A huge THANK YOU to all!

We want to send along a huge THANK YOU to all who supported this team in any way prayerfully, financially and by holding down the fort at home.

We had two wonderful weeks ministering with and to the people of New Orleans. There is so much yet to be done in this city physically & spiritually.
Please partner with us in prayer for the people of New Orleans and the city itself.

If you would like more information about our time in New Orleans, feel free to ask any of us. We would love to talk with you about it.

Heading home

We left a warm, muggy New Orleans morning for home about 8am Saturday.

Jan, Lori & Liz

We ran into a few rain showers and realized the drastic temperature change when we got out to stretch our legs at Lake Enid in Northern Mississippi.
The temperature had dropped about 30 degrees from when we left New Orleans which sent us all scrambling for our coats.


We stayed at the Drury Inn at Sikeston, Missouri Saturday night. This was our 5th stay at this hotel. Let me say, these folks know how to do customer service right! They always provide us a meeting room and even moved up the breakfast time to accomodate us so we could get on the road heading home a little earlier.



And of course, no trip to Sikeston, Missouri is complete without dinner at Lamberts, home of the throwed rolls.

Now that's a chunk of ham!

If you leave Lamberts hungry it's no one's fault but your own!

We safely arrived home at 4pm Sunday afternoon.

Some of us were in huge denial of the snow and temperature, weren't we Everett?



This was a wonderful 2 weeks with great projects and people. If you would like to hear more about this trip, we will be having a presentation at the Wednesday evening service at Crossroads Freeport campus on February 18th at 6:30.

Thanks for following along with us.

Friday, January 9th

A glimpse at a few of the Friday's projects...

Christy & Liz gardening at St Luke's church

Joe & Merlyn laying carpet and tile in George's home.

Spraying texture on the ceiling and walls at Dale's house. (from left, Ron, Everett, Joe, Sue, Floyd & Dale)

Rick cutting off a stump


Dan, Rick & Susanne enjoying a newly organized tool shed.

New curtains for Fellowship Hall at St Luke's designed and sewn by Linda

Dana creating a new much needed ladder storage rack for the side of the tool shed.

Painting Pastor Teresa's house.

Floyd, Sandy, Jennifer, Kevin & Steve

Josh & Rod priming the storm shutters

Rod(above right) & Darrell (below) are two men who have joined us the last three years from the First Congregational Church in Reidsville, North Carolina. Mark Tolodziecki who used to pastor in Seward, IL but now is pastor at the church in North Carolina was the connecting factor in getting to know these two gentlemen. A trip to New Orleans wouldn't be complete without their servant hearts, talents and great senses of humor.

And last but certainly not least, the ever elusive Darrell. When Darrell wasn't working on a project he was running after supplies for someone else. He was an extremely hard guy to catch up to.

Almost home

We arrived Sikeston, Missouri late yesterday afternoon and after a HUGE dinner at Lamberts settled in for the night.

We hope to leave by 7:30 this morning which puts us home around 4 - 5 pm.

We will post more pictures of the trip next week so y'all can see how we finished up the trip.

Those who flew home arrived home safe yesterday. Please pray for safe travel for the team today.

Thursday, January 8th

Thursday night was a night of touring and watching football.

Some of the team went to Pastor Teresa's house and watched the college football game, others stayed at the church and relaxed and the larger group of us went downtown.

We enjoyed a ferry ride across the Mississippi River. The moon was almost full and what a great view of the New Orleans skyline we had!

Afterwards, we walked through the French Quarter, sat and listened to the jazz sounds of Steamboat Willie.

Tomorrow (Friday) is our last day here so it will be full steam ahead to finish up as many projects as we can.

Common Tools defined

Some of these have been more true this week than team members may want to admit.

COMMON TOOLS DEFINED

(TO THE NON-PROFESSIONALS FROM THE PROFESSIONALS - ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW)

DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings across the room, denting the freshly-painted vertical stabilizer which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it.

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned calluses from fingers.

ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age.

SKILL SAW: A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.

PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters.

BELT SANDER: An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.

HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS: Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

WELDING GLOVES: Heavy duty leather gloves used to prolong the conduction of intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

TABLE SAW: A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity. I don't know, Joe & Kevin...whatda ya think?

E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool ten times harder than any known drill bit that snaps neatly off in bolt holes thereby ending any possible future use.

BAND SAW: A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to cut good aluminum sheet into smaller pieces that more easily fit into the trash can after you cut on the inside of the line instead of the outside edge.

CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 24-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A very large pry bar that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end opposite the handle.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.

STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER: A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws.

PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.

HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to make hoses too short.

HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the object we are trying to hit.

Wednesday, January 7

Wednesday was a beautiful sunny day with projects in full swing. In addition to what you see here there was also a house painting project going on.

Josh working on an eavespout

Christy sanding drywall

Jen & friend sanding drywall

Ron "the snowman"

Kevin who joined us late Tuesday night from Washington

Joe designing the tile layout

Evening chapel/worship service at St Lukes. St Lukes is a beautiful old building built in 1911. When Katrina hit, the water level in this building was 11 feet which is where the arches on the side start to curve.

Evening entertainment

Evenings usually bring a hot meal, fellowship, a team meeting and cleaning up after ourselves.

Dana on cleaning duty.
25 people + a small space + only two bathrooms = cleaning every night



Josh & Jennifer were the only two brave enough to try the pickled pig lips.

Tuesday, January 6th

Today brought a variety of projects.

Josh painting

Ron carpeting the stairs at George's house

Jan cleaning the recently repaired & painted windows.

Sue & Joe drywalling at Dale & Shannita's home

Dan & Dana working on a motorhome that has been donated to the ministry here.

Linda teaching a sewing class to ladies from the St Luke's congregation.

Monday, January 5th

George & Shannita's house is progressing along nicely. The windows are being painted, cabinets being hung and flooring getting started.

Dana & Joe removing all the old heating/cooling duct work. What a dirty job and what servants for doing it!

Merlin

Kevin

Jennifer & Sandy working on the windows

Liz (above) & Dan (below) working on the window openings.

Brian

Tom installing the kitchen cabinets.

Christy