Saturday, 2/23 -- Home Safely!

We arrived home safely early this afternoon. Friday morning we got on the road at 7 PM, and drove all the way to Roanoke (835 miles!), which made today's drive a short one.

Thank you for your prayers. We hope to be in touch w prayer partners and church people w pictures and some updates. As of now, we hope to do a presentation for part of Sunday school on March 16th. Plan to come and see the pictures and hear some testimonies of how God was at work last week.

Also, the Gulf area (especially New Orleans and coastal Mississippi) are still radically in need of restoration. One local man at Lagniappe Church told me that it took 20 years for the coast to recover after a hurricane in 1969, which was a tiny storm compared to Katrina. It will be many years before that area is restored. People need the good news of Jesus Christ, so please pray for Lagniappe Church and other ministries who are seeking to present the gospel in word and deed. We had a nice but brief time of prayer on Thursday for Miss Delta, the owner of the home we worked on. She senses the reality of God, but we did not get much farther than that with her. She was very desirous of our prayers for her, though.

Here are a couple pictures of homes in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward that have not been touched yet by restoration or rebuild efforts. The third picture is a Habitat for Humanity house in the new Musicians Village, not very far from the destroyed homes in the other pictures.

Thursday-Friday Update ("We're coming home!")

It's now 7:30 pm our time, here at Lagniappe, and we are anticipating a 7:30 am departure tomorrow. By God's grace we finished the drywall project at Miss Delta's today around 3:30. Everyone is tired, and those who have been sick seem to be feeling better - thank you for praying for them. We are attaching some pictures of Miss Delta and of her trailer with the house in the background. She had lived in a FEMA trailer until the issues with formaldehyde, so when they took the FEMA trailer she bought this one a few months ago. Today we had a good talk with Delta's adult grandson, Jason, who stopped by to visit and see the house.

The pictures are of Delta, her house, and then one of our construction work inside (from Monday, hanging ceiling drywall) and also one of a musical group we heard play in the French Quarter on Sunday afternoon.

One more thing - Our Gumby of the day winner for Wednesday was Jesse Wilson. He did a great job (as did everyone, really) with the work all week, and was very servant-like when it came to cleaning the bathrooms! Thursday's Gumby winner was Dave Spangler, who woke up with the flu bug of sorts, and who still prayed for us and then led team devotions tonight.

Please pray for our travels home to be safe. We hope to make it to Virginia tomorrow, then get home by early afternoon on Saturday.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND SUPPORT.

The Living Hope Team

Wednesday-Thursday Update

Late Wednesday now, and we had a good day drywalling. The house should be finished tomorrow (our work, that is), and if so, then we will be heading toward home earlier on Friday. It is great to see how well our team has worked together, with everyone encouraging each other and forming mini teams to work on separate areas of drywall. Then tonight, after going out for dinner and a trip to the beach, we had bathroom duty. Everyone was TIRED, so we asked if we could clean the bathrooms early. With a smaller crew (two of our sick teammates were in bed already) everyone pitched in to do a thorough cleaning of the bathrooms. In this way we were able to serve the other teams here at Lagniappe with us.

As you can see from above, we still have several people who are sick, and Scott told the girls to stay back at Lagniappe for the afternoon to rest. Here is a neat story, though: Lisa called a nearby hospital clinic for an appointment this morning, since she had been sick with a fever and a hard nagging cough. She told the receptionist about being here from Pennsylvania, so she got an appointment first thing this morning when the doctor got in. After the exam he asked her what she was doing down here, and when she said she was with Lagniappe Church doing some rebuilding work after Katrina, he thanked her for for coming to help. Then, when she went to the check-out counter, the doctor had waived his fee! And to top it off, the pharmacy the doctor sent her to ALSO did not charge her a thing for her prescription! The people here are so appreciative of the help that they are receiving, even if they are not personally benefitted by it.

Please pray for our ill team members to get on the mend soon. We also ask you to pray for a good wrap-up to our project, and also perhaps for some more good conversation with Miss Delta, the homeowner, and her family. The picture below of the white house is her new home, soon to be completed by the ministry teams from Lagniappe.

We will add another post tomorrow, with a better update on our departure Friday.

More Pictures #2

Picture and end of work today and picture at end of today after dinner (Taken from the beach)

More Pictures

Wednesday Morning

Hello Everyone! We had a good day yesterday, working at the site, plus we had "Kitchen Duty" here at Lagniappe. No, we did not get extra food from that, but we did have to wash pans, clean the tables, put away food, and sweep. That occurred after all three meals, plus three of us served dinner from 5:30-6:30. In spite of the extra time w kitchen duty we accomplished quite a bit of drywalling at Miss Delta's house.

Today we hope to put in an extra full day at Delta's, hoping that we can wrap up there tomorrow, or early Friday morning at the latest. We still need to finish drywalling, then put in floor tile underlayment in the kitchen and bathroom. Our less experienced people are getting pretty good at fitting up drywall!

