Day 2

It was 58 degrees and sunny in New Orleans today:) We are all starting to get into the groove of each of our worksites. We pretty much stayed on the same sites though Greg and Todd were able to move onto the site with Jason, Haley and I. We are all learning some new skill sets-hanging drywall, siding houses, caulking, painting, etc. It is truly God working through us because I know most of us didn't come with many of these skills. We met amazing people in New Orleans again today. Two of our teams were blessed by being fed a delicious soup by one of the homeowners and we are thanked time and time again by the people down here for our help. It is very humbling. One team told how the woman whose home they were working on had tears in her eyes as she told the story of the day Katrina came. Each person who was here during Katrina has a powerful story and those moments are as vivid as the day that it happened.

God is also working in a powerful way here. One of our teams was given a tour of one of the oldest churches in New Orleans by the First African Baptist Church. One team went for a walk and were invited into Mr Ivory's house to see his gorgeous hard wood floors. And I was given some super duper hugs by Arthur Lee one of the relatives of a home owner who is autistic and around 20 years old who is loved by the entire neighborhood.

We are overall tired but content and I think most of us are being stretched and moved by God in ways that we didn't anticipate. Our eyes are being opened to what true service and acceptance of all Gods's people is about.

Some things shared tonight on what people are thankful to God for:

food

the sun

miss hazel

mr ivory

walking in the neighborhoods with greg and todd

the visit to the first african baptist church

sleep

praying with 2 boys (sorry Ralph, I can't remember their names, but you will always remember them)

no caulk on me

Keep on praying!

Monday Night

Wow! We made it to Covington, LA last night about 5:00. Covington is where Touchglobal has it's headquarters and the Trinity E Free Church hosts teams to do Katrina reconstruction. After a crazy drive from Nashville, TN (where we stayed the night) into Alabama where we hit lots of blowing snow and freezing road conditions we were relieved to finally reach Mississippi with dry roads and NO snow. Alabama was insane because of the freezing road conditions and the fact that people in that state do not expect snow so they do not salt the roads AT ALL and usually never drive in wintry conditions so they slide all over the road. Thank you for the prayers of safety, the Lord heard you and we arrived safely in Covington.

After breakfast at 6:30am we had devotions, a great piece from John Horst about expectations and then descriptions of what to do and not do at a work site. "If you don't take a tool with you I can garantee you won't have it when you need it." We also saw a great photo of a man who nailed two of his fingers together with a nail gun. Cool.

We were then sent off to our sites. Ralph is team leader for a site that is caulking siding. John is team leader for a site that is tearing out a kitchen and Jason, Haley and I went with one of the Touch global people to tear off siding and put up plywood to get ready for new siding.

After working we met at Castle Rock EFC in downtown New Orleans for Jumbalaya dinner and a great worship service and testimony from a young man who grew up in one of the projects down here that has since become an intern with the church.

There are so many stories about people still not in their homes. Some people are still working each day to get things fixed either by themselves or with help from others such as the church here. Others have given up and there are still many homes that look just like they looked when we were here in July and Dec 06. The neighborhoods are slowly coming back but still spotty with "blighted" (unusable/unsavable) homes.

Many of us did prayer walks, prayed with others or prayed on sites. God is good and still working miracles here.

I'm exhausted and heading to bed, lights out at 10.

Welcome to our New Orleans Christmas 2010 site! We are a short term mission trip team excited to be going to New Orleans to help with reconstruction from Hurricane Katrina that caused so much destruction in 2005. We are a team from Peoples Evangelical Free Church in Pinckney, Michigan that desires to show the love of Jesus through our hands and feet by serving others. We are praying for God to use us in a BIG way!

Janine Comella

Team Leader