"What are we doin' here?"

This has been our question since we arrived in late October. "Why are we here?" It is evident that God cleared the path for us to come here, but why did He want us here? There's been a lot going on the last couple of weeks. Between getting acclimated to the area, and a new job, we weren't really sure which way was up. Praise God that we finally feel like we're getting our bearings and that we have some answers to the questions above.

Amy had really been struggling with what to do here. She very badly wanted to use her skills and giftedness to help organize the communication aspect of the ministry. While met with some frustration early on, she's had some good conversations to help encourage her in what she can be doing to get started with that. She gets to coordinate the communication area which includes: press kits/church kits, website maintenance, and various other things. She's got two wonderful and very capable people on her team, and I will also be helping with some communication items now and then. She also found a new passion she wants to explore.

Early this last week, Amy came out to a job site with me. She took some pictures and talked with the team that was here serving from Hershey, PA. She had a wonderful time. She decided to make a DVD using pictures of all the teams here this week and give each team a copy. Someone does this for teams that stay in the inner-city and she wanted to give it a try for teams up here as well. It's great for teams to have something they can bring home and show their churches what they did while they were here. Here's the first video.



Currently, we are organizing an inventory of all the tools that have been donated and purchased. Between that and running supplies to teams all over the North Shore (Covington, Slidell, Lacombe, and Mandeville), I've been really busy. I'm really learning a lot. Whether it's how we do things, or how to measure a drywall job, or what tools we need, there's something new everyday. Like I mentioned above, I've also been helping out with some of the communications here. We just uploaded the latest Katrina Project video on YouTube. You can view the video from this page. Go to the top of the page and play the video on the right. I've also included a link to the video in the "links" section. Check it out.

Please continue to pray for us. We're still adjusting. Please pray for the people here in the New Orleans area. Also check out the EFCA Katrina Project website (Link Section) for supplies we need. One more note. If you would like to send a team, we are in need of skilled labor (carpenters, drywall hangers, electricians, plumbers, HVAC, general construction, etc). If you or someone you know would like to come and serve for a week, let us know.

If you are interested in supporting us, prayerfully or financially, please let us know. Thanks to all who have prayed for us and the ministry here in New Orleans. We've raised about 15% of our monthly support needed, so thanks to all who have donated and made a monthly commitment as well. We really appreciate your support.

We appreciate your feed back. Please drop us a line. weheartno@gmail.com

Our First Week

Happy Monday!! We're about to start our first full week here. I will be running tools and supplies around the North Shore (Covington and surrounding areas). Amy will be working in the office.

Last week was good. We were able to get a little more settled in our house. After searching for a suitable place to sit in our living room, we found a small love seat at the thrift store for $45, which was $10 less than the other ones. It was in OK shape, but we decided to wait before buying. When we returned later in the afternoon, the workers told us there was a donation on the back of a pick-up outside, if we wanted to look. It was perfect. The right size, no stains, no springs sticking out, just perfect. The "pricing lady" recognized us from earlier and priced it lower than all the others, $35. And it would've been the best one in the store. Praise the Lord!

Please continue to pray for our transition. We're still adjusting to the new area and new people. Amy and I have not been feeling very well. We both have a cough and congestion that has been lingering for the past week. Please pray for healing.

Please pray for Amy in the office. She is used to working in an environment where she knows exactly what her responsibilities are and is able to just take initiative and go with things, but that hasn't been the situation down here just yet. She is having a difficult time transitioning. Please pray that she will feel comfortable in her new surroundings soon and will be able to use the giftings the Lord has given her.

We have enjoyed hearing from some of you and hope to hear from more of you soon. Let us know what is going on in your lives and how we can be praying for you.

We're HERE!!

Sorry it's been a long time since we updated. You can imagine why. From packing and moving out of our house and having people move in, and planning the trip down with the team and moving... it's been crazy. But good. We had a lot of time to say "see you later" to our friends and family and dog. We really miss everyone, but we're so excited about being here. Plus, we know we'll see everyone soon. I know of some that will be here around Christmas, and some later.

