Life In...

So, New Orleans was basically one of the most amazing weeks of my life. It was a huge answer to prayer. God pulled off somany crazy events. So, I'll start from the beginning. Ben Wisan and I left to go to New Orleans and got there on Saturday. We had a bunch of wait time in the airport (like 20 hours) before other people got there.We decided to go out on the town to French Quarter. The taxi driver  decided to drop us off right in the middle of Burbon St. We had to walk5 or 6 blocks in order to get out of all the bars and strip clubs. (Asa side not, the driver told us that the strippers there were like half guys. kinda weird) After, we went to a Walgreens and here is how theconversation went.

Ben - "Hi Sir, we don't drink what is there to do around here?"

Worker - "Well, you guys could go to the bars."

Me - "Uhhh, we don't drink."

Worker - "Well, ummm, ummm, ummm, there’s a casino down the road."

So, basically there was nothing for us to do downthere. We ended up going to a place called RiverPaw down at the Mississippi river. We ate Croqaudile Jerky, had chili cheese nachos and played video games for an hour or two. We went back to the airport and waited. We basically memorized the whole airport and I found my favorite vending machine. (I bought a bag of cheetos and found an extrabag of jerky, and pop tarts. basically amazing)

END OF DAY 1

The next morning, Ben and I went over to the Hilton and went swimming and talked to some amazing guy who told us all about the corrupt society there in Louisiana. We finally made it to our real hotel called the Quality Inn. It was not quality at all. It is hard to describe, but it basically sucked. Worst hotel I've ever been in.  Everyone showed up and I roomed with Ben Wisan, and two awesome guys named Kyle Wanee and Skyler Bachman.

END OF DAY 2

Today we split up into our teams and headed out to our different sites. There were 4 teams from San Diego. 1 helped build  a homeless shelter, 1 did landscaping for a High School, and 2 groups gutted houses. I was part of one of the Gutting teams. I was blessedwith an amazing team. On our team, there were 4 guys and 6 girls (the girls were basically studs and would just dig right into things without fear. They were also very encouraging).

Back to the house, it was made of cinder block andlooked like it had been hit by an asteroid. (This is why we named ourteam Team Asteroid) So, the whole day we moved cinder block and pipingand other random stuff we would find like stoves and microwaves. It waspretty fun. At the end of the day, a police officer came up to us andsaid, "Why are you cleaning that house, it is just going to getbulldozed, it is a waste of your time." It wasn't really the bestencouragement, but we got over it.

END OF DAY 3

Today, we went to a new house that had all thepersonal stuff already out of it. So, we took down all the plaster onthe walls and took out the bath tub and stuff. It was a very physicallydemanding, but awesome. We basically hammered, crow bared and shoveledthe entire day.

END OF DAY 4

Today we went back to the same house as yesterday. Weworked on it for half the day and finished. It looked really good.Then, after lunch we went to a new house that hadn't been touched sinceKatrina. It was an amazing site, and something I will never forget.There was couches, boxes, books, pictures, paintings, cabinets, deadcats (yeah i know) and other stuff just piled everywhere. In thebedrooms, there was stuff piled 4 feet high. We spent the rest of theday just carrying everything out to the street. It was horrible takingall the stuff out there. We would find wedding photos, licenses,paintings, bibles and other personal stuff just destroyed. It wasreally sad.

END OF DAY 5

We went back to the house that hadn't been touchedsince Katrina again today. We finished getting all the stuff out andstarted tearing out the plaster. We got almost all the plaster downexcept for the ceiling. We also didn't get a chance to pick up all theplaster pieces, but we did the best we could and really helped somepeople out so it was cool. That was the end of our work.

END OF DAY 6

Today, we woke up and went straight to the airport.Ben and I were on the same flight as one of our awesome girl leadersMorgan. Our day started of really crazy by not being able to find thecar rental return place. It just got crazier after that. Our planeflight got delayed 2 hours to Dallas but they said that our connectionwould be there for us. So, when we got to Dallas, we found out ourplane had left so we rushed to where the next plane was leaving to seeif we could get a seat. There just happened to be 3 seats all in thesame row on that plane. We got really lucky because otherwise we mighthave waited till 8pm the next day. A nice man let us switch so we gotto sit next to each other. As we were waiting to take off, it smelledkinda like gas, so we were a little tense. Then, about 2 minutes afterwe had taken off, a bolt of lightening either hit us or when right byour window. It was so bright I couldn't see anything but this intenselight. It was pretty freaky. Luckily we made it back to San Diegoalright, but it was a long 12 hour trip. Luckily we had Morgan there(who is freaking hilarious) to keep us company.

OVERALL

Overall, it was an amazing trip for a couple ofreasons. 1. I was able to help some people who really needed theirhomes back in order to move home. 2. I was able to meet a bunch ofpeople which I had been praying about for a while. It was an amazingtime whether I was tearing out walls or down at French Quarter witheveryone from San Diego eating some amazing donut/powdered sugar thingcalled Beignets or something.