Tuesday August 24 - Day 4
Jeremy, one of our more outgoing leaders who os sitting beside me is really bugging me for some kind of shoutout. So here you go jer- You are amazing!
This update will be quite short as today was a Work day similar to yesterday.
Today we painted and painted and painted with our group. Other groups were Building decks, gardening, and tiling.
Today it was hot! So hot that Alex and I (Aaron) got heat stroke...In an air conditioned home. We ended working together in the house and just after lunch we both realized that we had no energy, we both had headaches, which I still have tonight. So we sat and under a fan for a about 20mins then came to realize that we needed to cool down. So we filled our water bottles with ice cold water and poured it over oursleves. We soon felt 100% better being drenched in water. We got ourselves some gatoraide and rehydrated. Our group got to head back to the compound at 3 to shower up. Tonight we have mostly recovered. Everyone is feeling the heat tonight as there is only a handful of is awake at 9:30pm. Everyone has gone to bed...except I just looked over to see an eruption of laughter - Alex and Megan are playing a game.
On a side note. I mentoned yesterday that we took a tour of the town to look at the left over destruction. The foundations that were left behind had numbers on the proporty, on trees, and what not. We thought that they were house numbers but couldn't figure out how random they were. We were told today that those numbers were how many people were in that house when it was destroyed. The numbers are how many people had died. Weird how those numbers remain five years later.
Tomorrow we'll head back to jim's house for another day of painting.
LESM, the organization we are with will be closing ts doors for good this week. We are the last team to ever serve with them. We are trying our best to help finish all projects in three days. Let's hope we can!!!!
More tomorrow. Off to bed.
Wednesday August 25 - Day 5
Okay so my updates I think for the next two days will be reperative. Our days seem to be getting shorter and shorter with little time for any real exciting updates.
Our work site is coming along Nicely. We have graduated from painting to scraping floors to get ready for the tiles. Last night we attempted to go to the beach to swim but as we got there the water was infected with jellyfish, which most people did not feel comfortable swimming in. So we sat at the beach and just relaxed.
We seem to be going to bed earlier each night, I guess we are putting in a good hard days work. We head to New Orleans on Friday, I think everyone is looking forward to sleeping in a good comfy bed and swimming.
I'll try and make my last work update exciting- but no promises....
More tomorrow!
Thursday August 26 - Day 6
So today was great! Our work team graduated from painting to laying cement board in the kitchen of jim's house. After we leave some of the the staff will be sticking around to lay tile. Tomorrow is our las day so we are hoping to have all the cement board done. After work today we headed over the University is southen Mississippi to see a 500 year old oak tree called 'the friendship tree', it survived the hurricane. After that we came bak for dinner. Between being back and dinner one of our team members lost a toe nail in a basketball game. We are trying to avoid the US medical system to we have taped it down hoping we can make it back to Canada to get looked at.
After dinner we headed to walmart. Possibly a mistake... I am currently looking at hoards of pop and candy. Yikes!
Alex and I did buy some boiled peanuts and shared a southern treat. Not sure how we feel about them yet. They taste like a mixture of chick peas and kidney beans.
Well, bed time hopfully the sugar high won't keep people up for long.
Heading to new Orleans tomorrow to fly out on saturday.
More tomorrow!
The Friendship Oak
A campus building, abandoned after the storm
Left virtually untouched after KatrinaSaturday August 28 - Day 8
So our last was pretty good! We finished up our worksite and got some pictures of our team with Jim and his family. We we're the first team to finish early because we ran out of mortor, so after lunch we did a massive clean up of the house and said goodbye. The after was very relaxing at the compound.
Right before dinner he headed to Pass Christian (small coastal town) to find Mississippi's oldest tree. We found the 1000 year old oak tree that rivaled the friendship tree we saw the day before.
We left Bay St Louis in another storm. Although when we left it was just raining.
We're back in New Orleans now and will spend the morning by the pool. Perhaps some will head to the mall.
It's been a good although lots of people are tired and cranky, maybe a good night's sleep will help.
Our team at the 1,000 year old oak - enormous tree!
So our last was pretty good! We finished up our worksite and got some pictures of our team with Jim and his family. We we're the first team to finish early because we ran out of mortor, so after lunch we did a massive clean up of the house and said goodbye. The after was very relaxing at the compound.
Right before dinner he headed to Pass Christian (small coastal town) to find Mississippi's oldest tree. We found the 1000 year old oak tree that rivaled the friendship tree we saw the day before.
We left Bay St Louis in another storm. Although when we left it was just raining.
We're back in New Orleans now and will spend the morning by the pool. Perhaps some will head to the mall.
It's been a good although lots of people are tired and cranky, maybe a good night's sleep will help.
Our team at the 1,000 year old oak - enormous tree!
Danielle's work team with finished product at the house in Pass ChristianSo there you have our updates throughout the week! Wrapping up the trip and coming home was an interesting experience - as we left, the Gulf was preparing to recognize the fifth anniversary of the storm. Seeing images on TV of incredible devastation in many of the areas that we worked in was a tough thing. We also closed out the ministry and incredible work of Mission on the Bay, who have been working on rebuilding homes and restoring hope since Katrina first devastated the coast. Our crew was featured on a couple of local news casts that you can see here and here. It was a bittersweet farewell; we were excited to return to our homes and towns, but left with a sense of helplessness, knowing that we had done all that we could, but that there was still an immense amount of work that needed to be done. We will be meeting with the Collingwood team later this week to debrief our experience, and preparing to share stories amongst our team and to their families, an exciting chance to see the impact that this trip has had on their lives. If we are able, I will hopefully post some stories and reaction from our youth team. An incredible experience, and one that blew me away in ways I wasn't expecting.
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