GOD Leads Us To A New Place To Serve And Disciple To Others!

So we start the day off thinking it will be a pretty easy day of cleaning up the East Jefferson Y and serving 25 kids at East Jefferson Kamp Katrina. But, GOD told us he had more plans than that! Can somebody in the congregation out there give us an AMEN! (Can you already tell today was AMAZING and we're a bit excited about it?!!!) Let's start back a bit...2 weeks ago, some members from Nick's church came down to New Orleans to do some relief work. During that time, they met a man by the name of Lance Rowe(who looks a bit like Jesus and has pearcing eyes that scream out how passionate he is about serving others and God) who was doing relief work at Crescent City Baptist Church/Crescent City Baptist School. They told Nick that if the team had any extra time, they should give Lance a call to help out. Like we said before, we thought today would be a light day, being a Saturday for Camp and most of the work at East Jefferson had already been done...so we decided to give him a call. As we found out, Lance and his volunteers were a bit short, and he was ecstatic that we called! So, we sent a team over in the morning for a few hours, then sent the rest of the team back after lunch...for many of us, this was the missions work and impact we felt we needed to make our trip complete.

Lance and a team had set up a relief center that provided almost anything and everything to Katrina victims-clothes, shoes, toys, ice, etc. They even have a makeshift grocery store in one of the gyms. Families can come in everday and go shopping...FOR FREE! They get 1 shopping cart and pick up what they need-food, bleach, medicine, cleaning supplies, you name it! Part of our job today was to move all items from the school and church that were affected by the flooding, roofing debris, boxes, crates, etc. to one HUGE dump in the parking lot-I think it was the most meaningful and fun time we have ever had picking up trash. During this time, we were able to chat with the tons of people who were coming in and out of the relief center. Although words cannot describe the tons of emotion that we felt today, here are a few cool stories...

While Kelly was moving some trash, a man in a taxi drove up to her with an elderly hispanic woman named Vicki in the back seat who could barely speak english. He proceeded to tell Kelly that he picked her up on the side of the road and brought her to the relief center because she was aimlessy wandering through the streets looking for food and water. Through Kelly's broken Spanish and the woman's broken English, Vicki told Kelly she needed Calcium pills, water, food, ulcer medicine, and tylenol. For the next 45 minutes, Kelly and Vicki walked hand in hand around the relief center and shopped, even finding a Spanish Bible. After their time together, Vicki gave Kelly two scripture based bookmarks, told her to give one to her mom (also named Vicki!), and told her she was a Santo(saint!) Can somebody shout AMEN!

While Wendy was working in the "grocery store" part of the relief center in the meds section, a woman came up and they started to chat. Wendy asked if she could help her with anything, and the woman told her the relief center didn't have anything that could help. The woman told Wendy that she had thrown her back out just before Katrina hit and had a bulging disc, and she has missed her scheduled surgery. (Remember back in May when Wendy had a bulging disc-is anyone seeing God getting ready to work this out?!) Wendy gave this woman tons of tips and advice on what she could do. Then, Wendy did the next best thing...She PRAYED with this woman and asked for healing. Can somebody shout AMEN!

There were TONS of other cool stories-Ryan handing out water and ice to cars driving by, Nick praying with a man named Javier who suffered in Houston and wanted to get back into God's word, Steve and Jennifer helping a little boy pick out toys for his yet to be born baby sibling, a lady dropping off almost brand new baby clothes to donate (she was around 8 months pregant and could of used them herself), and all of us took time to chat and listen to stories of the Katrina victims as they would come and go. We also found a cross that was in the rubble of trash. We decided to stand the cross erect in the middle of the huge trash heap for some symbolism. In all the chaos and destruction, only one thing will stand tall and never be destroyed...the CROSS AND JESUS! Can somebody shout AMEN!

After serving at the Relief Center, the afternoon team went to downtown New Orleans to look around. One of the most incredible things to look at was the water marks on the buildings. It was tough to imagine the water level being that high. We saw where looters had broken into stores, and we saw the tired look on the faces of the police officers, contruction workers, power workers, etc. The team was also able to drive through one of the neighborhoods right next to the city. Still a ghost town. We saw tons of cars sitting on medians, ownerless. We saw the spraypainted houses that were searched by rescue workers. We saw houses completely destroyed. But most of all, we saw a city and community that will need our help not only for the next few months, but for the next few years. After seeing the destruction, our van was dead silent for 10 minutes. The news on t.v. doesn't do it justice. Seeing it in person, it really hits home and makes you grateful for ALL that we have.

Well, tomorrow we head home(with a few flight complications, but everything will be just fine!) Throughout this trip, we have learned to be FLEXIBLE and OBEDIENT to GOD. He used us each day in unique and amazing ways, and it has changed our lives forever. We would like to thank each and every one of you out in Blog land who has made this trip happen-TJ especially, for all your hard work, and everyone else who sent encouraging messages. But most of all, we would like to THANK YOU for the PRAYERS. They got us through our trip, and through that, WE CHANGED LIVES!!!