One last thing - Some of you know Scott gives out a "Gumby of the Day" award each day to the team member who exhibits the most flexibility and/or a servant attitude. The first award went to Cristian Spencer for the trip down, since he had to deal with anxiousness over his dad losing two tires on their car. (Cristian was in the big van when the first tire went bad.) On Monday the award went to Dustin Potteiger for putting up with major harrassment (good-hearted teasing) from the rest of the team on the work site, and for pitching in to do numerous things without being asked. Yesterday we had co-winners of sorts: Lisa Mueller, who is battling sickness, yet who still went out to Delta's with us, and Jerry Styer, who quietly washed up more pans in the kitchen than any volunteer should have to do! (He snuck in to wash up pans while the rest of us were waiting around for dinner to start.)

Please pray for safety today, and for openness to the Lord's leading to keep "people over projects." All of the teams will be going out for dinner tonight, so we want to be aware of anyone we might be able to encourage w the hope and joy of the gospel. Check back later tonight or tomorrow early am for more pictures. We hope you liked the video of our custom doorway! It took so long to upload that we ran out of time to upload more pictures yesterday before dinner duty called.

Tuesday Update #2

Living Hope drywall hangers...announce custom fit doors. You provide us with your height and we take care of the rest.


NOBODY BEATS OUR PRICES!!!

Tuesday Update #1

Hello Everyone!

Sorry for the delay in updates - we will have some pictures later today, but we are about to clean up from breakfast (kitchen duty is our assignment at the church today), then head to our worksite.

Sunday we worshipped here at Lagniappe Church with the other teams and some community people. There are about 140 people here this week, including four people from Alberta, Canada and a group of 40 (mostly high school youth) from the Boston area. After worship Sunday we toured through the Slidell area, where we worked two years ago, then went into New Orleans. The aftermath of Katrina is still evident, especially in New Orleans, although things are coming back slowly. After seeing some of the devestated areas of the Lower Ninth Ward we went to the French Quarter area of New Orleans. The city was full of people, as the NBA All-Star game was played in New Orleans that night. After eating at a cafe in the city we drove back to Lagniappe for our orientation. Sunday night we had bathroom cleaning duty, which everyone really pulled together to do well!

Yesterday (Monday) we started a job insulating and installing drywall in a home that Lagniappe is finishing for a retired woman in nearby Waveland. Her name is "Miss Delta," and her home was totally destroyed by Katrina and the tornadoes that spawned off the storm. About a year ago she lost her husband, then seven weeks later her son also died. Needless to say, she has endured a lot of pain in her life these past 2 or 3 years. We had some good conversation together, mostly listening to Delta's story of how they got out from Katrina, and how people have helped her. A group from Intercourse PA (not affiliated w Lagniappe Church) started to build her home, but they could not finish it, so Lagniappe Church is taking over the project.

Some prayer concerns for today: Pray for several of our people who have colds and coughs, and who are not feeling well. Pray that they would have strength, and that the whole team would minister to those not feeling well. Please pray for opportunities to continue to talk with Miss Delta and her family. Her grandson who is living with her (about 16 or 18) is eager to help w the house, but he is severely allergic to insulation, so he cannot help until we finish that part of the job.

Thank you for your prayers, and for bearing with us as we have been behind posting new updates and pictures. Lord willing, we will have a fresh update and new pictures tonight, probably after 9:00 PM Eastern time.

pics

more ride down pics

The Ride Down

A couple pics of the ride down, including Briarwood PCA, in Birmingham.

We've Arrived, Safe and Sound, PTL!

Well, we made it - 1170 miles from Lititz to Bay St. Louis. It is now 9:20 PM Central Time (10:20 Eastern), and our time on the road today was just shy of 15 hours. We had two flat tires on Len's van (too much weight from tools, etc, we think), but everything got repaired, and we saw God's hand providing safety during blowouts, tire changes along the highway, good people at Wal-Mart Tire Centers to help, etc, etc.

Thanks for your prayers. We will try to post some pictures tomorrow. Worship here at Lagniappe PCA is 9:30 AM.

Time for bed soon for a tired (physically) team!

Gumby and Clifford are Ready to Roll!

We now have two mascots to accompany our team to Mississippi. Tomorrow (Friday, 2/15) we hope to be on the road by 3:15 pm. Please pray for safe travels, and keep checking back for more pictures of Gumby and Clifford in their many adventures with the team!

Team Commissioned by Church - Final Preparations Under Way

On Sunday, Feb. 10th, the Lagniappe short term team was commissioned by Elder Steve at the worship service. The team was challenged to represent the Lord Jesus Christ faithfully, to be ready to share the gospel in word or deed, and to depend on God's grace for the trip. Steve then prayed for the team's safety on the trip and for ministry effectiveness.

Departure is 3:00 PM from the Johnston home this Friday, Feb. 15.

Check back for pictures of our "mascot" Gumby ("Semper Gumby" everyone!), and perhaps a surprise additional mascot who may be traveling with us as well.