9th Annual Great River Missions Trip!
October 13-22
To Help Rebuild the Central City of New Orle ans
Sunday October 22, 2006
Travel Day: the plan is to get an early start, and arrive back in Rochester sometime in the afternoon.
Festus MO to Rochester MN: http://tinyurl.com/yd3ep8
Saturday October 21, 2006
Travel Day: the team is on their way back to Rochester. They've made it to Festus MO where they are stopping for the night.
New Orleans to Festus MO: http://tinyurl.com/yduqfb
Friday October 20, 2006
Today started with several of our group getting up early to do their Men’s Fraternity study number four. For those of you in men’s fraternity, you’ll understand when we say that a few of us "unpacked" early.
Breakfast was a bit later this morning, 7:30 a.m., allowing others of our group to sleep in early. From there we went to a bare piece of ground nearby where we were joined by 60 or so people from across Lake Pontchartrain from the Trinity Church sister work-sight. So about 110 people or so gathered for a rally and instructions on today’s projects.
Today was Super Friday. Work teams spread out over about 60 city blocks or so and cleaned streets, sidewalks, and boulevards. It was a fun day. We used every opportunity we could to stop and talk with people. One particular man we met was just walking out of his house to the street with a walker. We stopped to help him and asked if there was anything we could do for him. He told us he had a stroke and couldn’t clean out the big stuff out of his house. He was on his way to an appointment and wondered if we could come back on another day to help him. Come to find out, he still had his refrigerator and freezer in the house and they had not been taken out since Katrina. The fridge is still laying down in the position the Guard put it in and is not being used, of course. We can’t imagine living in that. We took his name and number and set up for a team to go help him soon. Again, for most of these people, the church is hope – for many, the only hope.
We took a little sight seeing tour of the lower ninth ward today, and also the wealthy mansions on St. Charles avenue. What a contrast! We went from devastation to opulence, all in the same hour. We wondered how much the wealthy gave up to help the needy? In the lower ninth ward, we saw many empty foundations – where homes once were. We noticed on one this great looking tile floor – covered, of course, by nothing. Homes looked like they had been bombed.
One lady cooked supper for all of us tonight as a "thank-you" for having a team clean out her aunts house this week. It was a great way of saying, "thanks."
We’ve build some great relationships here. In particular, a man named Doug from Colorado who was joined by his wife and sons the past two days. Also, we’ve been pretty close to a group that came down from South Suburban E-Free and are talking about having them down for a picture sharing party.
We’ve agreed together that Calvary should put together a team again for next year, which will be Calvary’s 10th trip to New Orleans. There will be work to do here for years to come – much like rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem under Nehemiah.
Thursday October 19, 2006
It seems that the crew wakes up earlier every day! I met 2 of our members in the kitchen this morning at 4:50am. I am thankful for coffee!!
It was another rainy day with occasional downpours. The unrelenting rain increases the fatigue from a hard week’s worth of work. Still, spirits are high. We sense we are accomplishing much, though there is still so very much to do.
Getting up at 6 a.m. (or earlier) is getting a little old. Tomorrow we are told breakfast is at 7:30 instead of 6:30. We can have an extra hour’s sleep! Not so fast – five of us still have not gotten in our men’s fraternity study and we are choosing to get up at 5:30 so we can do the study at 6 a.m. So much for sleeping in.
Tomorrow is Super Friday. Teams from Trinity in Covington journey to New Orleans where we will rally together at 9 a.m. and then go out into the community and serve. We’re excited about that. They tell us with great enthusiasm that one of the highlights of the day tomorrow is the hot dog truck that travels around the neighborhood and feeds us hot dogs off the truck. We are finding it difficult to know how everyone finds such excitement at the thought of hot dogs. I guess we’ll have to have the experience before we judge.
Our work day included drywalling, installing windows, some plumbing and electrical work, and of course, gutting houses. We’ve seen a lifetime of lath and plaster walls this week. We work hard in the shower to get the chunks out of our hair. (except for Pastor Dave – who has little problem with this)
Tonight as is our tradition, Calvary treated the crews and staff to Popeye’s Chicken, along with the sides; red beans and rice, mashed potatoes, and biscuits. During the week, this is the only time our team meets some of Urban Impacts behind-the-scenes staff.
The devotional tonight, taken from Joshua 24, encouraged us that we are not here simply to give a helping hand, but to be part of transforming lives. If we give only a helping hand, what will happen in two months when we’re gone and they need another helping hand? Our goal should be to see lives transformed in the inner city so that people develop meaningful relationships with God – who will always be there for them in times of trouble. (That, by the way is the only thing we really needed to learn today!)
Wednesday October 18, 2006
Did you check out the weather in New Orleans today? Hot, humid and rainy! Much different than what we heard the weather was at home!! We are expecting another hot and humid workday tomorrow, but a beautiful day on Friday.
Our crews stayed on the same projects for the most part today: mudding and taping sheetrock, gutting (or "mucking out" as it is called) one house, and doing some demolition and remodeling of another house that was already gutted.
Tonight there are other volunteers and teams showing up from all across the nation; New York, Florida, Georgia are states we have heard mentioned. We gathered for a great supper of BBQ chicken and baked potatoes and fixings. After supper, we went on a Wal-Mart supply run, mostly for sandwich fixings for jobsite lunches.
