Youth Mission trip 2009 - Sunday

Hello and good morning. We arrived in New Orleans late yesterday afternoon, and we had another full day yesterday.

We worshiped with Fairhope UMC yesterday morning and then took our time travelling from there to New Orleans. One of the highlights for me was that we drove along the MS coast and saw the same area we worked in 2 years ago with Mission on the Bay. I was struck once again by the ammount of devation Hurricane Katrina left in her wake. When we arrived in New Orleans, Bill Stallings led us to the Lower Ninth ward and showed us where the Industrial Canal broke through the levee and flooded the entire area. We then drove by the Superdome, and 20 minutes later, we arrived at Aurora UMC, which will be our home for this week.

Today, we begin our work. Actually as I am writing this our youth are hard at work. We are working on three different houses, stripping paint, finishing laying shingles on a roof and cleaning up an empyt lot. It was HOT here by 9am. There will be pictures of the work we are doing today posted later tonight.

Here are a couple thoughts from David Green and Will Carter regarding our trip yesterday, which they both wrote last night.

Will-
The trip has been ok so far were finally here and his has taken forever. A total of 2 days and 3 hours. Now were staying at Aurora UMC in New Orleans Louisiana. We got here put our stuff in our rooms, which are fairly nice, and we went straight to Wendy’s and we got there so late we had to get it to go. We ate all of our food in the van and then walked straight into the service where it was amazingly fun, and after we had night prayer and now we are getting ready to sleep.

David Green-
Today we started by getting up and going to church at Fairhope UMC after staying their for the night. I really enjoyed the service but was excited to get on to the final destination that is New Orleans, Louisiana. The car ride was a good three or four hours with the temperature getting hotter as we went. Everyone knew when we reach New Orleans because of the huge skyline and all the bridges. But by far the best part of the ride was the listening and singing to the Taylor Swift CD. So far this trip has been fairly enjoyable with most of us being stuck in the car.

Check back soon for reports and pictures regarding our actual work here in New Orleans! Thank you for keeping us in your prayers!