Thursday/Friday photos posted

We're back from New Orleans, and I just finished uploading photos from the last two days. Click here to take a look in the photo gallery. Thursday's photos feature our work sites in St. Bernard parish, shots of the group that volunteered at Animal Rescue New Orleans, and our afternoon and evening touring downtown and in the French Quarter. Our stops included lunch at Cafe Reconcile, a feast day celebration at St. Joseph's Cathedral, and shopping around Jackson Square. Thanks for following us on the blog, I hope we've given you a good sense of what we've been up to for the last week!

Wednesday/Thursday Recap

It's been a couple of days since we've been able to post, so I have updates from Wednesday and Thursday at the same time. On Wednesday our groups all worked for half a day so that we could spend the afternoon visiting with Rev. Charles Duplessis and his family, who evacuated the Lower Ninth Ward during Katrina and lost their home on Tennessee Street less than 200 yards from the levee. That moving experience was followed by a tour of different rebuilding efforts in the area. Several highlights included the "Make It Right" energy-efficient houses that Brad Pitt is spearheading, the "Musicians' Village" built by Habitat for Humanity volunteers, and several historic "steamboat houses" along the banks of the Mississippi River. On Thursday our groups wrapped up around 1:00 to spend the late afternoon and evening touring the city on our own, with stops at Cafe Reconcile and the French Quarter. Now I'll let Stuart and Ashley tell you more about their experiences over the last two days...

Hi from Stuart Smith, guest blogger. While most of the group went on a guided tour Wednesday night of the New Orleans area with our host from First Christian Church of New Orleans, my wife Linda and I stayed behind and continued working on the house we have been working on. We really hated to miss the tour of some of the areas affected by Katrina but we felt called to make some more progress on the house. While we did make some good progress on the house, the real treat was that one of the co-founders of the St. Bernard Project, Zack Rosenburg and some other staff visited the house we were working on to show some prospective donors the work going on with the project. He was explaining some of the steps they go through to ensure that the homes get re-built in a way that they are safe for the homeowners for years to come. Mold remediation is a major concern since these houses had been under water for so long. They actually test air samples taken from inside the homes when complete. So far, every home has passed inspection! After we finished for the day and cleaned up, we were able to attend the ceremonial ribbon cutting to dedicate the 200th home completed by the project. We were really able to see God's love shine through the tears of the homeowner who was an elderly gentleman that was so very grateful for everyone's hard work throughout the process. It was an amazing experience. The finished product is a very nice house that anyone would be proud to have.

Hey this is Ashley Ingram, today was really interesting and amazing. I have been to a few places. I've been to the animal shelter. The animal shelter did not smell good, but the animals were so cute. Mostly cats and a few dogs, (and a cute animal shelter volunteer named Don). The guy told us all about the shelter what they do how they do it where some animals come from and it kinda felt like I should be a volunteer at some shelter. After the animal shelter I went to a few places such as a restaurant called Reconcile. It was kinda good. We went to Jackson Square and at Jackson Square we went into this cute little knitting shop called the Knitting Quarter I think. Their dog Leif Ericson is a Maltese-poodle mix and he is so... wow. The lady and I along with Amanda were all talking about Leif Ericson. As a puppy he has gotten his tail cut off for no reason or maybe by mistake. We also found out he has been locked up in a backyard and was rescued a few years ago. I'm not sure but I think the lady mentioned Hurricane Katrina in her story. There was also a little sideline info such as his birthday is January 3rd and he gets crazy when other dogs come to the shop. He was actually startled today by this one big dog passing by. During my whole time at the Knitting Quarter when she was talking about this cute little Maltese poodle felt like wow. It kinda made me wanna be a vet more and do something like be an animal rescuer from "Go Diego Go" (lol). I so did not wanna leave, I wanted to stay and be with the little 2 years and 2 month old doggy and just learn more and get to know the people there more but I got 3 pugs at home so it's all good. That's all. Oh yeah today's my Mom's birthday!

Tuesday photos posted (finally!)

I finally had a chance to upload pictures from our day of work on Tuesday and the Anderson Cooper 360 broadcast that night. I grouped them into two separate albums, click here to take a look. Oh, and feel free to post comments to let us know what you think. Anything you post will be passed along to the group (or any individual you would like).

Second day of work (featuring Anderson Cooper)

Wow, we've had quite an exciting Tuesday! We split into three work groups: one primarily sanding drywall, one cutting and hanging drywall, and a third group that worked at an organization that distributes food from the Food Bank. I'll let our guest bloggers tell you a bit more about that. Tonight everyone was abuzz because CNN's Anderson Cooper was broadcasting live from a home that's being renovated as part of the St. Bernard Project, the organization two of our teams are serving. We gathered outside the home just in time to get spots right behind Anderson, and several members of our group were able to talk to him and get his autograph. He's incredibly gracious, and spent almost every moment that he was off camera talking to the people who were gathered and humoring all of the requests to be in pictures (including our own). I'll do my best to get those posted in the photo gallery soon, s0 keep checking back to see if they're up. Now, on to our guest bloggers...

