Here is a picture of Mikey and I playing in the volleyball tournament at Coconut Beach a few weeks ago. Unfortunately my photographer wasn't the greatest at taking action shots but you get the picture.















Here is a picture of Anna, Sir Lancelot, and I while we were eating our delicious snowballs after a long day of pulling weeds. This kid was amazing!

Cultural differences, middle schoolers and spiders

I have officially been here for three weeks now and over that time I’ve come to recognize some distinct cultural differences between this city and Seattle. First of all, I must clarify something though. As multiple locals have told me, New Orleans isn’t really “the deep South” as one would stereotypically picture it. It is part of the “urban South,” however most people have told me the city is really kind of its “own country.” Instead of having thick Southern draws when they talk, they have a “Yat” – instead of saying “Where are you at?” they say “Where YAT?” with a mild Southern accent kind of strewn together with an East Coast accent. Some cultural differences have come as quite a surprise. For instance, I heard just today that New Orleans is one of the rainiest cities in the nation. I wouldn’t buy it at first, but after googling it I found that it receives the 3^rd highest amount of annual rainfall a year! I can see why after experiencing some of the rain-filled thunder and lightning storms down here. As it pours, lightning strikes less then a street block away – in fact it even hailed in the 85 degree heat storm today. Nuts, I know.

Another cultural difference I have noticed is that some women wear curlers in their hair around town. The interns and I were shopping in the grocery store and there was an African American lady wearing like 30 aqua blue curlers! It cracked me up for sure. Also, some people down here tag their cars with big brand name logos. One would assume that the owner was getting sponsored to drive around the car, but Mikey informed me that they just do it to get looks – so that people pay attention to their hot ride. For instance, we saw someone driving a new orange Ford Mustang with the Cheetos logo painted all over his car. To me it just looked goofy but I guess it’s a big deal down here. Another thing that is different from Seattle that affects me daily is this whole concept of air conditioning and keeping doors closed in order to keep it from escaping into muggy un-air conditioned parts of the church or house. For example, I’m always going in and out of my room at the Thompsons and every time I leave – even to go to the kitchen for a glass of water – I shut it to prevent my precious cold air from leaking into the hallway. This is just weird sometimes because although privacy is nice, I typically like to keep my door open. Hence, sometimes I feel as if my host family might think I’m secretly dealing drugs outside my bedroom window!

Some of the food down here is of course another big change for me – a pleasant one to be sure. My favorites thus far have been jumbalaya – a spicy dish with chicken, sausage, rice, garlic, and tomatoes; shrimp Po Boy’s – a sub sandwich loaded with fried shrimp, lettuce, tomatoes, and tartar sauce; mufalattas – an amazing sub sandwich with ham and other meats and a thin layer of an olive and onion sauce on top; snowballs – a snow cone on steroids that is served in a styrofoam cup and is stuffed with vanilla ice cream that is a taste of heaven on any hot humid day (my flavor of choice is the wedding cake and strawberry combo); and of course authentic sweet tea which was served with jumbalaya when the interns and I went over to an elderly couples’ house for dinner awhile back. My next goal is to get my hands on some crawfish before the season ends. Finally, I must say the fast food customer service down here is subpar – one truly understands “Louisiana time” when standing in line at a Taco Bell or Wendy’s and watching the pace of the employees. Unbelievably slow!

This week we have had our only middle school work team of the summer here from Baton Rouge – about an hour drive away. Needless to say, middle schoolers are quite different then high schoolers, and this is clearly evident in the general work ethic of the different age groups. On Monday, which was the team’s first work day, we worked in the lower Ninth Ward where we were clearing (weeds/brush from) resident’s empty lots all day so that they wouldn’t be fined by the government. Typically our high school groups would work all day resting to get water when necessary, but working fairly constantly for the whole day. In less than 10 minutes, the middle school boys were picking up long weeds they had pulled and running around hitting each other with the dirt clumped roots on the ends of the weeds like a bunch of hooligans. The middle school girls worked harder than the boys at times, but had to ask the leaders to make the 20 minute drive to the bathroom like 4 separate times. Then, in the afternoon between 1pm-2pm all but 5 of the 25 person team were sitting in the vans or in the shade of the trees seemingly exhausted after their first morning of work. Clearly motivation and focus was a problem. For example, I gave a kid a can of ant-killer and he walked around for over a half an hour looking for random fire ant hills to demolish. Or take the time when I gave a kid a pick-axe to chop down a tree. He and 10 of his middle school friends spent half an hour watching one another hack at a tree. Geez, these kids really need to learn about effectiveness and efficiency. There was also the time yesterday when I was scraping the paint off of a house on an extension ladder quite high (I’ll leave the actual height out of it for my mother’s sake) off the ground and the kid who was supposed to be holding my ladder simply walked away to go and talk to a friend. That fall wouldn’t have been too fun.

