DAY 2 "How did that foot print get on the ceiling"

Rise and shine and give God the glory glory...... I knew i could get you to sing the second verse. It was a bright and early start this morning at 6am. Now I know most of you parents think that is impossible but I have the pictures to prove it. We were all greeted with the smell of a hot breakfast. The food down here is always great, sausage, eggs, grits, biscuits, and my personal favorite hot coffee. After breakfast you can pack your own lunch. All the food has been provided by the convention and you can pack as much as you want, its great. Warehouse picture
We loaded up both vans and headed to the warehouse. Its about a 30 min drive from the church but its not bad early as you avoid all the traffic. The warehouse is also an old church gutted out to hold supplies. Our team leader Tony greeted us and helped us get all the tools and supplies we needed. We made a little small talk as Tony was with us last year. He moved his family down here about 2 years ago to help rebuild New Orleans. That is a common story with all the warehouse workers. Don moved down 3 years ago. He was a full-time pastor and move down to help rebuild. God opened a door and he is pastoring and serving down here full time. Adam is about my age and move down to start a church 3 years ago and has been helping with NOAH the entire time. These are truly dedicated people. First House before pic
So we got some T squares, and drywall knifes, and some screws, and headed to our Job sights. The location is a little different this year. We are in Zone 2, "the Texas Zone". They call it the Texas zone because everybody that oversees this zone has moved down from Texas. The area does not look as destroyed as the 9th ward did but still needs tons of work. The dynamic is so different. On one corner is a house you think might cost 300,000 and on the next on that looks like you couldn't give it away. We arrived at Mrs. Coopers house about 9:30. The outside was not to bad but inside was completely empty, just a bunch of studs and electrical. We did a quick walk through and then left the team in James Wyble's hands. He is the crew chief for team one and extremely skillful. Team 1 is James, Jill, Brandon, Heather, Jerry Wayne, Travis, Taylor, Katie, Kayla and Jacey.
Team 2 Me, Jenna, Ryan, Jake, Zach, Toney, Christina, Ciera, Hannah, Rachael head over to Mr. Williams house. The second house is a huge house. Two stories but about 8 bed rooms. Inside it looks about the same as the first, almost completely gutted. The house was a lot older than the first. It reminds me of a house you might find in downtown Lynchburg. After a quick lesson on spackling and taping. We split into two main groups. One crew was in charge of hanging drywall the other mudding and taping. We paused about 1 hour into our work to unload about 145 pieces of drywall, we are all coming home with muscles, including the girls.

At the other location a gentleman named Travis came buy to help oversea. He gave have the crew a lesson in mudding and they all got to work. Brandon said he has never seen the student work so hard. Its funny, he said they really didn't talk a whole lot just worked really hard. About noon we all stopped to take a lunch break. We were all sitting outside as a gentleman came by and started talking. Not really sure if he was speaking English but Jake, Zach, and Christian couldn't understand anything he was saying so Zach simply said, "just nod and smile." It really does feel like you are in another country. After lunch we steadily worked until about 4pm except for a quick Ice Cream Truck break, nobody can resist that music. The owner of the house came by a couple of times but only for a min. He seems like he has been through a lot. Toward the end of the day he came by and was talking to some of the girls and sharing his lack of enthusiasm about New Orleans, yet "it keeps drawing him back." He started to share a little about the hurricane with Ciera and you can tell it was emotional. He seems hesitant to talk with me, as if he know what I am going to say, so I haven't pushed my limit. I did ask him if he would like us to pray for him about anything and he responded, "strength and faith. But if i really had faith it would be all the strength i needed." Wow.... He is right.

We loaded up the truck with all our tools, John had about 1000 dollars worth stolen last week, so we thought it would smart to pack ours up. We headed over to the other location and I was honestly blown away. Team 1 did AMAZING.
They nearly finished half the house. It wasn't a rushed job either the lines were very clean and so was the mudding. I don't think i have ever seen Katie so exhausted but she was smiling so that's good. In fact everybody was smiling the whole day. We all pack up and headed back to the church. It took about 40 min with traffic and we arrive about 5:45. Dinner is served from 5:30 to 6:30 every night but since were the only group right now they waited for us. The dinner was soooooooooo good. Jamblia, rolls, and apple cobbler with vanilla ice cream. The serving crew is really sweet. A group of adults in the 60 with great cooking skills. :) After dinner one of the servant team member shared a small devotion about the power of the word and prayed over our group. We had free time until 8pm and most people took showers and got ready for the night.
At 8pm we all gathered in a room we found upstairs large enough to hold all of us. We take this time to simple focus our heart on God. I just took a second to tell the student how proud of them I was. Honestly if you are a parent and your reading this blog you should be really proud of your children they did an amazing job today. We also look at the passage in Luke 9:23-26. Read it if you would like to follow along with us. We will have one everyday. The challenging thought is that Jesus is asking us to deny ourselves everyday of our lives. Not just when we are on mission. We are called to be selfless people as followers of Christ. That means we have to deny our main enemy (at times) SELF. We started into a time of worship lead by Hannah and Brandon and it was a sweet time. You could sense presence of God. After worship we had a open prayer time (any one can pray out loud if they want too). It was amazing. Hannah had shared about a book she read on prayer and it has really stirred my heart towards prayer. Truly Praying that God will move in these peoples lives. After our time together the student were free to hang out until lights out. Some went straight to bed, which makes me laugh, and others hung around playing cards and laughing together. It was a great day.
P.S This is just a bonus story for enjoyment purposes. So I come down stairs after dinner and before our worship time and Tony Gunny is playing the piano. No really playing the piano. It was a moment of shock for me. I had no idea that he could play. I felt like I was in a move or something. He had a big cheesy smile on his face as he played with two hands some melody. It was awesome.