We've been workin all the day long

This is interim Amy, Sam and Zeb. We hope you are having a good day. We have had a great one here in New Orleans. It was the first day of work and the team was ready to get started. In Slidell, LA, the town which we are staying, we drove to the Methodist church this morning to get our assignments for the week. It started with a really interesting speech by the head of United Methodist Relief Committee on Relief for this region. He said that Slidell itself is currently 85% restored, and they planned to be done by August with the Slidell area. Following that encouraging bit of news he also gave some news that was not as heartening; New Orleans itself was only 5% complete on their total repairs. This means that after Slidell repairs are complete it will focus more so on the city itself. He also said that they report all our hours that we are completing this week to the state which reports it to the federal government. The government is giving Louisiana just over eighteen dollars per hour per person to pay back the federal government. With this so far this has generated over nineteen million dollars. It is encouraging that our work will be doubly received by the people here…thirdly if you think of the spiritual nourishment this is providing as well. On our end, the spiritual nourishment it is providing us is worth it as well.

...Back to the trip, the assignment we were given, interestingly enough was all at the same house. It needed roofing, drywall, structural, and some insulation work. Both the teams were able to work on the same house. This worked great today and we already made great progress. We still broke up into two loose groups and started the work as soon as we got the materials. The person whose house we were working on was named Isaiah. He is a very kind old man who loves his game shows. We are going to try to have lunch with him tomorrow and get his story of the storm and some more information about his past. In other news, the food is great thanks to the hard work of Amanda and Leah. The sunburn hasn’t completely set in yet for us so that is well as well… but we are using plenty of sunscreen to make sure that doesn’t happen too quickly. They also recommend that we drink eight bottles of water a day to battle the pretty intense heat.

All in all, it was quite a productive day. As would be expected, we got off to a slightly slow start, but the afternoon was full of hard work. 24 people working on a small house is a little tight. But we've been trying hard not to step on each others toes too much. Having lots of people does make the work speed along, though. We'll keep you updated on the events of the week....so stay tuned.

So, do to some minor minor technical difficulties, there will be no pictures for your viewing pleasure. But do not fear! There will be a flood tomorrow...