Then there was Lance. This scrawny soon to be seventh grader happens to be the most attention-needy child I’ve ever seen. There are many stories to tell but I’ll limit myself to two. On Monday, when we were pulling weeds, Lance comes up to me ten minutes after we have started working with a bottle of sunscreen in his hands and in an innocent and sincere voice asks “Hey could you put some lotion on my legs for me?”. Dumbfounded, I paused for a few seconds wanting to make sure I fully understood what had just happened – a middle school aged boy just asked me for assistance applying sunscreen to his legs. I mean if we were at the beach and he needed it on his back or something I would understand. But his legs? Strange. Anyways, I held back a laugh, suggested that he sit down on the curb and put it on himself (I’m that mean I know), and Anna, my fellow intern who had overheard his request, proceeded to lather up his legs as he helplessly stood amongst the weeds. A second “Lance moment” happened Wednesday morning in Fellowship Hall when I was telling the team what we would be doing that morning. I was warning them about the poison ivy that we would run into in City Park, and Lance eagerly raised his hand to comment. In front of the 25 of us, he first proclaimed that not everyone was allergic to poison ivy. Then, to make sure we believed him he proved it to us by telling a brief story: “This one time my brother and I were swinging on a poison ivy vine and afterward he got poisoned and I didn’t!” Evidently not everyone needs to fear the dreaded poison ivy. (I’m working on getting a picture of Lance, it will be coming shortly don’t worry.)

Finally, another big event that happened this week was Mikey got bit on his right calf by a poisonous Brown Recluse spider last Friday. Initially he thought it was just a large bug bite, but then the pain and swelling came. He waited two days hoping the swelling would go down but after limping around on Monday morning at work, he got to a point where he couldn’t even walk and had to sit in the truck the rest of the afternoon. When we got back to the church, Mikey ran into Sam Thompson (the father of the boys I am living with) who was working on the church. Sam happens to be a registered nurse. Sam told him he needed to be in the hospital yesterday and quickly took Mikey over to our house where he got a sterilized safety pin and tweezers and popped a hole in the epicenter of the bulging bite. I’ll spare you the details of this painful purging but basically a lot of poisonous pus was removed as Mikey let out multiple yelps of discomfort. Afterwards he said that this hurt more than the multiple times he had dislocated his knee playing soccer. Ouch! While this little operation did help the swelling go down initially, Mikey woke up the next morning and couldn’t walk. He ended up going to the doctor who gave him a bunch of shots and antibiotics and told him to stay off of his leg for the next three days. So Mikey’s a little under the weather to say the least, though on Thursday he was feeling much better. He goes to see the doctor again tomorrow, and our hope is that he will be able to accompany us to Florida tomorrow night.

Oh yah, I forgot to mention we’re going to Pensacola, Florida for the weekend as the start of our week off! It’s about a four hour drive, but I look forward to white sand, naps on the beach, and body surfing. Maybe there will even be some volleyball nets. Unfortunately we won’t have a pool because us poor college kids on ministry salaries can’t afford hotels and are staying in a local church’s youth room, but the possibility of “pool hopping” is definitely an option.

I’ll update more after our adventure in the Sunshine State. = )

God truly has a sense of humor...

(I'm miserable at short blog posts... sorry!)

While this internship has me working a crazy amount of hours – 55-60 most weeks – we thankfully get the entire week of the 4^th of July off and also enjoy a few long weekends. This past weekend (June 13-15) happened to be one of those long weekends. Our team from Chicago left Saturday morning and the Yakima team came in Tuesday morning. Therefore, since I knew we would have both Saturday and Sunday afternoons off, I decided to ask Mikey, the 25 year-old intern I work with, if he would want to go play volleyball at the local beach by Lake Pontchartrain that he had told me about during one of the first days I was here. Now I hadn’t told Mikey or the other interns how much I had played over the past couple of years, and for those reading this who haven’t heard or who have forgotten, I was quite the volleyball junkie.