Well, I'll go back to the last update and work from there. The move went pretty well thanks in big part to the Senior High group from Lakeland, the Crossing. It's was so much fun hanging out with all of them, packing and loading the trailer. A handful of them came with us to New Orleans to help us unpack and unload our stuff into the trailer we're staying in. They then stayed the rest of the week... but I'll get to that in a bit. The trip down was a lot of fun. There were four in each vehicle, and we all had a great time. We left early Sunday the 21st. Good thing too. It took us close to 17 hours to get here. Mostly because of long stops and a 20-30 mph head wind. This made towing the trailer an adventure!

The unpacking went pretty well, and it wasn't long before we realized we had brought a bit too much. We sent a bunch back to storage. After a fairly long day stuffed into a small trailer in Covington, the eight of us piled back into the vehicles, and started to make our way to the Yellow House. The Yellow house is where the team and staff live while serving in Central City New Orleans. It's right down the street from Castle Rock Community Church. Here's where the story gets interesting.

It had been raining pretty much all day. We didn't think much of it while we were inside, but once we started driving, we realized it was much more rain than any of us had every seen. The ditches were completely flooded and the water was running over into parking lots and onto the streets. As we approached the Lake Pontchartrain, we learned the Causeway, a 24 mile bridge over the lake, was closed to bigger vehicles due to high winds. Not to mention, the streets of New Orleans were flooded to about 2-3 feet in some areas. The Army Corp of Engineers were out checking the levees and closing gates in areas to keep the water out. We then learned of the a tornado watch in effect over the lake and on the north shore, where we were. We made some phone calls and ended up at Trinity in Covington for dinner and decided to stay the night there. Besides, we didn't know what we'd be working on in the city... no one did. So we offered to help with whatever needed to be done on the north shore... sandbagging, water removal... whatever.

As it turned out, the rain stopped shortly after we went to bed. The water was gone in the morning. They didn't really need us to do any sandbagging or anything so we decided to head into the city and get settled in. It was now Tuesday and most of the projects were started or near completion by the other teams. We offered to do whatever needed to be done. We learned of a cleaning job near the Urban Impact offices. There had been a fire alarm the night before. When attempting to leave out the fire escape, the door was blocked by some garbage cans and debris in the walk way. It all needed to get cleaned up.

There was a lot of garbage. The rain from the night before didn’t help, as all the cardboard was spongy and stuck in the mud underneath. It was not a pretty job. Just when you thought we were out of the gutting phase!! There was one can overflowing with stinky water. We treated that like a refrigerator in a gutted house. Move it last, ‘cause we ain’t going back if it spills!

Take a look at the before pictures...here

And the after pictures...here

Not bad for a half day’s work, eh? I had a feeling we’d be back the next day to clear a field of debris behind this building, so we left that nasty can for another time. I don’t have any pictures of the giant cockroaches or the huge spiders because as soon as they surfaced, they were crushed. Girls with shovels are not to be taken lightly when you’re a ½ pound roach or a hairy spider.

As I mentioned above, we returned the next day to clear a field behind this building . It was mostly full of old sheets of plywood and other building materials. It took about half the day to clear and it was off to lunch!! We ate at a really cool restaurant in Central City called Café Reconcile. Check out the website here. They have really good food and their mission is to teach youth in the area culinary skills and after Katrina, started to teach construction skills as well. Check ‘em out. It’s pretty cool. We went back a couple of times. Amazing catfish! Thursday we cleaned up some at the church and started a painting project at Castle Rock. We had a great time painting the two rooms. A lot of trim work and 12 ft ceilings. We weren’t able to finish, but we got a lot done.

Super Friday went well. For those who haven’t made it down here yet, all the teams from both Covington and Central City gather for a Rally in the neighborhood. We circle up, get LOUD and get pumped up to go out to clean up the streets and talk to neighbors. We work for a couple of hours and head back to the rally area where the “Hot Dog Truck” meets us and feeds the teams and neighbors from a grill mounted in the back of a pickup truck. It’s a lot of fun and a great time to hang out with the other teams and with the people from the neighborhood.

