volunteerI am back from New Orleans. It was probably the best trip of my life so far. Absolutely incredible. So that I don't forget all the wonderful things that happened, here is a very detailed account of what happened. Hopefully I remember it all... I will probably go back and edit this several times. ok. The people in my church group were myself, Kellie (group leader), Delmas (group leader), Drue, Nicole, and Heather.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
-3am. We all get on the bus and start driving. Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and finally New Orleans at about 1:30/45 pm that afternoon. We drove through a time change so we got there at just under 12 hours (including food and bathroom stops)
-We drove to the Restoration Embassy (church) where we would be staying for the week. It's in a "bad" neighborhood. And I don't want to give off the wrong impression. It looked bad. But we didn't know about anything just yet.
-We speak to David Shelton, the "Bishop" of the church. He's a funny 87 year old man who loves life and loves people. For lunch, he recommends to us the restaurant Cannon's.
-We then drove up a side street into the Garden District (high income homes) and onto St. Charles. We arrive at Cannon's.
-At the restaurant, I had a bowl of duck and andouille gumbo. I then finished Delmas' popcorn shrimp, Drue's blackened redfish po' boy, and ate a piece of bread pudding. Needless to say, I could not walk correctly for the rest of the day.
-Back at the Restoration church, we unpacked and got situated. We went and ate dinner (spaghetti, but I was so full from lunch I didn't have any) and then worshiped. When we got back, the last group to arrive (from Hilltown Baptist in Philadelphia) showed up in the room as we were getting ready for bed. I met most of the people from the guys in the group (without my glasses though, so I didn't know who I was meeting).
Sunday, June 24, 2007
-We got up early and sat down with our project leader Denny who shared with us the dress code once more in case we didn't read through it the first time (all while sitting with her legs apart in a skirt. blegh).
-Church was fun. Small attendance without us there to bulk up the pews. At the end, we learned that communion would be served. Denny then made her first stupid move (out of countless amounts during the week) by telling us "we will not be taking communion." Well... we are Episcopalians. We're TAKING communion. We do it every week. Manischewitz wine with Matza. A true communion.
-After church, we toured the flooded areas of New Orleans. Went to Lakeview to see the waterlines from up to 10 feet of flooding. Went to the lower 9th ward where 2 levees breached and homes were trashed and eventually demolished.
-Dinner, worship
Monday, June 25, 2007
-After getting up and having a typical camp-style breakfast (bagel, coffee) we headed out to the organization called Beacon of Hope.
-There, we were told that we needed to split our group into 3 and 3. 3 of us went to help clean the yard of an elderly lady who was trying to sell it, but could not until the yard was neat. Lots of pulling weeds and raking up debris. The other 3 went and helped an older couple with their yard as well, but that's their story.
-We get back to the Knights of Columbus center where we ate lunch. After lunch, we went back to the Restoration Center to get our VBS supplies together. We would be leading a VBS for 3 hours with kids from the surrounding neighborhood.
-Rain came down and lightning cracked all over the sky. We were rained out and a little depressed that we wouldn't be playing with the kids.
-Kellie than called Cam (the old youth pastor at my church who now lives in New Orleans and runs the Chapel in Touro, one of the few hospitals that did not flood during Katrina) and let her know that we had a couple hours to spare.
-Cam was in a meeting. We decided to go and prayerwalk the hospital anyways. Just then, Kellie got a call from Cam letting her know that Cam's meeting was cancelled and she had the exact amount of time we had to show us the hospital (definitely a "God moment")
-Prayerwalked the entire hospital, every floor.
-Came back to Restoration
-Ate dinner, worshiped, went to bed
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
-Woke up in the morning, ate breakfast
-We were informed we would be working at a man named Mark's house (he's a contractor, not actually his house).
-Got there and met a man named Sharkey (once a government mercenary, fought in 'Nam, has killed several people, now a devout Christian with nothing but a rented apartment, a bucket of tools, and a green van)
-He told us we would be doing the hardest job out of all the jobs on the house so far. We would be drywalling a 10 1/2 foot ceiling.