Some things that we learned today…
(we might have already known these things, but it makes for slightly more interesting reading):
Anecdotal evidence suggests that this is the rainiest trip to New Orleans ever for a Calvary team and it gets hotter after it rains!
FEMA spends $40,000 each for trailers that have been installed all over New Orleans – trailers that cost $20,000 each. Beginning with FEMA, there are five "layers of contractors" in the trash hauling business, so that the hauling of debris and garbage that costs $6 per cubic yard to haul actually costs the government $30 to have hauled.
Tuesday, October 17
Lots of action today, and a late night tonight. 2 guys went to a house that was previously gutted to do a bit more gutting and detail work. 2 more went to finish the plumbing that was started yesterday. The house where gutting was started yesterday was worked on again today, mostly by the crew from Apple Valley with the addition of one of our people. The rest of our crew continued working on taping sheetrock, and will probably do the same Wed and Thurs. We are also joined by Doug from Denver, who has been a welcome addition to our team.
After work was finished for the day, we all cleaned up and took a trip across Lake Ponchartrain causeway to Trinity Evangelical Free for dinner and a presentation. The Katrina Project is headquartered at Trinity in Covington and oversees the 2 sites where workteams serve: Castle Rock and Trinity. Combined, they have housed more than 8,000 volunteers since October of 2005.
After our event at Trinity, we picked up 3 more team members from Calvary Evangelical Free at the airport. 30 members from Youth for Christ are expected to show up tomorrow. The Yellow House will be packed full !
We hope to compile and caption different people's pictures at some point, but are uploading some pictures daily to albums at: http://picasaweb.google.com/challstatyahoo.com
Things we learned today
- Katrina's effects have reached well beyond the city limits of New Orleans. While New Orleans had prolonged flood damage, other areas of the gulf coast were devastated by the initial impact of hurricane Katrina.
- Katrina was a big storm, but we serve an even bigger God!! Tonight we heard many testimonies of God sightings, and evidence of people coming to Christ as a direct result of the compassion and action of God's church and people. For these that have come to Christ, Katrina has been an agent of God's mercy rather than judgement.
Monday, October 16
A busy day today. Breakfast at 6:30, then introductions, education and instruction. We got split up into several work crews, and got sent out to several different projects. A few of our younger guys joined a group here from Apple Valley, and they worked on gutting and cleaning a house. Most of the members of our group went to work on several projects at a house that is being renovated for a couple in the church. Our gang worked on taping and mudding sheetrock, and constructing outside walls. The interesting thing about this house is that is has been raised 9 feet from its original elevation, and is now sitting on tall concrete piers. Insurance companies will not insure anything less than 8 feet above ground level, so this is certainly a concern here. One certain pastor in our group spent most of the day plumbing at another church members house, he was even late for supper so we know some serious work was taking place. Everyone was glad to get back to the Yellow House tonight for showers and food. At 9:30pm it is very quiet in the house, and even quite a few already in bed.
Things we learned today:
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School age kids are strangely absent on the streets and neighborhoods. Many families have not returned to the Central City because there are no schools. Only 1 out of 11 schools in the Central City are currently operational.
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Why rebuild New Orleans? Louisiana is the number one state in the production of crude oil and 20% of the New Orleans population is employed in some way by the oil industry. New Orleans is also one of America's largest shipping ports.
Sunday, October 15
We did end up having a good night sleep for the most part! Today started with breakfast and a meeting at 8:30, where we learned more about how things work in the Yellow House, and the mechanics of getting lots of volunteers in and out of the field on a daily basis. The staff here has things down to a science. We are expecting more teams to be showing up on Wednesday, so wondering how 30 men will share a bathroom with 3 sinks, 2 showers and one toilet.
We attended church services at Israelite Baptist Church, which was a great cross-cultural experience for us. Dave was even asked to be a special guest prayer, an honor and respect shown to visiting pastors.
Our afternoon was spent sight-seeing and taking in some culture and sights of the New Orleans tourist areas. After lunch, shopping, and coffee and beignets at cafe' Dumond, we spent some driving through some of the Katrina devastated area of the Central City. We were struck by the lack of progress in restoring some of the neighborhoods. Pastor John told us 30% of the flooded homes have not been gutted or cleaned. We saw entire blocks of abandoned houses, still with FEMA paint on the front walls and no indication of occupation. We are ready to get to work tomorrow, and it sounds like our crew will be doing some finishing work on a house that previous crews started.
Sat, October 14
Today was a day of great adventure, many new sights and smells to enjoy... or lots and lots of miles of sitting in a vehicle! After filling up with gas, we hit the highway. We drove in 2-3 hours stretches, which worked very well. We arrived in New Orleans at around 10pm and got moved in to our accomodations at the yellow house. We have a brief meeting with the house team leaders and then hit the sack. We are all looking forward to a good night sleep!
Fri, October 13, 2006
Our New Orleans mission trip members left the Church at 5:00pm. Thanks to those who came to see us off! We drove to somewhere in Iowa where we picked up another member from Mason City. We arrived in Hannibal, MO at 11:30 pm where we stopped for a night's sleep. Our team is 8 strong at this point, which does make for comfortable riding accomodations in the passenger van and Pastor Dave's car.
We are planning on leaving at 7:00 am on 10/14 after a bit of breakfast... More about that tomorrow.
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