On our way back to Covington, where the team would be staying before departing back to Illinois, we took a tour of the upper and lower 9^th ward. We first went back to the first house we worked on in the upper 9^th ward when Crossing went to New Orleans. (Thanks for the directions Karen!!) It was all boarded up and it didn’t look like much was happening with it. A lot of the houses that were there last June were gone. A church that had caved in was gone. The area was still mostly uninhabited. We then went over to the lower 9^th ward, near the Industrial Canal Levee break. It was amazing to see it was still a “ghost town”. Further inland from the canal, people are rebuilding their homes… on stilts, but rebuilding all the same.

The team returned to Illinois the next morning, and I hear reports that the trip was really good. They made it back in about 15 hours. Not bad with 6 people and towing a trailer! We had a wonderful time with the team that came down. It was really a blessing to have familiar faces around as we transitioned. We look forward to seeing many others while we’re here.

So that was the trip. Thanks to all who prayed for our time here last week. Please continue to pray for Amy and I as we continue to transition into a new phase of our lives. We start tomorrow. We felt it was a good idea to take some time to get settled and rest before starting. Pray also for financial support. We are at about 15% of our total support needed. If you are interested in donating, follow the link on the right to the EFCA website. If you have any questions about this, please let me know. Thanks again to all of you for your prayer and financial support. We really appreciate it.

Getting Close!

We are in the mid stages of packing up items for the move on the 21st. It's hard to believe we've accumulated so much stuff in the past 6 years, but it has been so refreshing and freeing to get rid of "stuff" that we don't need.

We are well on our way for support-raising, but not quite where we need to be this close to departure. We need to have 50% of our support raised at this stage and we only have 11% of our monthly support raised so far. We are praying that the Lord would provide. He's provided so much to clear the path for us to go to New Orleans, we have confidence that His provision will follow us there. We included our pledges for the year in the figures below:



There are at least 4 people going with us to New Orleans on a team from our church. Phil's mom might be going with us for the week. (She was on our team that went back in April, too.) This is an answer to prayer as we were looking for another adult to come on the trip.

This past week, the Lord (once again) answered a prayer of ours. We had been praying for a cargo trailer to bring with us. U-Haul had one we could rent for 2 days/one-way that was nearly $600, much more than we had anticipated spending. As we've continued to pray and to search for one, we ended up finding one in Round Lake that we could rent for 2 weeks and it would cost about half as much as U-Haul. Yea, God!!! Thanks to a family in the church, we will be able to pick up the trailer early next week and haul it with us on the 21st.

This next week will be a difficult one for us as we will be saying good-bye to family and friends. We are bringing a web cam with us to keep in contact via the internet from time to time. If you have Yahoo Messenger or MSN Messenger, let us know. Don't forget, our email address is: weheartno@gmail.com.

Until next time...

Great Garage Sale and Google Group

Hello everyone.

We had a garage sale this past Saturday and it went really well. We had a constant flow of customers. Amy and I had several opportunities to share with our neighbors and others what we're going to be doing for the next couple years. We made a significant amount of money, around $400, and got rid of a lot of stuff. What we didn't sell, we donated to Goodwill. Over all, I'd say it was a success. Many thanks to all that helped out on Saturday or donated items to be sold.

We had our second renter move in on Thursday last week. It's been a bit of a transition, but we were able to get him moved into our room. Amy and I have been staying at my mom's house at night, and spending the daytime at the house, getting ready to move.

You may have received an email from me or Google, asking you to join our Google group. We set this up so that we could email each person on our list individually and avoid the email system from spamming our emails. There is nothing you need to do beyond joining the group with your email address. You will then start receiving emails from the group instead of from me. You won't have to go and check the group or anything. Please email us if you have a questions or concerns about this.

Lastly, our prayer requests for this week. Amy and I will be traveling to her parents house in the quad cities this coming weekend. Please pray for safe travels. Also, it's becoming a bit overwhelming with all that's going on, our house is a mess with stuff in limbo, etc... please be praying for our spirits, our relationship with one another, and that we would not feel so overwhelmed that we feel defeated.