HERE IS AN UPDATE FOR OUR TRIP TO NEW ORLEANS!!!
Restoration Tour Day #1
Today we traveled down through Savannah, over to Tallahasee, and on to New Orleans. It was a twelve hour drive made a little longer by the rest breaks and slow service at fast food places. At supper we stopped at KFC and it was painfully comical as our food took 26 minutes to get served! Overall we had an pleasant day of getting to know each other in the bus. ....The group from Pineopolis had a total blowout on one of there tires and could have resulted in a dangerous accident. Thankfully they were able to get the van to the side of the road, but their tire was shredded.....Chuch of the Annuncation is a nice, small church in a busy area of town. The lodging is great and we will be up at 6:20 a.m. tomorrow for breakfast, worship, and orientation. Keep us in your prayers! Goodnight!
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Restoration Tour Day #2
Monday was our first day on the job sites. This is a tough day because everyone wants to hurry up and get the job done, but there is a lot of waiting around for tools, assignments, and directions. We mixed up all the work teams to build community on the trip. Several groups cleaned yards and fixed fences. One group stayed behind to organize the tool shed. My group went to a house to paint it. We scraped it all day, and still have some to do tomorrow. One side of the house was knee deep in poison ivy and Chris Burtt attacked it with a sling-blade. He cleared the whole yard! ....Tonight’s talk was on how sin was introduced into the world. We can’t know restoration until we understand the brokenness we all experience. Good stuff and thought provoking. Our favorite band Soulstice played an excellent worship set. Griffin is such a Soulstice fan that he stole Stew’s boots, but it turned out to be Micah’s! This is going to be a looong week! ....Below, check out some of our travel pictures and a few shots from my work team’s day of house prep.Restoration Tour Day #3
Restoration Tour Day #3Today is Tuesday and the second day of work. Nice and hot today – it only got up to 92 degrees, but working outside in the direct sun it was a burner. Jim’s team is tearing out and old fence and rebuilding it. Luke and Steven’s team is repainting an old house and today they prepped and primed. Dustin’s group are traveling yard work cleaners. Chris, David, and I are still working on repainting another old house. Griffin’s team painted a house and then got snow-cones! . . . . We all quit work early and came back to the church for a tour of Katrina. The ministry coordinator here, Wayne, gave us a detailed tour of which areas were flooded, what the 9th ward was (because it was almost completely destroyed by a 20 foot wave) and the ongoing struggle for the city to rebuild. We heard interesting commentary about the politics involved in the recovery of Katrina. For example: Many of the residents here harbor bad feelings for the federal government because homeowners have not yet received the promised money and it has been three years since the storm. More federal money went to the state of Mississippi than Louisiana. Also, many insurance companies have not paid on the policies yet. We looked at each key levee break and Wayne explained that in the 1990’s they were redesigned by the Army Core of Engineers. These newer levees were the ones that gave way. The older levees held. We saw one repaired levee that is still leaking today. . . . . We continue to build friendships with the youth from the other five churches and the worship and teaching time is rich every night. I’m off to bed!http://s118.photobucket.com/albums/o118/Oeland/New%20Ore
lans/?action=view¤t=60dca0e4.pbwRestoration Tour Day #4Today most of the groups shifted to painting jobs. This gives us more interaction with the homeowners and neighbors. The days are not necessarily hotter than South Carolina, but working outside all day long will still take the strength out of you. . . . . Before showers, a lot of us went to the park by Loyola University and played Ultimate Frisbee. More running and sweating! Here are some pictures of us working. I’ll try to get more tomorrow – good night!