To refresh your memory, I was the kid who played indoor volleyball 3-4 times a week during my sophomore year and spent all last summer networking my way up the ladder at Alki Beach and Golden Gardens by playing 5-6 days a week after work. This meant that I was playing oh, around 25 hours a week! Yet as far as volleyball was concerned, the time invested and dedication to the sport did pay off in regards to the fact that I won two tournaments at Alki Beach, and towards the end of the summer was playing with the most elite beach volleyball players in Seattle over at guys’ houses who had spent around $30,000 to put sand courts in their backyards.

Throughout last summer I had multiple friends confront me with questions like “Kyle, do you think you should be playing this much volleyball?” or “Kyle, where are you serving the body of Christ?” Each time I would confidently explain to them that I had a “ministry of presence” on the volleyball court which in some respects was partially true, (I did have some discussions about my faith, Jesus, the Bible, etc.) but the fact of the matter was that I had taken volleyball, something morally neutral, and made it an enormous idol in my life. I had taken a good thing and made it an Ultimate thing. I didn’t fully come to grips with this until Steve Sakanashi, with the help of a couple of sermons from Matt Chandler (!), ended up tearing me apart with Scripture (For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow – Hebrews 4:12) one night early last Fall after I had told Steve my plans to play 3-4 times a weeks with the beach players. One of the big things Steve said was that in the story of Abraham and Isaac, I was like Abraham and Isaac was like volleyball (bear with me with the simile), and just like Abraham was willing to sacrifice to follow God, I must lay down volleyball. So make a long story short, the Holy Spirit convicted the heck out of me and I ended up surrendering volleyball to God by stepping out in faith and trusting that He would have something better for me that would bring Him glory (as opposed to me), or He would give the sport back to me. In doing so I had the most amazing nine months of spiritual growth ever and ended up pursuing this Louisiana internship – neither of which would have happened if I had played volleyball all year long and into this summer in Seattle.

So, now jumping back to last Friday when I asked Mikey if we could go check out the beach the next day, it turned out that there just so happened to be a doubles tournament going on at 4pm on Saturday afternoon that he wanted to sign up for (he has played a little indoor and outdoor 4’s and 6’s but not a lot of doubles). Now initially I hesitated because I hadn’t played in nine months and I was a little nervous about falling back into idolatry. But then I remembered Steve’s words about surrendering volleyball to God and stepping out in faith and trusting that He would have something better for me that would bring Him glory, or He would give it back. And, while I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, I felt like one day of volleyball wouldn’t hurt (after all I was making this decision on my birthday, Friday the 13^th!). So Mike and I went to the beach to sign up on Friday night, and since I had never been there before I didn’t know what to expect. When we got there I was immediately blown away! It turned out being a volleyball complex with 22 courts that had lights so that you can play at night, and the best part about it was that it was free to the public. Plus the complex had beautiful imported sand, was protected from the wind, and the nets were always up (in Seattle I had to bring my own net and lines, the sand was grainy and hard on the feet with bottle caps/broken glass/sticks, and the wind was often blowing). This complex, called Coconut Beach, happens to be the largest lighted beach volleyball facility in the entire United States!

Anyways, Mike and I showed up on Saturday about an hour before the tournament started and I used the time to coach him on a bunch of tips I had gathered from last summer (I actually was a true student of the game and had a few pages of “tips and techniques” I had learned saved on my computer). There were 8 teams in our division and we played 3 games to 25 in the humid weather. We won all three – one was a blow out and the other two were within 5 points. Then we played in the semi-final and fought back from an 11-16 deficit to win 25-20. By this time the sun had gone down and we played for the championship under the lights which was a match – best two out of three. We won the first game by 4 and the second by about 10! As prizes we both got our choice of board shorts, shirts or a $45 King of the Beach volleyball. Mikey picked a shirt and I of course had to go for the ball (this was ironic because I really debated whether or not to bring a ball from home down here when I flew in, and had decided against it).

