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.