Halifax, NC

On our way home from Lumberton, NC in August we took a detour to explore Historic Halifax that we found noted on the map.  In town we found this museum.

Halifax was a port city on the Roanoke River in colonial times.  It's claim to fame is in April 1776 the Provincial Congress met here and gave their colonial delegates to the Continental Congress authorization to "concur with the delegates of the other Colonies in declaring Independency". They were the first colony to do so. Later another Provincial Congress met here to approve the state constitution.

The museum here has exhibits on colonial life, plantation life including what slavery was like, and exhibits on native peoples.

The poem below was written by a former slave who earned much distinction in his lifetime.  Sorry, I didn't note his name.

There are buildings from the time periods some of which were open.

We didn't take time to stop there but did walk to the river where signs of its former condition as a port were no longer visible.

There's the Roanoke River through the trees.

We had many more miles to travel on I-95 north and lots of traffic to deal with.  We did make one more stop which I'll share next time.

Mission Trip

The second week of August Dan and I went south to Lumberton, NC with our church to help Brethren Disaster Ministries work to repair homes damaged from two hurricanes in the last 3-4 years.

We were divided into 4 teams.  Dan's team worked on a home in Lumberton and my team drove 45 minutes south to South Carolina to work on a home.

Never having done anything like this it was an education for me.  Dan had spent two weeks in Puerto Rico in April with BDM so knew what to expect.

The First Presbyterian Church in Lumberton provided the housing.

We had the third floor of their education wing.  There was a men's bunk room and a women's.  Of the 13 of us there were 5 women.

Here's Pastor Phil unloading.

The gymnasium was where we gathered to eat.  We rose at 6 o'clock headed down to fix our lunches at 6:30.  There were an assortment of sandwich fixings, snacks, chips, fruit, nuts, etc.

Besides us there was a site coordinator, two construction managers and a manager trainee plus a volunteer making our breakfasts and dinners.

Each team had a cooler for lunches and a water cooler for drinking.  We had to stay hydrated as the heat index was frequently over 100º.  We filled those water coolers first with ice then water every morning.  we were frequently on our way by 7:30 and left the site to come back at 4.

Here's the kitchen where we signed up to take turns helping with dishes for the week.  We also signed up to lead devotions in morning or evening.

We had a place near the bunk rooms to chill out each evening.

Here's the house I worked on - flooded twice!

Inside you see the wallboard has to be replaced.  Many of the joists and studs had to be reinforced with new wood.  Previous teams worked on that.

Lisa took on the task of insulating the outside walls.

Her son Drew was with our team for two days then switched to Dan's team.

Paul and I worked on insulating the floor then putting down the under flooring.

Vanessa in pink and Steve on floor were the ones with the skills.  She was in training to be a construction manager like Steve.

There was another team across the street but since that house couldn't be locked up materials were stored in ours.  Here's Jeff and

Jack taking a piece of subflooring across the street.

 The drive to and from SC was beautiful. After admiring this lake with cypress trees we finally stopped to take photos one afternoon.

We passed fields of tobacco and cotton (learned that was what it was later).

The road was mostly straight and flat.

The town where we were had a boarded up downtown.  It's in a flood plain and won't be rebuilt.

I joined Lisa and learned how to do the wall insulation too.  We completed the house in the week.

When Hurricane Dorian was headed to NC I worried that this area would be flooded again.  I think they were in the clear.  Work goes on to finish these homes.  One of the houses one of our team worked on was in the final stages.  Dan's house was almost there too.  Ours and the one across the street had much more to be done.  I imagine there's a team of volunteers working there this week.