So I’ve written all of the above because I believe that I have really experienced the faithfulness of God in this area of my life. Volleyball to me was Everything and it was becoming more of a lifestyle than a fun pastime. At the end of last summer I was already worried about how I would be able to get an internship this summer that would enable me to get to the beach by 4pm each day so I could meet my 25 hour a week quota. But instead of worrying about that, I stopped playing altogether and chose to pursue Christ and His will for my life, which led me to take an internship thousands of miles away from the only place I thought I would be able to play this summer. To my surprise, I have found myself living a 10 minute drive away from the largest lit beach volleyball complex in the US where more than 4,000 people play per week! This time around, however, God has drastically altered my priorities. Last summer it was almost no ministry and 25 hours of volleyball a week. This summer its 55-60 hours of ministry and a few hours of volleyball. Last summer, I lived with my hand clutched tightly around volleyball telling God that He could do whatever He wanted with my life, but volleyball was a nonnegotiable – something I wouldn’t give up. This summer I live with volleyball in an open hand, knowing that it is a good gift that God has given me for this season of my life, and also knowing well that it will be taken away when I head to China for 3 months this Fall Quarter. Furthermore, the beauty of it is that my situation has a built-in anti-idolatry plan – I’m working so much that I will only be able to play a few times a week, and even if I wanted to play more I don’t have a car and therefore have no way to get to the beach. So in surrendering my will for God's will and trusting Him with my life I have found that He provided an awesome internship that allows me to serve Him in being His hands and feet doing relief work in a hurting city, but He has also provided a healthy dose of my favorite sport on the side! Comical if you ask me. :)

One team down, seven to go...

Our first church work-team from Palos Park, Chicago left us this past Saturday. I know they were only the first team, but I was bummed to see them go. Their leaders, high school kids, and cook were incredible. I had over 30 of 38 names down and had had individual conversations with most of the group. One of the most beneficial and important conversations I had was with one of their leaders named Grant who was the group’s worship leader and actually had done the internship down here last summer. He gave me some advice that I will hold onto and at times cling to during this summer. He said something along the lines of:

“Remember your purpose and vision – look for Jesus in the eyes of the people you are serving – look at those people and remember what Jesus says in Matthew 25:34-40 –

34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' 37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' 40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Remember this or you will lose sight of what you are serving for and it will be a long, hot, sweaty summer. Also, learn to love people. Learn to love each team. It will be hard. There will be teams that will want nothing to do with you but you still have to work with them. Learn to love them regardless of how they treat you.”

Grant’s words hit home, and Jesus’ message in Matthew will stick with me throughout the remainder of my time here. Apart from getting some sound advice, I was also really trying to hone my Chicago accent. Joking around with the girls who say “hot” like “haot!” was hilarious. Their impressions of my “accent” were even funnier. Every time they tried to impersonate me they just sounded like a polite British woman.This next group coming in tonight is from Yakima, WA. There are 25 of them so it will be smaller than Palos Park’s 38, but we will still have our hands full. Thankfully after an extended weekend I am rested and ready to roll.

Finally, I must say the thunder and lightning storms are crazy here. I was attempting to sleep in on Sunday morning before church, but was rudely interrupted well before my alarm was supposed to go off by an eruption of thunder that literally sounded like a bomb had just exploded a block away. I rolled over to look towards the two windows in my room which are about 5 feet from my bed. The blinds over the windows prevent me from seeing anything outside, and only let a couple of slivers of light in. When the lightning hit however, it was like a camera flash had somehow dispersed and slipped its way through the 3-4 millimeter slivers to light up my room. Three times I began to count to see how far away it was, and three times I went “one thous…” BOOM! I couldn’t even count a full second before the explosions came and I felt like our neighborhood was being bombed. So much for sleeping in on my Sabbath!

Monday was our first day actually doing relief work. I got to the church around 7am to meet with Candace, Anna, and Mike in order to plan for our day and run through some general information we needed to announce the to group before heading out to the site. A few things we stressed was the importance of not only working hard on what we were doing, but also taking the time to engage with the victims we are helping. To listen to their story, sympathize with them, and pray with them if appropriate. We talked through general safety with equipment, what to do in emergencies, and probably most important the necessity of drinking loads of water. I guess last summer some people got heat stroke and a girl fainted on a ladder (she was okay). We didn't want any repeats and we reminded people to work at their own pace and to take breaks when necessary.