-We got to work. Each section got harder and harder.
-We get to the last piece and decide to lower the scaffolding a foot so we wouldn't have to bend over to put up the drywall. Long story short, the wooden platform (around 60 lbs.) fell directly on Delmas' big toe. We were down one man
-After getting Delmas back to the Restoration center to put his toe on ice, we finished the last piece.
-The whole job took about 4.5/5 hours
-We then drove to Cold Stone Creamery and got ice cream
-We get back to Restoration and shower, and then go back to Knights of Columbus to eat dinner and worship
-We go to bed afterwards
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
-Wake up, eat breakfast
-We are informed that we have prayerwalking in the morning, lunch, and then ATL in the afternoon (Ask The Lord. It is what it sounds like. We just pray about what we should do, and then we do what we feel most called to do)
-We go to a pretty low-income neighborhood off of St. Charles and start prayerwalking.
-We prayerwalk for about an hour and a half and feel like we've done very little. We've just prayed over areas but no people. Delmas (who somehow made it walking with us for that long with a busted toe) went back to the van to rest. After we drop off Delmas, we start prayerwalking again. We arrive at a section where there was a cross road. We were facing the corner of a building and had either left or right as a direction to walk in. We pray to God and ask Him to show us where to go. Nicole suddenly speaks up about a verse she remembered from the morning when we woke up. It came from John Ch. 3 (can't remember what verse) and basically says that the Spirit is in the wind. She proposes that we follow the wind. Well, earlier, we had passed a lady in a grey track outfit 2 times and had just said "Hey! How ya doin?" We started following the wind to the right and the wind literally pushes right into her. We all get to talking with her and ask her if we could pray for her about anything. She says that would be great and we start praying. At the end of the prayer, she was in tears and thanked us for praying with her. "I really needed that."
-We keep walking and we end up at a house under construction. Two of the workers were taking a break. I can only remember that one of their names is Troy. We started praying with them and Kellie finished the prayer after a couple of minutes. Before we could break apart our prayer circle, Troy asked if he could say a prayer. It turns out that, for some reason, he was really missing his mother that day (who had died in '79). We all prayed for him and his mother and we were all in tears afterwards. We said goodbye to both of them and started walking again.
-We spot a "house" that had no walls on the inside, no windows, and no roof. They were literally tearing the house apart only to rebuild it. We see a woman walking out of the house and we stop her and ask if she's the owner. She says yes, and we ask if we could pray with her. She says "Of course" and we begin praying. After our prayer she tells us "Thank you" and we walk back to Delmas to tell him about our success.
-When we got 10 mins away from Delmas, he calls us and tells us to hurry back, because in 10 mins they would be opening a church that was located at doorstep he happened to be sitting on.
-When we got there, Delmas heard our story and then told us that he had met more people than us just by sitting on the stoop of the church (that he didn't know was a church until he was told so by the pastor). We both had great success with the prayerwalks.
-We decide to celebrate and skip eating our sloppy sandwiches (PBJ, Ham and cheese, turkey and cheese) and went to a place called Igor's and we all got Po' Boys. I had an oyster Po' Boy that was out of this world (mostly because of the fact that we were all very hungry). We hurried back to Restoration before we did our ATL.
-Once we got there, we all sat in the van and prayed about what we should do. I kept thinking about "children." Kellie thought of the word "garbage." Dru said "blood donations." Nicole said "9th ward." But Heather hit the spot and said "Beacon of Hope."
-We head over to Beacon of Hope to just ask if they needed anything done. It turns out that they did. Kellie and Delmas ended up cleaning (and eventually taking out garbage). Heather, Dru, Nicole, and myself grabbed welcome-home-baskets and drove down Argonne Blvd. to give to residents who had just come back to their homes (which all had at least 8 feet of water inside).
-The first house we stopped at was an elderly lady with a BEAUTIFUL home. She mentioned that the ceiling had actually caved in from the water and it was completely gutted at one point. You could not tell. We took her information in case she needed any yardwork to be done by volunteers from Beacon of Hope and said our farewells just as her grandson came home from a friend's house.
continued soon.....
