On my first trip to NOLA ( New Orleans, LA) I went with 30 other youth and youth worker to spend a week learning and helping. This trip was my churches fourth trip since the hurricane. While we were there we went on the reality tour/prayer walk which is when we got to see the hurricane damage. This was a very overwhelming experience some are left speechless, crying, or just get mad. If you have never seen anything like this it is to hard to understand, pictures don't even do it justice. Through out the week we met wonderful people, gutted houses, had a spontaneous children’s outreach, picked up trash, and so much more.
If you click the first 3 girls in the picture to your right (which was taken while gutting a house) they each will bring you to a different web site. The first takes you Lighthouse Ministries, which is who my church works with in NOLA, the second takes you to my churches NOLA website, and the third takes you to one of the rebuild New Orleans sites.
On this trip I went with 24 members of my church. It considered of meanly adults, my younger friend, and me. The team dynamic was completely different this trip, but in away I liked it. We work at a man named Roberts house downtown. When we first walked in it was clear that a lot had to be done but by the time we left at the end of the week it almost looked ready to live in. In fact only one more team need to come in a do a days work along with a plumber and now Robert has been living in his house for a little over a year. We dry walled, painted, put in insulation, and cleaned the area and gardens, and put in new closets. In the middle of the week and small team of us got to go out and help another family by gutting their house which they have been waiting to have gutted since the storm. The picture on the left is of myself with the woman who's house we gutted, and who told us her incredible story.
The last trip I went on to New Orleans was the technology the college trip, along with a couple families. By this trip FUMC (my home church) had sent 11 teams down to NOLA, and as of April '08 we have sent 14 teams down. This trip was center around a family our church has grown to love. We have been working and helping different members of their family for the last 6 trips. While we were there we hung doors, dry walled, mudded, painted (featured in the picture to the right), and held a picnic for Carnes’s family and their community. Every trip takes the tour of the disaster and New Orleans and each time so much has changed, but there is still years of work left to be done.