Hello, this is Madison Gallagher! Today we went to a really cool place called Just The Right Attitude (www.jtra.org) where we met some cool people. There was one lady whose name that I can't remember, that was the founder of JTRA, and she had founded this organization in 1999, and she fed people based not on their money or job, but how they were right then. For example, she served people who made too much to get help from the government, but too little to make ends meet. After a long day packing boxes of food for people, Russ took us to Coldstone for ice cream. well, that's my day! 10-4 rubber ducky!! :)

Hey, it's Katie Swanson. Guest-blogging. Whoop whoop. Today my group went to a food bank called Just the Right Attitude. JTRA is a non-income based food bank that provides food for families that otherwise couldn't afford it. We loaded food into boxes and onto a wagon-like structure. Oh, excuse me, a hand truck. Thanks Russ. We were all in charge of different food items, such as green beans, corn, flour, chili, mayonnaise and the Little Rainbows. The Little Rainbows were sugary, artificially flavored kid's drinks with foil tops. The foil tops cut my finger. Ouch. On the bright side, this gave me an excuse to use my brand new Dora the Explorer band aids. Whooo. After the JTRA visit, we went to the TWO STORY TARGET. Exciting. I had lost my tooth brush the night before, so I bought a light up, crayola crayon tooth brush. After the two story Target, we stopped for ice cream. Again, thanks Russ. We went back to the church and slept, which was nice. The other group came in about two hours later, and we then had dinner, which included green spaghetti, or as Shelby and I called it, Alien Brains. Mmm. Yummy. After dinner, we went to the place they were filming CNN with Anderson Cooper. It was the bomb. He's super, super cool. HE SIGNED MY SHIRT. I called my mom a total of 6 times during this ordeal. Russ blows his nose very loudly. Good day, good day.

Day 2: First Day of Work

We've wrapped up our second day in New Orleans and are currently winding down for the evening. This morning our whole group traveled to the St. Bernard Project headquarters in Chalmette for orientation. Several leaders from the organization shared their own stories about coming to help with recovery, and in several cases staying much longer than expected as they became more invested in the work. After orientation, half of our group stayed to work on houses and the other half returned to the mission station to work on a variety of projects. Be sure to check out the pictures in our photo gallery to see for yourself. I've recruited several guest bloggers to tell you more about the work today, so now I'll turn it over to them...

Hi, this is Shelby Smith. Today I went to a house owned by a couple named Katherine and Will Staggs. We didn’t get to meet them, but we learned their story, and I was inspired by it. They met and fell in love after Katrina hit, and now they are married and expecting a baby boy. Through the course of an eventful day and a few stops at McDonalds, we managed to tape, bed, and texture most of the walls of their three-bedroom house. I worked on the ceiling most of the time, and other people worked on the walls and along the floor. On the way back from lunch, we made a new friend when a longhaired dachshund jumped into our car and into Cindy’s lap. We learned her name was Cher, and later found out that Cher is New Orleans slang, equivalent to “baby” or “darlin’” for you Texan natives. After a long and tiring day, with “mud” all over our clothes (and hair) we returned to FCCGNO to eat dinner and rest for the day ahead. Tomorrow, in the evening, we will actually be at a St. Bernard Project house for a special that Anderson Cooper himself will be filming. Goodnight, y’all.

This is………… Amanda Sanders. Today I helped replace the basketball net and replaced the tiles in the GYM. I also helped shop and cook dinner. Tonight we had enchiladas, rice, and beans.

Video clips from travel day

Here's our video from the first day of the trip. Props to Shelby for her camera work in Baton Rouge:

Safe and Sound

Our group arrived safely at First Christian Church of Greater New Orleans at 9:40 p.m. tonight after a long (but good) day of travel. We left UCC around 9:30 a.m. in two vans and an SUV full of luggage with a grand total of 21 adult and youth participants. Our caravan ate a quick lunch in Shreveport, made a few rest stops, and a ended up on a winding quest for a gas station following Stuart's very insistent GPS in Lafayette. Once we finally gassed up and got back on the road, we were able to have a leisurely dinner at George's, a Baton Rouge institution famous for their po' boy sandwiches. After dinner we drove the last hour through the rain and were met by the mission station coordinator shortly after arriving at the church. After orientation, unloading, and evening prayers, everyone headed to bed to try to rest up for our first big day of work.

I've uploaded a handful of pictures from the day on the photo site, click here to take a look. I'm hoping to have a collection of video clips posted tomorrow, but it's late and I need sleep, too!