Hurricane Relief Trip - Part 1

Day 1 - 10/5/05

We all arrived safe and sound in Kenner this afternoon. It was a little bumpy for the flight, and I am still having a hard time with worrying about flying. It was better this time, but it is also easier when I feel like I am doing something the Lord has called me to do. I am looking forward to where He will lead us and how He will use us.

It was really something terrible to see the destruction that had occurred in the New Orleans area first hand. We no sooner left the airport that we saw cars that had been crushed by the long-term parking structure they were under. The neighborhoods we drove through were lined by the rubble, appliances and trash that had been piled by the curbs. Doors that had been spray-painted “do not remove – insurance.” They didn’t want their rubble removed until the insurance assessors had viewed it for an estimate.

The Vineyard church is an island in the middle of these neighborhoods and it will be a staging area for the work that we will do there. We breakfast tomorrow at 7:30 and get our orders after that.

Lord, use us to serve Your will and purpose here.

Day 2 - 10/6/05

Wow. Our first day out and it was just beyond anything we could have imagined. Even hearing the other teams’ stories and seeing the pictures just doesn’t prepare you for the devastation of people’s homes and lives.
We started this morning with breakfast at 7:30 and then got our marching orders. We split into two teams and I drove for Team 2. We first went to an apartment and hauled out the rest of their downstairs furniture. They only had two upstairs bedrooms and that was most of what they had left.

We then went to a house to remove three trees that had been knocked down and the fence that the trees took down. It was a lot of hauling!! Then we went back to the church for lunch. After lunch, we were to join Team 1 at demo’ing out a house. That meant emptying out their entire house (demolishing), ripping out all the carpet, tiles, linoleum, and the dry wall up to four feet from the floor.

Before we did that though a lady showed up in tears at the church because FEMA had just been there and told them that they wouldn’t tarp their roof or even give them a tarp because it was “too dangerous” to get on their roof.

It was a HUD house that the government had built in the first place, but they wouldn’t help. The three guys on my team knocked it out in about 30 minutes. The lady was in tears again, but this time in gratitude.

At the last house where we joined Team 1 the guy that lived there was wearing a t-shirt that said “I gave my house, my car, and my job to Hurricane Katrina” and that about sums it up for a lot of the people here. He was not able to walk, so he sat and watched us as we worked. I can’t even begin to imagine what he was thinking. His wife walked around much of the time almost as if she were in shock. They were so grateful for our work and amazed that we had come all the way from Idaho to help them.

Now we just have tomorrow to look forward to.

to be continued...