Day 4

When in doubt, pray it out. -Greta Ramsay

Hello everybody!

Today (Thursday) we changed it up a bit by waking up at 6:25 am and driving about 45 minutes to Joy Fellowship Church in Slidell. When we got there we set to work packing food in bags. We packed canned food, cereal, popcorn, sierra mist, oatmeal, cheese, beans, corn and a whole bunch of other stuff. Since there were so many people there we also helped do some maintenance work at the church. This included cleaning up a raccoon mess outside, and organizing their utility closet. There was so much stuff in this closet, no joke there was everything you could possibly think of (even toilet tanks), but you probably will never find what you are looking for.

Then we took a short lunch break and began distributing the food we packed in the morning. This church has been handing out food since Katrina. They used to do it twice a day, but now they are down to once a week. I had the privilege to help with registration. I talked with one lady for quite a while about how her family (11 people) lives in 2 FEMA trailers. When there were no cars to register, Clair the girl that I was working with, told me about her story during the hurricane and how the area she lived in wasn’t affected by the water so much but more by the wind. She said that more homes were destroyed by trees falling over than by water damage.
After distributing food we packed up 84 more crates of food, for them to take to the Ninth Ward on Sunday. The Ninth Ward is the area where the destruction was the greatest and most of the people were already in poverty. Organizing the utility closet continued until we left and still has work to be done. We also helped clean the church for their service on Sunday.

We have been here for 4 days and it still amazes how thankful people are for what we are doing. People who we aren’t serving directly thank us for just being here and helping to rebuild their city.

~Katherine Arns

Cockroach Count:

1. Micheal – 7
2. Tom – 6
3. Chris – 5
4. Katherine – 1
5. Heather – 0
6. Jaye – 0
7. Greta – slacker

Prayer Requests:

• Continued health, strength and safety for our team
• Blessings on the Brockman family, including Deborah, whose birthday was yesterday
• YWAM New Orleans staff: Jon, Bronwen, Steve, Sarah
• YWAM New Orleans Volunteers: Lacey, Emily
• Sarah Wafford, YWAM missionary to Afghanistan
• Continued spiritual renewal for New Orleans
• That more would come as Christ calls us to New Orleans
• Opportunities to share the Gospel
• Thanksgiving for Garmin (GPS=Starbucks, yeah!)

Aside: we're writing this from a Starbucks during our morning devotions. It almost feels like home!