Loading Up and Moving Out.

On Saturday morning, July 8th, our team had its final pre-trip meeting. During this session, we went over some final travel and tool details, and then set about loading up an Immanuel Bible Church box truck with tools from the IBC shop and from the personal workshops of the men heading down to Pass Christian. (By the way, Guy Kleintop gets the unofficial prize for the most impressive personal collection of tools, nearly all of which he is generously loaning to this effort.)

Our team photographer, Preston Stover, has started to document our efforts in pictures, and took the shot included above of the team getting the van loaded up. Jim McDonough and Tom Cowles helped coordinate the positioning and ratchet-strapping of the heavier and odd-shaped items, while about 15 other team members helped to carry items up the ramp and stack them up in the truck. Team member Charlie Carroll headed out from Northern Virginia on Sunday morning with the fully loaded truck, so be praying for him to have a safe and uneventful drive down South. Charlie is working his way down to Mississippi over the course of the next several days, and we will be linking up with him (and the tools) on Saturday morning in "The Pass."

T-minus 4 days and counting, so stay tuned. We hope to bring you a lot more information and news about our trip over the course of the next week or so.