Treme Painting

Today was the second day of our missions trip,and we painted a really old, neglected elementary school in the Historic Treme neighborhood where Louis Armstrong was born.  With only nine people in our group,  we finished painting the entire first floor and helped the school begin the process of moving out. As a charter school, they had been given five years probation in order to get their grades up to appropriate marks. Sadly, many of the students come from the notorious Ninth Ward and were unable to reach the mark.  As a result they are not having their contracts renewed and a new school will take its place. God placed us in this place to give the next school a fresh start! Please pray that God would send the right people to care for the youth of the lower Ninth Ward. 

Not quite so easy

<p>After a day of poor weather on Sunday, we hit the ground running on Monday with a wakeup call at 5:45am and breakfast @ 6am. From there, group 2 got to take a nap while we shuttled group 1 to their three separate worksites.&nbsp; Between refurbishing building materials at Old City restoration, painting the exterior of homes in the historic Treme district where Louis Armstrong was born, and finishing a home on Dupree Street there was plenty of work to go around. Group 2 had a team meeting at St Paul's homecoming center to discuss work plans. We learned that we would be scraping &amp; painting a shelter on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain.&nbsp; We all worked very hard the first day and also prayed hard with each person taking 30 minutes to rest, pray, and read Gods word in the "prayer chair." Our specific crew worked on the shelter, which was sitting at the foot of the dikes surrounding Lake Pontchartrain.&nbsp; This building had most likely been built by the army corps of engineers during construction of the dikes and then turned over to private groups. St Pauls is planning to use it as a shelter for homeless individuals to stay in. The structure had white paint on the surface, but as we scraped we uncovered layer upon layer of colorful paints. As one student remarked, "I would love to have seen the building with the bright shade of red on it!" Peeling &amp;scraping paint for hours will make you nostalgic for sure... A local water management truck helped us clean the mud out of the bathrooms with their pump truck and thanked our crew for helping.  The people of New Orleans are extremely proud and resilient and continue to fight for their way of life. We ended our day with some time with Dwayne, the Director of Annunciation Mission, who spoke with us about the importance of volunteers in the rebuilding of Nola.  Please continue to pray for the gospel to take hold in the streets of New Orleans, that the people would see Christians leading the charge for this fair city.

Rolling with the punches

Mission trips are about serving others. This is easy to do when you are at the job site and see the work that is being done. However when the little things don't work out like not having enough beds or the rain delays plans for a few hours you have to learn to put your desires and yourself last. This year part of the building we are staying in is under construction which means that we don't have a place to hang out or play games. This means we have 104 people wandering the small dorm hall while we try to find something to entertain us! God is using this to teach us how to be patient respectful and flexible while we deal with rainy weather and crazy people! 

Flexibility

Exhausted and malnourished from the many fast food meals and 12 hour bus ride to the city of new Orleans,  our group of roughly sixty students and chaperones dragged out of our rooms to shower and eat before the 10 am church service. The girl bathrooms have four showers and 2 bathrooms , so it got a little bit crowded while making our tired selves look acceptable to go out in public! The leaders bought the group bought the group delicious doughnuts ( key lime, blueberry glazed, chocolate covered with sprinkles) from a hole in the wall sort of place that a local recommended. After breakfast we went to Redeemer Presbytarian church. Our group took up almost the entire left side of the quaint church. The worship team had a sort of classic sound with the beautiful hymns and the help of a violin. The tiny church bellowed while praising God. The preacher spoke of money. He reminded the congregation of the difficulty of a rich man getting into heaven. The more money a person has, the more independent a person feels. He reminded us that one must accept the kingdom of God like a child, with dependence on Him; money can hinder this. It was a great reminder for those of us on the mission trip, reminding us giving of our wealth or time to help others.

Hump Day

I am convinced that there is nothing better in this world than working side by side, serving someone in need with our eyes fixed on the father!  We have been working the past few days on Ms. Jermaine Elizabeth's home that she recently purchased on Castiglione Street near the Ninth Ward.  The home had recently had an addition built on and was about three different shades of blue, white, & grey when we arrived.  For the last three days we have been trimming, painting base coat, doing some carpentry work, & building relationships with her and those living nearby.  Praise God, we had a full workday yesterday with no rain and working 8:30-4:15.  As the painting rose higher and higher up the side of the house and the available ladders were being used, those not painting began enjoy the summer heat and horsing around while cleaning up the paint brushes and roller pans. 
Last night we had an awesome time with the other group is also staying at the Annunciation Mission.  They are from a private school in Boston, MA and decided that we should get our two groups together to share about the stories being heard & experienced while in New Orleans.  Our very own Rebecca Wright started off the time by encouraging them and mentioned that she was glad that they were with us.  Then, one-by-one the other students began discussing how they have been moved by hearing the stories of others and building relationships with the residents as they come back year after year to the Ninth Ward to do work.  We were so encouraged to hear how they were being changed by their work this week.  God is at work here!  After sharing time, we had a time of worship in the chapel and then split up for free time games.  Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.  Tanner says 'hi' & please remember to pray for gospel breakthroughs this week!  Our students are getting more and more tired as the days go by and the power of Christ is something that when observed at close proximity can alter your life forever.  Thanks for walking beside us!

