New Orleans again

Wednesday I went back to New Orleans. I enjoyed the trip. I went with several people from my church, most of which I didn’t know very well until now. That was the best part, as always. We gutted a building that is used by a church to feed kids hot meals after school and it also feeds and houses about 20 men in a substance abuse recovery program. The buildings are all connected, and we worked in a large room about 1200 sq ft. that had a balcony type thing in the back third of the building. We tore the balcony down, replaced the front and back doors, and cut a doorway out of the brick. We spackled all the holes in the sheetrock, painted, we removed a fridge and a MASSIVE safe. We tore up the flooring, part of which was solid concrete and the other was wood. We filled a 30 foot dumpster TWICE with debris. We also fed the entire block catfish, shrimp, fries, jambalaya, hush puppies and coleslaw…about 125 came. The leftovers fed a homeless shelter.

We toured the church that my church fixed up last year. It is STILL the only one within many miles that is operational, and two other congregations use the building. It is in the upper ninth ward just over a bridge from the lower ninth ward and was totally ruined except for the outer brick structure. It looks amazing. Then we toured the lower ninth…It is much better than it was last year when I went. Last year there were houses that had floated into the streets, rusty cars everywhere and cars and refrigerators up in trees. All of that has been removed but the area is still totally empty other than the few work crews and church teams. The houses are still uninhabitable, most if not all will have to be demolished.

I hope to have before and after photos posted soon.