In something of a mission turnabout, 14 young people and 10 adults from the Church of the Redeemer and Main Street Missionary Baptist Church in Biloxi, Miss., part of the group Build A New America, spent a week in Massachusetts helping to refurbish Esperanza Academy in Lawrence.
Bishop Gayle Harris paid a visit to Esperanza on the last day of the Mississippi group's visit to bless the alleyway they had spruced up.
The mission trip grew out of a desire to respond in kind to the generous outpouring of post-hurricane volunteer efforts on the Gulf Coast from all over the United States.