Day 4
Breakfast was wonderful; eggs, bacon, sausage, bisques gravy, grits. The food here is definitely a blessing and a wonderful motivator in the morning to get up out of bed. Honestly I don’t know if I would have been able to get up this morning if there wasn’t some motivation. I am laughing right now because I felt like a mom trying to get the kids up for school this morning it was like I had to peel some of them off the sheets. We all ate breakfast together packed our lunches and headed on.
Our first stop was the warehouse. We had to pick up a couple extra drills and so that we could have all hands on deck at Dave’s. We left the warehouse and headed over to over, all 18 of us. We arrived and it was a slow start getting every in place, but once we started there as no stopping us. We had most of the team in side the house hanging and finishing some of the drywall. We now only have one room to finish hanging and the rest is putting the finish on. The main contractor came by the house to check out the progress and was very impressed with our work. Well I think he was surprised and impressed all at the same time. It’s amazing what a bunch of high school students can do. The rest of the team worked on paint the front porch and the awnings around the house.
While the team working at Dave house I had a chance to stop over Mr. Chris’s house. He was very excited to see me and honestly I was excited to. It crazy how close you can get in a short period of time and what kind of relationship you can build. He invited me in and we all sat in the living room and talked. It was so incredible. I didn’t care or know how long I was there. They just started share about everything. His wife, Margery, was giving me a lesson on New Orleans culture, the food, the people, and the festivals. Speaking of festivals I ask them if the would join us for the crawfish festival that we are attending tomorrow night and there response was awesome. Margery turn to Chris and said “what do you think” while shaking here head emphatically yes and he was like yea sure that would be great. It was so awesome. So it looks like we will all be traveling as one happy family to the festival.
They continued to share about some just horrible stories that happen to the people in there community. One neighbor loosing 25,000 dollars to a contractor who skipped town on the job. The pet in the community being taken and never given back to the owner. The looters, not the one’s you would think of when you hear the word looters. I’m talking about the contractors that came in from out of town to help clean up and helped themselves to whatever they wanted. Even ripping our windows and doors with chainsaws to use them elsewhere. It’s hard to imagine. Yet you still have great people down hear like Mr. Chris. I stayed for about an hour and a half and the got up to head back. Oh I forgot, Mr. Chris was tell me about how he shared with his sister, the Christian, about our group come and help them. You could tell he had a rather long conversation with her about it and was (what do I want to say) proud. As I got up to leave he gave me a piece of paper with there names both phone numbers there address and two other things. A not on top “please call” and on the bottom “We would love to hear from you.” Praise God.
I headed back over to the other house and it was time for lunch. We all took a break to eat lunch and the weather was beautiful. It’s been about 70-75 all week. Dave is a Hugh music fan, I talking everything from Tina Turner, to BB King, to the Eagles, He started talking to us about how much music means to the people of New Orleans. The best musicians in bad at each school get chosen to play in a special jazz band. Totally destroys the whole band geek theory, there actually the coolest kids in school. Dave plays the sax. As we all got back to our jobs a group of the teenagers were circled around Dave outside. Just conversing, laughing, smiling, and truly loving each other. Many of the student’s came up to me afterward and were telling me all the stories Dave was sharing with them. It was Hope. Dave’s sister dropped by, she is the owner of the house. She saw the work that was being done and was close to tears. It was almost too much for her and she had to leave. Dave said that the progress on the house was so overwhelming. I kind feel like were in extreme home make over. Christina, Sam, and Jacey had a chance to talk to the neighbor across the street as well. I forget her name but they talked for about 30 min and she too wanted to share her story. She told the girls that she would bring over pictures tomorrow.
Most of our team was finish with all the extra work about and hour before quitting time so they just hung out. You could tell that everybody was very tired and kind of restless. They have all work extremely hard this week. We decided that tomorrow we are going to put together some gift baskets for the two houses. We have just enough of our tee shirts that we made for the trip to give to each family so that will be awesome.
We headed back to the church to eat and clean up. We had chicken, rice, green beans, and desert. It was delicious. I asked the team who wanted to check out some of New Orleans tonight since we are going to the crab festive and about 14 of us went after showers to the French quarter. We head down to the world famous café demond. A coffee shop that serves homemade donuts covered with powered sugar, unbelievable. It took us about 1 hour to walk there because we were like Chinese tourist taking more pictures than you could imagine. It was awesome thought to see the kids so excited. We headed over to the river walk and took some picture by so monuments (not really sure what they were) but it was a lot of fun.
We got back to the church about 10pm and met for a time of prayer. We share the verse that we have been focusing on today, “but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.” I challenged the student and myself to really focus tomorrow and finish strong. This is truly a huge prayer request for us. We are all very tired physically and that makes it tough spiritually. Pray that God will give us the strength to finish strong. Our prayer time was great again. I can see God really working deep in our student lives right now. It a blessing to watch. Praise God.
Please be in pray for our finial day with Chris, Margery, and Dave. Pray that God will open the door for us to share his love and just to minister to there heart. Pray that God will keep us unified and not allow Satan to get in the way because of peaty things. I love you guys so much and thank you for partnering with us during this time.
By Grace,
Jon
P.S. I wish I could record the sounds in the back ground as I am typing this. Its SNOR fest 2008. I’m actually kinda nervous it sounds like the people are choking on there tonsils. I just made myself laugh.