Saturday, June 23, 2007
-3am. We all get on the bus and start driving. Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and finally New Orleans at about 1:30/45 pm that afternoon. We drove through a time change so we got there at just under 12 hours (including food and bathroom stops)
-We drove to the Restoration Embassy (church) where we would be staying for the week. It's in a "bad" neighborhood. And I don't want to give off the wrong impression. It looked bad. But we didn't know about anything just yet.
-We speak to David Shelton, the "Bishop" of the church. He's a funny 87 year old man who loves life and loves people. For lunch, he recommends to us the restaurant Cannon's.
-We then drove up a side street into the Garden District (high income homes) and onto St. Charles. We arrive at Cannon's.
-At the restaurant, I had a bowl of duck and andouille gumbo. I then finished Delmas' popcorn shrimp, Drue's blackened redfish po' boy, and ate a piece of bread pudding. Needless to say, I could not walk correctly for the rest of the day.
-Back at the Restoration church, we unpacked and got situated. We went and ate dinner (spaghetti, but I was so full from lunch I didn't have any) and then worshiped. When we got back, the last group to arrive (from Hilltown Baptist in Philadelphia) showed up in the room as we were getting ready for bed. I met most of the people from the guys in the group (without my glasses though, so I didn't know who I was meeting).
Sunday, June 24, 2007
-We got up early and sat down with our project leader Denny who shared with us the dress code once more in case we didn't read through it the first time (all while sitting with her legs apart in a skirt. blegh).
-Church was fun. Small attendance without us there to bulk up the pews. At the end, we learned that communion would be served. Denny then made her first stupid move (out of countless amounts during the week) by telling us "we will not be taking communion." Well... we are Episcopalians. We're TAKING communion. We do it every week. Manischewitz wine with Matza. A true communion.
-After church, we toured the flooded areas of New Orleans. Went to Lakeview to see the waterlines from up to 10 feet of flooding. Went to the lower 9th ward where 2 levees breached and homes were trashed and eventually demolished.
-Dinner, worship
Monday, June 25, 2007
-After getting up and having a typical camp-style breakfast (bagel, coffee) we headed out to the organization called Beacon of Hope.
-There, we were told that we needed to split our group into 3 and 3. 3 of us went to help clean the yard of an elderly lady who was trying to sell it, but could not until the yard was neat. Lots of pulling weeds and raking up debris. The other 3 went and helped an older couple with their yard as well, but that's their story.
-We get back to the Knights of Columbus center where we ate lunch. After lunch, we went back to the Restoration Center to get our VBS supplies together. We would be leading a VBS for 3 hours with kids from the surrounding neighborhood.
-Rain came down and lightning cracked all over the sky. We were rained out and a little depressed that we wouldn't be playing with the kids.
-Kellie than called Cam (the old youth pastor at my church who now lives in New Orleans and runs the Chapel in Touro, one of the few hospitals that did not flood during Katrina) and let her know that we had a couple hours to spare.
-Cam was in a meeting. We decided to go and prayerwalk the hospital anyways. Just then, Kellie got a call from Cam letting her know that Cam's meeting was cancelled and she had the exact amount of time we had to show us the hospital (definitely a "God moment")
-Prayerwalked the entire hospital, every floor.
-Came back to Restoration
-Ate dinner, worshiped, went to bed
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
-Woke up in the morning, ate breakfast
-We were informed we would be working at a man named Mark's house (he's a contractor, not actually his house).
-Got there and met a man named Sharkey (once a government mercenary, fought in 'Nam, has killed several people, now a devout Christian with nothing but a rented apartment, a bucket of tools, and a green van)
-He told us we would be doing the hardest job out of all the jobs on the house so far. We would be drywalling a 10 1/2 foot ceiling.
-We got to work. Each section got harder and harder.
