What a trip!

Our last day was spent worshipping in the Superdome and then we explored the French Quarter.  We capped our night off with a ghost tour in the French Quarter.  It was an incredible trip and I am so happy that I got to spend my week with 3 great youth.  They made the trip exciting and fun and I can only help they come back as renewed in spirit as I did.

Jackson Square - We met Ryan, Dan and Karen, who toured the French Quarter with us.

We checked out a few stores.

Then we went on a Ghost Tour in the French Quater, it actually gave us a lot of historical facts about the city and how it was settled

Sandra Bollock house (we also saw Brad & Angies' place, Francis Ford Coppalla's and Nick Cage's)

We shared our last meal in the Big Easy on Bourbon Street at the Cajun Cabin

I also want to share some links to the speakers we listened to during our week.

Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber

Shane Claiborne

Leymah Gbowee

Jesus Loves Me

You can check all the videos here:

ELCA 2012 Youth Gathering Videos

Really, I promise to update with more pictures from our last day tonight!

I was exhausted yesterday and chose sleep over the blog last night.  I promise will will update with pictures from our last day and some of our thoughts and links to the speakers we heard from.

Homeward Bound

I did not get a chance to update the blog yesterday.  I promise I will when I get home tonight.  We were out & about on a Ghost Tour of the French Quarter until 10, then enjoyed a late dinner and headed back to the hotel to pack.

Yesterday's service was wonderful.  Imagine sharing communion with 33,309 of your closest friends. It's amazing!

We also learned that we will be headed to Detroit in 2015.  Look out Motor City the "orange shirts" are preparing to invade.

We are sitting in the New Orleans airport waiting to board our flight, tired, happy and fulfilled with a renewed spirit.

Day 4 - Practice Peacemaking

Hi All,

Today we learned about Peacemaking.  We started our day off at the convention center with a worship service that rocked!  But the best part, we didn't have to be there until 10:30am so WE SLEPT IN!!!

After that we headed down into the Interaction area.  We dropped off CtK's ELCA World Hunger check to the 100 Wells project that World Hunger is sponsoring.  We then got to build our own well.



Then we headed off to the French Quarter to sightsee.  A quick trip on the trolley and we were off to Cafe Du Monde!  A visit to the mask store and then yes, a trip down the famed Bourbon Street.  We actually stopped to have lunch at a great restaurant on Bourbon Street.  Erik got the taste of New Orleans platter, Red Beans & Rice, Gumbo, Crawfish Etoufee and Jambalaya and a side of fried catfish.  He loved it.

Tonight in the dome we heard from Rev. Andrena Ingram.  She was great.  She was homeless. She thought she was going to die from AIDS. Now she is an ELCA pastor and AIDS activist who shared her story with us.  She reminded us that even though we are all "strange" God loves us just as we are.

The evening capped off with Switchfoot playing in the dome and then we moved over the Hyatt for dancing and partying with lots of other Lutherans. 

Tomorrow we will be worshiping with 33,309 of our closest Lutheran friends.  :-)

Day 3 - Rain, rain go away!!!

We are learning to make the best of the rainy weather and have a good time.  Today was Practice Discipleship.  We gathered at the Marriott with the rest of the NE Synod.  We worshiped with Bishop Payne and then worked our way through the 7 Faith Practices.  We only made it thru 5...

We only made it thru 5 because there where more severe thunderstorms in the area and they had to release us early.  We were asked to go back to our hotels, out to lunch or to the convention center.  We chose the convention center.  We planted some grass seedlings that will help restore the vanishing marshes in New Orleans (they lose approximately a football field worth of land every 45 minutes), I gave blood (438 pints have been donated in the last 3 days), we made bracelets and played bumper cars. We made the best of our day!

Tonight at the dome we heard from 3 speakers about the art of Peacemaking.  One is Noble Peace Prize winner.  Leymah Gbowee taught us that we don't need to be Gandhi, a king, Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King Jr to be a peacemaker, we need only shine our own light.  If we all combine our little lights we will light up the world.  We took out our cells shined them and sang "This Little Light of Mine"  With Ms. Gbowee. She was wonderful.

