Day Five ~ Houston and Water Valley

We took a rest day today. Here's a rest day on the Fuller Center Bicycle Adventure.

Breakfast at 6:45 am. Load into a church bus and drive 45 minutes (Houston to Water Valley), where we met the folks we'd be spending the day with.

We split into five groups, each group heading to a different house to work on. I ended up spending a hotter-than-normal-spring-day-in-Mississippi on a roof with six other folks from the bicycle adventure, a few other local volunteers, and some guys who knew how to do the work.

Photo Credit: Nathan Slabaugh

We tore the old shingles off the roof, repaired the roofing in the places where that was necessary, and put the new shingles on. Those of us who didn't know roofing spent our time doing the hot and scratchy work of ripping the fiberglass shingles off the roof and hauling them to the dump truck.

The woman who lives in the house we were working on came out to talk with us a couple times, and was incredibly grateful for the work we were able to do.

It's tremendously gratifying to be able to directly connect with the work the Fuller Center is facilitating in communities all over this country and around the world. I know the bicycling is important, since we get to surprise people in the communities we end up in ~ and we get to share the end result of the bike trip, the end result of the fundraising we've done in anticipation of this trip. But to spend the day actually and physically connecting with the work gives me a more complete experience, which then gives me better words to talk about this work.

Of course, we had an amazing barbecue lunch in the middle of the day. And then, before we came back to the church building, we had another 'I-can't-believe-it' potluck at the local United Methodist Church.

Now, with non-cycling muscles sore from a day of work, we're getting cleaned up and ready to ride down the road tomorrow.

That's a day off on the bicycle adventure ~ let the adventure continue.