.

On behalf of our community, thank you so much. Know that your donations will help clothe a person in need this summer, for the glory of God. (Matthew 25:31-46)

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