Chelsea
Today was our last day staying with the Perkins Foundation in Jackson. We woke up and had our last bible study with John Perkins and then drove to the state capital where we met with the governor, Haley Barbour. Our time with him consisted of what he called a "photo op" and a few handshakes. After we left the capital, we went back to the house we had been staying in and finished packing and cleaning. We piled back into our favorite vans and started the drive back towards the church in Gulfport, Miss.

We stopped for lunch in Mendenhall where we were told how alive and prevalent racism currently is. We even had the opportunity to witness the injustice when our waitress skipped right over Mama Beans when we placed our orders. It was awful to see everything that we had discussed throughout the week play out right in front of us. Our trip to Gulfport was also broken up by a stop at a random grocery/souvenir store as well a flea market.

We arrived back at the church to find that a new group was staying in the "Whitworth Bungalow," (where we had spent our first week). We decided to set up camp in the sanctuary and sleep on the pews. Later on that night we went to Sonic for dinner and enjoyed watching a Mississippi thunderstorm while we were still drenched from the humidity.

Upon arriving at the church, we had a meeting in which we talked about the trip as a whole and how we would act in response to what we had seen. By the time our meeting ended, the other volunteers had already fallen asleep in the sanctuary and the snores that we heard were unlike anything I've ever heard. This provided some comic relief for the night. The majority of us decided to tough it out on the floor rather than listen to the wild boars. A few hours later, around 3:30 we woke up, packed up, and drove to the airport to catch our flight back to Spokane. This concluded our journey that will never be replicated or accurately portrayed. The changes that were made to those communities as well as the changes that were witnessed in the lives of each person in the group are unexplainable. We have committed to try but know that you will only hear bits and pieces and only a few of the many stories of our Jan Term trip to the Gulf Coast.

Group members with John Perkins.

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