We also heard from Diane Latiker.  She lives on the South side of Chicago and founded a foundation names "Kids off the Block" This organization has helped to keep kids off the streets, deter gang violence and lift kids up to their full potential.  She couldn't wait to go home and tell everyone she has seen the future leaders of the world and they she knows they will make a difference in this world.

Lastly we heard from Jamie Nabozny.  He was bullied as youth, to the point he had to be rushed to a hospital to repair the physical damage from the violence he suffered at the hands of his bullies.  He reminded us that we have the power to stop bulling.   We can stand up and say "Enough!", we can tell an adult who will be able to address the situation and we can befriend the person being bullied. 

Over all this evening was very moving and emotional (at least for me)  I found myself tearing up many times as I listened to the speakers and songs.  "Jesus Loves Me", played by a bluesy saxophone and 30,000 kids & adults singing just reminded me I am a child of God and his love for me is profound and overwhelming.

Pray for us and our next two days.  I am hoping for a little less rain, but know we will make the best of it no matter what.

Service Day - Day 2

Hi everyone,

Today was a busy day!  Up early and off to the Superdome to start our service project! We watched some great videos, listened to a great band and there were sent on our way with our Subway lunches.  :-)

Aw yes, the "Orange shirts" were back to work for three days in the city on New Orleans.  Each day, one third of the 36,000 Lutherans who are here in the city go out and serve the city, in the areas where they have requested we help.  

We worked with Habitat for Humanity today.   We traveled to our site to paint two houses, the exterior of the homes who are on the same lot.  We were with groups from New Jersey, Texas, Minnesota and Manchester, NH !!! 

They even found a job for the lady with the bad back (me!)  LOL!  I was in charge of filling paint cups.

One of the new home owners showed up and was totally shocked we were there.  She didn't know work was being done on her house today.  She was working on another Habitat house in the neighborhood, getting in her "sweat equity" and came over to see if anything had been done on her house during the week. She couldn't believe what she was seeing.  She called the other site and told them she would be spending the rest of the day working on her house.  She, not only worked with us, but her brother and aunt did too.  She explained to me that because she works full time she can't always work on her house when it's scheduled to be worked on during the week, she has to do her "sweat equity" on her days off, so she works on whichever house is scheduled that day.  Her house was not on the schedule for today. 

 I couldn't believe what we got done in the matter of a few hours, 2 house almost completely painted and ready for their second coat tomorrow when the next group arrives!

These are the soon to be new home owners.  Danielle worked with us today, Alysia, is due to have a baby any day and was not at the site today, but Danielle was scheduled to see her this evening at a first time home owners class and couldn't wait to tell her about the house.

Finally the highlight of our day, I think, was running into Pastor Nadia at Mother's where we enjoyed Po' Boys and Fried Chicken.  Yum!!!  Pastor Nadia was the speaker I spoke of last night, we all LOVED her!  She was great today too.  She was supposed to fly home today, but paid $300 to change her flight and stay at the Gathering because she was just amazed at the kids and the experience.

CtK Nashua - Youth Gathering Day 1

July 18th

Today was our first full day in New Orleans.  We did a little sightseeing today after registration.   We visited the Aquarium, saw Hurricane on the Bayou in IMAX and checked out the rope course and Tinkletown activities at the Convention Center.

Tonight we went to the Superdome and had a wonderful evening.  We saw Agape, checked out the speakers and partied it up with 36,000 Lutherans!  We all agreed that Pastor Nadia-Bowers was very inspiring.  If you are interested in her please check out her sight at http://www.sarcasticlutheran.com/.

We were kept at the dome of an hour due to a storm thunderstorm.  We walked back to our hotel in the rain and had our sins washed away as we were reminded of our baptism.

Tomorrow we will be working with Habitat for Humanity.  It should be a great day.

Please remember you can watch what goes on in the dome every night by going to the ELCA websight.  http://www.elca.org/ELCA/Youth-Gathering.aspx