After our little spiel we had some volunteers help us load up all of the tools (shovels, rakes, weedwackers, a lawnmower etc) and we headed out. Our task for the day was clearing out 3-4 foot high tall grass and shrubbery for full street blocks at a time that once were houses before they were almost completely underwater 3 years ago when a barge slammed through the canal wall only a few hundred yards away causing water to gush into the entire city district. This area, called the lower 9th Ward, was where many of the Hurricane's 1700+ fatalities occurred as people were unable to escape the enormous tidal wave. In order to do the work, we teamed with a local organization called NEMA that is trying to restore this area. The primary reason for clearing all the grass and shrubs is because if the homeowners (now lot owners) don't keep up their property the government has the right to fine them and eventually seize the land.

Some obstacles and distractions we ran into in the process were fire ant hills, wasp nests, and lizards. In the middle of the thick tall grass we came across 5-6 ant hills which housed thousands of these tiny red ants. If one of these little buggers happen to find their way onto an arm or leg, they will sick their teeth into you which is surprisingly painful and leads to hours of itching and a relatively big lump that looks like a pimple. I bravely (or foolishly) was in charge of eradicating these hills with ant killer spray and ended up with 5-6 lumps on my arms and legs. It really wasn't pleasant. Another problem was wasps. Someone would be peacefully pulling weeds and suddenly out of the ground a handful of hornets would erupt and fly among our group. I wisely delegated the eradication of their nests to Mike who did wonderfully and no one was stung all day (though today, Wednesday, three of us got stung out in that field including myself!) Lizards, on the other hand, were really harmless but distracting to a bunch of testosterone-filled high school boys.

Monday was also the first feeling of being "cold" or getting the shivers since I've been here. It was one of those freak 3pm rainy thunderstorms common in Louisiana that was there for 10 minutes and then gone, but it was enough to remind me of home. By the end of the work day we had successfully cleared almost 7 house lots with our 40 workers and saved those homeowners from fines or loss of property. With the high grass and shrubs gone they can now maintain their property by simply mowing it a couple of times a month. The other interns and I will be taking work teams to the lower 9th Ward all summer.

On Tuesday we split the group up into 4 groups. One group went and installed insulation into a large house, another group did some work at one of the church members houses (yardwork, moving furniture, etc) as well as work at our church. A third group painted and scraped some hardwood floors that will be refinished, and my group painted the outside of a house and helped a church member named Dennis (the homeowner) do demo work on his kitchen. This included moving out old furniture from his living room and a variety of things from his storage room and rotting timber from his back yard into a large dumpster he had rented

I think all of the groups enjoyed this work better than yard work A. because yard work can just suck sometimes especially when you're under the hot sun, and B. because they had personal contact and discussions with the tenants who were being helped. In fact, I was over with the people who were scraping floors at the beginning of the day when our church's relief ministry contractor named Jerry Dickson (an awesome African American man who is a pastor of a small church in Mississippi on the weekends and a contractor in New Orleans during the week) was showing them what they were doing that day. While I was there, 3 of the homeowners who happened to be family members were home (living in the unaffected upstairs). They were very grateful and probably said how much they "appreciate y'all comin' down here to work" probably 10 times in ten minutes! They wanted to take some pictures with us and so we did and later on I heard that they stayed to help do some of the work as well.

Today, Wednesday, we were back in the lower 9th Ward picking weeds. It was a pretty successful day though many of the kids were much more tired then they were on Monday so it went slower. We also ran into a thunderstorm on our way back to church and it rained harder than I've ever seen it rain probably anywhere. Thankfully it was a warm rain and once we got back, the high schoolers were out sliding around in giant grassy mud puddles having a blast. I opted to go home and take a shower instead.

Alright, I'm off to have spaghetti at the church. I'll update more later in the week!

Week 1 - Getting "Orientated"

Alright so I promise to not be so long-winded and detailed in other posts, but I thought writing so much was worthwhile to explain the first few days! Bear with me.

