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!