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EYC Mission Trip to New Orleans
The trip is complete, but the memories and our impact remains
Saturday Evening - The team has safely arrived and checked in. We're
staying at St. Augustine's Episcopal Church. They host a lot of groups
like ours that are there to help with the restoration of the city.
Sunday - After morning worship at St. Augustine's, we hit some sites...
Oak Alley Plantation is
an historic plantation built in 1837 and located on the Mississippi River. It
is protected as a National Historic Landmark. It is named after its
distinguishing feature, an alley of a double row of live oaks about
240-meter long, which was planted in the early 18th century, long before the
present house was built. The alley leads towards the Mississippi River.
  
Swamp Tour - No trip to Louisiana would be complete without the
required Swamp Tour.
Our
guide called the gators to the boat by name. The Big One you see is "Max".
He's 14 ft long.
  
Monday - Now the work begins! Guys and Katie built two air conditioning platforms from
scratch and installed them 10 ft in air to keep people from stealing the
compressors (and their copper). Girls caulked and painted a different house.
The team is working on a total of three houses.
  
  
Tuesday - Today we continued
caulking and taping up the houses to prepare for them to be painted later
this week. After a hard day of work, the volunteer coordinator from the
Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana's Office of Disaster Response took us on a
tour of some of the devastated areas. We visited the Seventh Ward, Gentilly,
and the Upper and Lower Ninth Ward. Seeing the destruction put our work into
the larger context of the post-Katrina recovery effort and helped us
understand how much work is left to be done.
  
  
Wednesdays have been deemed half-days on the worksite in order to
give volunteers a break and enjoy the city. We worked on our houses in the
morning, taping the walls, digging holes for water meters, and building
fences. We then took a trip to the IMAX theater in the French Quarter to see
"Hurricane on the Bayou" (http://www.hurricaneonthebayou.com/html/),
a film about Louisiana's disappearing wetlands, rich musical heritage, and
the effects of Hurricane Katrina on both. Afterward, we picnicked in
Woldenberg the Mississippi Riverfront and took a walk through the French
Market and Jackson Square. In the evening, we headed to St. Anna's Episcopal
Church for a fairly "high church" Anglo-Catholic worship service accompanied
by a gospel singer. It was an interesting mix of traditions only possible in
New Orleans. The service was followed by a community supper and jam session
with local musicians. The community supper is part of St. Anna's Mission to
Musicians. You can read more about it on their webpage:
http://www.stannanola.org/musician.htm.
  
  
Thursday - Today our group split into two teams. The boys started the
day building fences and installing cabinets in our houses while the
girls did outreach ministry. This primary involved walking around the
neighborhood near our worksite, picking up trash, doing yard work and
interacting with local folks. We spoke with quite a few people who were very
appreciative of our time and effort rebuilding the city.. After lunch, the
boys continued working on site while the girls headed over to St. George's
Episcopal Church to help with their feeding ministry.. We worked with a
group of volunteers from California to prepare a meal for about 150 people
of all ages and income levels. After getting drenched in a thunderstorm, the
guys joined the girls at St. George's for dinner and socializing with the
locals. We had a wonderful time meeting new people and hearing their
stories.
  
  
Friday was our final
day of volunteering. We spent the morning on our worksite with the girls
doing community outreach and trash pickup while the boys dug holes and
installed posts for stair railing. At lunch, we headed down the street
to the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana's office for our debrief session
with the volunteer coordinator. We talked about our experience, what we
learned from the trip, and the lessons we will take home with us. It was
a great opportunity to reflect on our time here.
After our debriefing, we went back to the worksite where we gave the
folks from Jericho Road and Crossroads Missions the $350 Home Depot gift
card made possible by generous donations from our CGS parishioners. They
were appreciative and assured us that our gift would be very helpful in
purchasing much needed construction items for the site. In the
afternoon, the boys headed to St. George's to help prepare food for the
community supper while the girls stayed on the worksite to do some
sanding. A big rainstorm rolled in, and the girls took the opportunity
to play in it. In the evening, we met back up at St. George's for dinner
and more hanging out with locals. We finished off the day moving into
our hotel in the Central Business District and playing in the rooftop
pool overlooking the New Orleans skyline. It has been a great week of
hard work, and we are all looking forward to a day of fun and
sightseeing before returning home!
  
  
Saturday was our fun day in the city!
We started the morning off with a wholesome breakfast of beignets (French
doughnuts) at Cafe Du Monde, which inevitably ended with powdered sugar all
over everything. After getting cleaned up, we headed off on a tour of the
French Quarter. Our guide told us all about the history, architecture and
culture of the oldest part of the city. We ended the tour on the levees of
the Mississippi. Everyone was pretty exhausted after walking around, so we
settled in for a long lunch at Cafe Maspero. The crew tried their fair share
of crawfish etouffe, gumbo, po boys and other traditional Louisiana food. We
rounded out the afternoon with some free time and shopping before heading
back to the hotel. Tonight everyone decided to hang out at the hotel and get
some much needed rest before our morning flight. We'll see you back in
Raleigh!
  
  
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