So I left on a plane for New Orleans on Thursday June 5th at 8:10am after a night of saying goodbye to my sister and close friends in the SPU dorms and around campus - many of whom I unfortunately won't see until January 2009 because I will be in China in the Fall. I said goodbye to the parents around 6:30am, and surprisingly my Mom didn't sob and make a scene by the security gate - good job Mom! After waiting in the terminal for about half an hour, I popped a Bonine to help prevent that good old nauseated motion sickness that accompanies me while flying.

When I got on the plane I was excited to see that I scored an exit row with plenty of leg room. I also happened to have an aisle seat and there was only one other passenger in my row who happened to have a New Orleans Saint's sweatshirt on. This 27 year old guy named James turned out to have grown up in New Orleans out on a swamp, but had lived in the Queen Anne area the past 3 years. We began talking and I instantly had a connection with him since he was in SPU's backyard, and he also was a huge fan of English futbol (something I have gotten more interested in this year).

Anyways, we ended up talking for the majority of the flight to Houston and he gave me some pointers on where to eat, what to eat, and where to visit. He also told me of his hunting days where he and his friends captured and or killed water moccasins (poisonous snakes) and on one occasion snagged an alligator with a fishing rod (which didn't turn out too well).

The descent into Houston was pretty rough. I nearly lost the granola I had for breakfast but rapidly chewing gum and constant prayer was enough to hold on. Once we were on the ground in Houston I felt nauseous, light headed, and hungry so I solved the problem by enjoying some good old Texas BBQ. I only had about an hour layover to brace myself and my stomach for the next short flight to New Orleans. This flight was only an hour but it was also a little choppy and the descent almost forced me to exhale the $5.50 pork sandwich I had recently inhaled. A combination of gum and Jesus pulled through again.

Once in the airport I got a phone call from the three other interns who were there to pick me up in baggage claim. To be honest I was a little nervous about first impressions considering I had gotten 3 1/2 hours of sleep the night before, no sleep in the air, had felt nauseated for the past few hours and would soon be walking out into the humid 90 degree weather. Thankfully, however, Candace, Anna, and I had been sending messages over face book over the last week and so meeting them wasn't awkward at all. We already had some inside jokes and even Mikey, the other male intern, was in on them.

I had arrived around 5pm so the first place we headed was out to dinner at a fast food restaurant called Po Boys. I quickly learned that Candace has her car down here all summer which is both a blessing and a curse. It obviously is essential for us to do our job, but on the other hand it means that Mikey and I are stuck listening to loud rap music the majority of the time in the car. At least it has air conditioning!

Po Boy's ended up being a staple fast food joint specializing in fried chicken and rice and beans and "Po Boys" which are traditional Louisiana sub sandwiches. The food was fatty but my system welcomed it after the flying. Next we headed to my host family's house. The Thompson's live literally about a 3 minute walk from the church which is going to make for a marvelous commute at 6:57am. The family has two boys. Greg is 16 and David is 18. When we arrived, we got a brief tour of the house and they showed me where my room was. It turns out the boys were willing to give me their room for the summer and will sleep in the basement. This means that I have the only air conditioned bedroom in the house and they will be sleeping downstairs where 4 1/2 feet of water from Katrina forced them to tear out all of the sheet rock and carpet because of the mold. Four days in, I'm sure not what to think about this. Their hospitality and sacrifice is amazing and humbling but I feel like a jerk by kicking them out of their own room. The other interns reminded me that they offered to host me and for that I am very grateful. Perhaps on the extremely humid nights I will convince them to come sleep in the A/C. (To give you a picture of how hot it is in the house, I started to glisten just sitting around, and when I was unloading my luggage without the AC on around 11:30pm I was nearly dripping with sweat. Even the chocolate chips in my trail mix melted - not quite Seattle and 60!)

When I first arrived, their eldest son David was up in Washington D.C. for the week but Greg was around. We immediately hit it off and we are already joking like we've known each other for years. David just returned today from D.C. so we just met but I'm excited to get to know both of them better. Their parents, Jeannette and Sam are also great people. Sam works construction and is very sarcastic and its hard to know when to take him seriously, but he keeps me on my toes and I enjoy his humor. Jeannette is a librarian at Tulane and I have had some good conversations with her so far about college advice for her sons, among other things.