-We get to the last piece and decide to lower the scaffolding a foot so we wouldn't have to bend over to put up the drywall. Long story short, the wooden platform (around 60 lbs.) fell directly on Delmas' big toe. We were down one man
-After getting Delmas back to the Restoration center to put his toe on ice, we finished the last piece.
-The whole job took about 4.5/5 hours
-We then drove to Cold Stone Creamery and got ice cream
-We get back to Restoration and shower, and then go back to Knights of Columbus to eat dinner and worship
-We go to bed afterwards
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
-Wake up, eat breakfast
-We are informed that we have prayerwalking in the morning, lunch, and then ATL in the afternoon (Ask The Lord. It is what it sounds like. We just pray about what we should do, and then we do what we feel most called to do)
-We go to a pretty low-income neighborhood off of St. Charles and start prayerwalking.
-We prayerwalk for about an hour and a half and feel like we've done very little. We've just prayed over areas but no people. Delmas (who somehow made it walking with us for that long with a busted toe) went back to the van to rest. After we drop off Delmas, we start prayerwalking again. We arrive at a section where there was a cross road. We were facing the corner of a building and had either left or right as a direction to walk in. We pray to God and ask Him to show us where to go. Nicole suddenly speaks up about a verse she remembered from the morning when we woke up. It came from John Ch. 3 (can't remember what verse) and basically says that the Spirit is in the wind. She proposes that we follow the wind. Well, earlier, we had passed a lady in a grey track outfit 2 times and had just said "Hey! How ya doin?" We started following the wind to the right and the wind literally pushes right into her. We all get to talking with her and ask her if we could pray for her about anything. She says that would be great and we start praying. At the end of the prayer, she was in tears and thanked us for praying with her. "I really needed that."
-We keep walking and we end up at a house under construction. Two of the workers were taking a break. I can only remember that one of their names is Troy. We started praying with them and Kellie finished the prayer after a couple of minutes. Before we could break apart our prayer circle, Troy asked if he could say a prayer. It turns out that, for some reason, he was really missing his mother that day (who had died in '79). We all prayed for him and his mother and we were all in tears afterwards. We said goodbye to both of them and started walking again.
-We spot a "house" that had no walls on the inside, no windows, and no roof. They were literally tearing the house apart only to rebuild it. We see a woman walking out of the house and we stop her and ask if she's the owner. She says yes, and we ask if we could pray with her. She says "Of course" and we begin praying. After our prayer she tells us "Thank you" and we walk back to Delmas to tell him about our success.
-When we got 10 mins away from Delmas, he calls us and tells us to hurry back, because in 10 mins they would be opening a church that was located at doorstep he happened to be sitting on.
-When we got there, Delmas heard our story and then told us that he had met more people than us just by sitting on the stoop of the church (that he didn't know was a church until he was told so by the pastor). We both had great success with the prayerwalks.
-We decide to celebrate and skip eating our sloppy sandwiches (PBJ, Ham and cheese, turkey and cheese) and went to a place called Igor's and we all got Po' Boys. I had an oyster Po' Boy that was out of this world (mostly because of the fact that we were all very hungry). We hurried back to Restoration before we did our ATL.
-Once we got there, we all sat in the van and prayed about what we should do. I kept thinking about "children." Kellie thought of the word "garbage." Dru said "blood donations." Nicole said "9th ward." But Heather hit the spot and said "Beacon of Hope."
-We head over to Beacon of Hope to just ask if they needed anything done. It turns out that they did. Kellie and Delmas ended up cleaning (and eventually taking out garbage). Heather, Dru, Nicole, and myself grabbed welcome-home-baskets and drove down Argonne Blvd. to give to residents who had just come back to their homes (which all had at least 8 feet of water inside).
-The first house we stopped at was an elderly lady with a BEAUTIFUL home. She mentioned that the ceiling had actually caved in from the water and it was completely gutted at one point. You could not tell. We took her information in case she needed any yardwork to be done by volunteers from Beacon of Hope and said our farewells just as her grandson came home from a friend's house.
continued soon.....
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Re: 3: - I'd offer a slightly alternate explanation. Perhaps he was trying to connect with people so he would...
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