Midterm Evaluation

Well folks, we have just passed the midpoint of Spring Break 2008. The third day of work has come and gone, and it is safe to say that we are all still alive and well. We woke up this morning to some claps of thunder and rain pouring down, unfortunately, in some cases pouring through the roof. Nothing a couple of buckets couldn't fix. But as rain down here does, it came and it went, and by the time we left at 8, the raindrops slowed and let us have a day free of sogginess. Half of the team returned to Isaiah's house, where we continued hanging sheetrock, mudding/taping, putting in window sills and so on. The rest of the group headed over to North Shore Relief's headquarters to lobby for a new work site. And they were successful. Four of the boys were taken over to a house that had a yard strewn with fallen trees, and were entrusted with chainsaws to clear it out. The others have been assigned a house in need of a new roof, some new interior walls, and other miscellaneous jobs. They didn't get much done, after waiting to find out where to go, going there to check out the situation, and then going to get supplies, it was time to head back to our base camp.

As Dale from our host organization had suggested, we took half the day off today. The afternoon was filled with a nice relaxing lunch, a quick run to Goodwill, and then a self-guided tour to the 9th ward. For those of you who may not remember, the 9th ward sustained the worst damage after Hurricane Katrina. Being lined by levees, basically lumps of land seperating habitable land from canals leading to Lake Pontchartrain, the 9th ward is in a very venerable position. A pastor of a church that we drove past told us that flood waters reached over 24 feet in some places. Even now, 2 and a half years later, the neighborhoods look devastated. It's hard to tell what the real damage is by looking from the outside. We don't know the stories of all the people, nor how bad things are on the inside. As we drove through, there would be a house almost fully recovered with people living in it, next to a completely abandoned one, next to one in the process of being recovered. We stopped to get out, and as we were walking around, we noticed several houses had large official-looking red X's. Each one read: "Involuntary Demolition". These were houses that were "seemingly abandoned" that were condemned to be demolished by the local government. Across the street was an old mansion, that some of our team decided to check out. This may not have been the smartest decision of the trip, considering it was private property and one of the locals called the cops on us. Brad talked to the very nice sheriff, who pointed out areas of the city with the greatest damage for us. When asked if there was some sort of monument to commemorate the floods, he said to look at the water lines that were still prominent on many houses. Thus concluded our trip to the inner city.

After eating a delicious dinner, we decided that it would be a nice evening to go to the beach. We are on the Gulf Coast for crying out loud. So we piled everyone into the vans (once again...), and hopped the border into Mississippi. We soon stumbled upon a roadside beach, parked the vans, and piled out to stick our toes in the Gulf. There followed a bonfire, which took quite a while to get started considering the overwhelmingly forceful wind. Alas, boy scout skills proved useful, and before long there were hot dogs and marshmallows out. Unfortunately, with Nigel's guitar out of commission, there was no singing, but we stayed entertained with friendly conversation. The tide was low, so many of us ventured out into unknown waters and sandbars. All and all what a way to end the day, but to gather with a bunch of friends around a fire on the beach.
We definitely appreciate all of your prayers and support, so thanks for that. And more than anything we need prayer to have the strength and energy to keep going.

Sorry for the absence of pictures again, but the hour is late and we have a full day of work tomorrow, and the internet here lacks the speed to be able to upload pictures in a decent amount of time...



...So until next time, this is Amy Brown signing off