After dropping off my luggage at the house we headed to the church. The four of us interns have our own room which is where they hold children's church on Sunday mornings. It has a great air conditioner that I have already grown to love. After briefly stopping by the church we headed over to the house where Candace and Anna are staying. They live in a newly remodeled basement with their own rooms, bathroom, and kitchen, and built in air conditioning. The house is pretty awesome. It even has a gate around it and an intense alarm system. The couple that owns the house is probably in their early 30's and they have a three year old son. Furthermore, the girls were house sitting until yesterday. All went well until the Friday night which is when "Fishy" the 1 1/2 year, ten cent gold fish jumped out of his tank during the night and died! The host family was legitimately not pleased, but we all find it hilarious. They bought them a similar looking fish and Ronan (the 3 year old), shouldn't know the difference

Anyways, this night we also went to the heart of the city which is French Quarter. Here I enjoyed a beignet (an amazing french-style pastry with powdered sugar) and their signature Cafe Au Lait coffee. We also walked around the city which is quite happenin' at night. I'll explain more later.

After this my fellow interns returned me to the Thompson's where I crashed after a very long, eventful day. I slept a much needed 9 1/2 hours and woke up refreshed and ready to be "orientated" (this is what Anna accidentally said when trying to say "oriented") which is what Friday mainly consisted of. It was here that I got a full tour of the church. I also learned here that the church, which I thought would be about 100-200 members was actually only about 50! Quite small compared to Westminster Chapel and Mars Hill from back home. The girls ran me through most of the basics for the job. Most of which would be tedious to write out. As I've told most people, basically we are in charge of lining up work for the church groups that come down every week to do relief work. It turns out the gym has a basketball court as well and so we will also be hosting a basketball camp and a week of Vacation Bible school which will be mixed in with the work the church groups will be doing.

Also on Friday, Mike and I took one of the church's trucks and helped a missionary family move some furniture. Paul and his wife had three young boys and they were living in a trailer by a church for 19 months that was literally 25 yards away from the interstate. It was insane how small it was. Their new house was ten times better but still about a third the size of a normal house. Nevertheless, they were very grateful to move and thankful for our help.

On Saturday we did some prep work for our first work team who arrived at 8:30pm. They are from Chicago and have a team of 38 and will be our second largest team of the summer! The work teams sleep in the upstairs of the church on air mattresses that we provide for them. Most teams bring their own cook who utilizes the church's kitchen. The other interns and I introduced ourselves to the group and Candace, who is the Team Leader because she was an intern last year, led them on a tour of the church. We answered their questions and then left them for the night. (This team had been here before so they knew what was going on.)

This morning the Chicago team put on a huge pancake and sausage BBQ on the front lawn of our church which is right on Canal Street - a fairly busy street with three lanes of traffic on either side. Their high school students made signs for free pancakes and we served probably a good 400 pancakes and 200 sausages to church members and people in the community who saw the signs and wanted a free meal.

Church started at 10:30pm. With the 38 volunteers with us, there were probably about 90 people who attended. Just before the service started I finally met Pastor Mike Hogg who had happened to be out of town the past three days. We talked briefly and he said we'd get coffee this coming week, and then he introduced me to the congregation at the beginning of the service. The service was fairly traditional. They have some modern worship but also sing hymns throughout the service. Pastor Mike is simply preaching through the entire Bible and the congregation all uses the Daily Bible which is a version that has everything in chronological order from beginning to end. He was preaching through 1 Kings this morning. Another neat thing at the service was that they took about 10 minutes for people in the congregation to share what God was doing in their lives and then another 10 minutes for people to pray aloud as they were led. Definitely different then the churches I grew up going to but very intimate and genuine.

After church we took the work team on a disaster tour which was primarily led by Candace, but in the weeks to come will also be led by myself and the other interns as we become more familiar with the facts and the stories. I will write more of this in the time to come. Tomorrow we will tackle our first day at the job. It looks like the weeks will be exhausting, as Candace told us today that we (the interns) typically work from 7am-6pm. We meet an hour before we join the church group to plan and pray and then will be busy until dinner time. I'll clarify specifics later as well. For now I'm just glad I have done 2 summers of concrete construction because I know the endurance I had there will be needed here for 11 hour days!