Josh 'Gillyman' Gilman

Just Another Day In Paradise

 Whats better than waking up at Six o'clock in the morning? Or working in the burning sun dripping with sweat? Nothing.  Im so grateful for just being here and helping people who are in  need. People get the idea that on a mission trip, you are just supposed to help  the people you're working for. But really the people in need are actually helping us. On this mission ,this idea finally got to me. This idea is that the congregation from Seven Rivers that came on the mission is getting healed in every way. Last night we prayed out loud about our gratefulness. This really made us open up and let us get healed emotionally and religously. Everyine grew even close together in a matter of about an hour. Before that we got to see the family we will be helping. The family that we are helping demolish their house are thankful for the help but mostley just because we are there and we care. Will and Sabrina (which was the family) were such good sports and actually helped us destroy their house. Throughout the whole day Will was carrying the biggest and heaviest things and Sabrina was just kidding around/ helping with the little things as well. When we first got on site, we were met by Sabrina then all of a sudden this giant of a man comes out(Will). I can honestly say I was a little bit scared when I first saw him. But when he told his story and everyone at the end actually saw the thanfulness in his eyes. This happiness spread like wild fire throughout our group. And thankfully it did not end that day. Today was day three in our site and we tore down mostly every wall in the house. Through hail,thunderstorms,rain, forceful winds, and etc we Seven Rivers will be there for the New Orleans families through thick and thin. Keep praying for us, we are grateful for those. We will keep y'all in the loop.

Just another day in New Orleans...

          The temp. rises over 99 degrees and sweat drips down over my lips, but when I go to wipe my mouth off with my arm the strikingly tangy and posionous flavour of bug spray fills my mouth. Quickly I run over to my waterbottle and splash down something that won't kill me, but instead of the cold icewater I was expecting, burning hot water scorches the back of my throat. An unfortunate sequence of events on my part, but really it's just another day in New Orleans...
          It's day number two on the jobsite and once again the team and I find ourselves busy tearing down drywall, pulling out rusty nails, tripping over snake-like vines, and breathing in unheathly amounts of dust and grime. One room in particular had a curious effect on me. Broken bits of the wall big and small covered the floor, not to mention piles upon piles of dust! Never have I swept so much. My father would be proud, as sweeping is his favorite chore and sady (Florida home) floors his bigest pet pieve, but back to the point. This was the room my friends and I had been attempting to make spotless since we first laid eyes on it. After spending all day yesterday in the room and half the day today, this project had gotten personal. Not only were we tired of dusting and shoveling, but it was beginning to offend us that no matter how many times we carried our buckets of to and fro, it never seemed to get any cleaner. Our feeling (and our arms) were hurt.
           Closing in on our last hour of work, we still had not left the room, but we had finally began to see some progress. As we neared the back of the room with shovel in hand, we noticed a large,long piece of wood nailed to the ground and blocking any further achievment. We pulled and proded at the the wood with our shovels and with our hamers, but to no avial. It wasn't budging. Weak-armed and tired legs we trudged to the front of the house. We were losing faith, but suddenly the amazing crowbar cought our sight and hope filled our eyes. Finally after a half hour of trying to move this piece of wood, it came out! Proudly we shared a round of high fives and took an early, yet well deserved water beak.
           After our short, but sweet celebration, I began to think agian about that stupid piece of wood. It kept coming up in conversation, but not for nothing. This piece of wood was a symbol. A symbol of distration. Just like in life and in our Christian faith, we hit roadblocks. They get in our way and sometimes it just seems impossible to move them aside. Today this piece of wood was our roadblock. Although it may seem insignificant, it really ment a lot to me today. It put into perspect the struggles I have been facing recently and showed me just how much they can block my reationship with God. Pushing and pulling doesn't always work. For this job, we needed something bigger, just like in Christianity we need somthing bigger than our good works to get us through hard times. We need Christ to get past it all. Christ is our crowbar.

              Written by Allison Green