Sunday, 11/20/05 -- Day 1

We left Good Shepherd late last evening and flew all night, arriving at New Orleans early this morning. The flight was long and I was unable to get any sleep so as you can imagine, I’m exhausted at the moment. I had so many feelings going through me as we flew: Excitement, nervousness, worry. Would our team be able to come together and be unified? Would we get along with those who we would meet on the ground? What would we say to all of these people who have lost so much? As we flew from Portland to Atlanta, I got a sudden urge to pray for the trip. I don’t know how long I prayed on that plane, time kind of is irrelevant when you’re on a cross country flight in the middle of the night, but I prayed the blood of Jesus on this group an our trip. I prayed that we would be unified, I prayed that we would honor God in our work in the south. I prayed for guidance for our leadership. You name it, I prayed about it. It was a great time of coming before God in the darkness of the plane and I felt better afterward. After a brief stop in Atlanta, we caught our connecting flight into New Orleans.

Impressions as we flew into New Orleans: Lake Ponchatrain is HUGE!! Theda says that the lake is 26-27 miles across. The last time she was here, she told us that the water was all the way up to the bridge spanning the lake, making it look as if they were driving on water.

I also found myself wondering as we flew in, why so many of the houses had blue roofs. On second glance, I discovered that the blue roofs were not roofs at all but tarps which had been placed where roofs had once been.

As we got off the plane, I was expecting an overpowering smell (I had been warned beforehand that there was a stench that hit you coming off the plane) but no smell was apparent to me. We retrieved our luggage before Tanya, Theda, and I caught the airport shuttle to the rental car company where we picked up two newly cleaned identical minivans. We then drove back to the airport and picked up our teammates and the luggage. We were given bad directions at the airport so initially we drove away from New Orleans. It was at this point that we got our first glimpse from the ground at the damage caused by Katrina. Trees by the roadside are completely torn up. Some have been uprooted entirely. Groups of trees are lying in the same direction. As we turned around and drove back into town, I noticed that all of the streetlights and telephone poles are at least slightly off kilter. None of them stand straight up and down. River Ridge, the suburb of New Orleans where we are to stay does not look like it has fared too badly from Katrina although many of the buildings are closed and abandoned.

As we pulled into a local Subway sandwich shop for lunch, I noticed that the lack of sleep was beginning to take its toll on me. Besides being tired, I had a bad headache and felt sick to my stomach. Despite my discomfort, I managed to get down a six inch veggie delight sandwich before we moved on to Riverside Baptist Church, just down the street. Service at Riverside was just getting out as we pulled in. After the congregation had left, we entered the worship center, a sanctuary with high ceilings, pews which seated about 300, and stained glass windows. We found Pastor Jim who gave us a quick tour of where we will be staying. The showers here are amazing! They are outdoor showers that some volunteers made from pallets. They look similar to those on the TV show MASH. The volunteers have done an excellent job on the showers. They have hot water, a wooden floor, places to hang your clothes and everything else you would need. The only drawback is that the showers are located right underneath the windows of classrooms to the churches school. So in order to keep from traumatizing any students who might happen to be looking out the window at the wrong moment, we have to shower at night. We also saw where we are going to be sleeping. We will sleep on some cots in the choir suite. Lots of space for everyone.

After a nap which lasted about an hour I felt much better although I still had a bit of a headache. We began the very hard work of setting up for a community turkey gumbo thanksgiving dinner that the church hosted tonight for the community. They cooked the gumbo in these gigantic pots outside of the kitchen. There were these big oar like things that they stirred it with -- very southern. We had the meal in the parking lot and although it looked like rain for awhile, the weather held out nicely (God is indeed good). We worked with a team from Philadelphia that arrived yesterday.

After we set up the parking lot, we had a little free time. The assistant Pastor James took us to the house that we will be doing demolition work on tomorrow. It is a little house on the church property. It hasn’t been flood damaged but it has fallen into disrepair. It’s going to be remodeled and turned into a staff house but first we need to tear the whole thing down to the studs and foundation. That means the ceiling, drywall, nails, insulation, moldings, etc have to come out. After viewing the house, we went back to the tables that we had set up and began putting flyers on place settings. Before we could get all the flyers on the tables, people started arriving for the picnic. I got to meet an area firefighter (I want to say Jake), encourage him, and tell him ‘great job’ for serving his community. Also met Tiffany, a college student and several high school students who were really bummed that they had no place to skateboard in the area. Gave a Randy Alcorn book to a man who’s name I forget for Leanne. He was an awesome guy and seemed very happy to get this gift. The people there were very grateful to us for putting on this event. Lots of “thank yous” etc. There were about 300 people who showed up and I got the distinct feeling that for some of them, this was the only Thanksgiving that they are going to get this year.

Pastor Jim gave a short message at the picnic. At one point he had all of the children come up to him and then one by one, he asked them what they were thankful for. The answers were all things like, “Mommy”, “Family”, “Church family”, etc. I can’t help but wonder how many of these children had lost homes etc. in the storm.

After the event, we helped tear down before taking showers. The day ended with a devotional time led by Theda in which Carole gave her testimony and we all talked about what God had taught us through today. Our prayer right now is that as we go to work on that house tomorrow that there will be no power struggles and one leader (not ten guys who THINK they know the best way to do the job). We’ll see what happens. Now I am going to sleep.