Breakfast was wonderful; eggs, bacon, sausage, bisques gravy, grits. The food here is definitely a blessing and a wonderful motivator in the morning to get up out of bed. Honestly I don’t know if I would have been able to get up this morning if there wasn’t some motivation. I am laughing right now because I felt like a mom trying to get the kids up for school this morning it was like I had to peel some of them off the sheets. We all ate breakfast together packed our lunches and headed on.
Our first stop was the warehouse. We had to pick up a couple extra drills and so that we could have all hands on deck at Dave’s. We left the warehouse and headed over to over, all 18 of us. We arrived and it was a slow start getting every in place, but once we started there as no stopping us. We had most of the team in side the house hanging and finishing some of the drywall. We now only have one room to finish hanging and the rest is putting the finish on. The main contractor came by the house to check out the progress and was very impressed with our work. Well I think he was surprised and impressed all at the same time. It’s amazing what a bunch of high school students can do. The rest of the team worked on paint the front porch and the awnings around the house.
While the team working at Dave house I had a chance to stop over Mr. Chris’s house. He was very excited to see me and honestly I was excited to. It crazy how close you can get in a short period of time and what kind of relationship you can build. He invited me in and we all sat in the living room and talked. It was so incredible. I didn’t care or know how long I was there. They just started share about everything. His wife, Margery, was giving me a lesson on New Orleans culture, the food, the people, and the festivals. Speaking of festivals I ask them if the would join us for the crawfish festival that we are attending tomorrow night and there response was awesome. Margery turn to Chris and said “what do you think” while shaking here head emphatically yes and he was like yea sure that would be great. It was so awesome. So it looks like we will all be traveling as one happy family to the festival.
They continued to share about some just horrible stories that happen to the people in there community. One neighbor loosing 25,000 dollars to a contractor who skipped town on the job. The pet in the community being taken and never given back to the owner. The looters, not the one’s you would think of when you hear the word looters. I’m talking about the contractors that came in from out of town to help clean up and helped themselves to whatever they wanted. Even ripping our windows and doors with chainsaws to use them elsewhere. It’s hard to imagine. Yet you still have great people down hear like Mr. Chris. I stayed for about an hour and a half and the got up to head back. Oh I forgot, Mr. Chris was tell me about how he shared with his sister, the Christian, about our group come and help them. You could tell he had a rather long conversation with her about it and was (what do I want to say) proud. As I got up to leave he gave me a piece of paper with there names both phone numbers there address and two other things. A not on top “please call” and on the bottom “We would love to hear from you.” Praise God.
I headed back over to the other house and it was time for lunch. We all took a break to eat lunch and the weather was beautiful. It’s been about 70-75 all week. Dave is a Hugh music fan, I talking everything from Tina Turner, to BB King, to the Eagles, He started talking to us about how much music means to the people of New Orleans. The best musicians in bad at each school get chosen to play in a special jazz band. Totally destroys the whole band geek theory, there actually the coolest kids in school. Dave plays the sax. As we all got back to our jobs a group of the teenagers were circled around Dave outside. Just conversing, laughing, smiling, and truly loving each other. Many of the student’s came up to me afterward and were telling me all the stories Dave was sharing with them. It was Hope. Dave’s sister dropped by, she is the owner of the house. She saw the work that was being done and was close to tears. It was almost too much for her and she had to leave. Dave said that the progress on the house was so overwhelming. I kind feel like were in extreme home make over. Christina, Sam, and Jacey had a chance to talk to the neighbor across the street as well. I forget her name but they talked for about 30 min and she too wanted to share her story. She told the girls that she would bring over pictures tomorrow.
Most of our team was finish with all the extra work about and hour before quitting time so they just hung out. You could tell that everybody was very tired and kind of restless. They have all work extremely hard this week. We decided that tomorrow we are going to put together some gift baskets for the two houses. We have just enough of our tee shirts that we made for the trip to give to each family so that will be awesome.
We headed back to the church to eat and clean up. We had chicken, rice, green beans, and desert. It was delicious. I asked the team who wanted to check out some of New Orleans tonight since we are going to the crab festive and about 14 of us went after showers to the French quarter. We head down to the world famous café demond. A coffee shop that serves homemade donuts covered with powered sugar, unbelievable. It took us about 1 hour to walk there because we were like Chinese tourist taking more pictures than you could imagine. It was awesome thought to see the kids so excited. We headed over to the river walk and took some picture by so monuments (not really sure what they were) but it was a lot of fun.
We got back to the church about 10pm and met for a time of prayer. We share the verse that we have been focusing on today, “but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.” I challenged the student and myself to really focus tomorrow and finish strong. This is truly a huge prayer request for us. We are all very tired physically and that makes it tough spiritually. Pray that God will give us the strength to finish strong. Our prayer time was great again. I can see God really working deep in our student lives right now. It a blessing to watch. Praise God.
Please be in pray for our finial day with Chris, Margery, and Dave. Pray that God will open the door for us to share his love and just to minister to there heart. Pray that God will keep us unified and not allow Satan to get in the way because of peaty things. I love you guys so much and thank you for partnering with us during this time.
By Grace,
Jon
P.S. I wish I could record the sounds in the back ground as I am typing this. Its SNOR fest 2008. I’m actually kinda nervous it sounds like the people are choking on there tonsils. I just made myself laugh.
1 comment:
We are still reading while on our training in Richmond.. it's addicting! :) So glad things have gone so well and God's protection has been on you all! He is an amazing God and we are blessed that he is using you and our kids to touch others lives!
In His Grip,
John & Denise
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