Nawlins is Ova

I'm sad, I'm glad, I'm done. The Illini Life Missions Trip over Spring Break to New Orleans is over. I had a week without class and gained a lot more than I could've in a short week of usual schooling. I have so much to speak of and a small portion can be summarized by the Illini Life OFFICIAL Missions Trip Blog. There is so much more to say though....

We left from Champaign on Friday morning and I was ready to go. I wasn't scared, worried, or even tired, despite my crazy early rising time. The ride there was a long one, but good. I got to know new folks and really have a good time with it. Getting into New Orleans was one of the bigger shockers. The situation down there is nothing pleasant still. This is six months after the hurricane hit and we're still clearing up the damage and this work will take years...YEARS!! This is a very desperate situation. That was highlighted early by us driving down the road while the other direction traffic was stopped up because a man was sitting on the edge of the bridge looking to jump to his death. That was very sobering and helped to prepare a lot of hearts. And things just got worse...The buildings were trashed. Everything was decimated. The relief organizations that made it to the city first had a system with spraypaint for labeling the houses because there were so many. One number on the houses was for any bodies found inside...and not all of the homes had zero on them. When we arrived at the military camp, it was a situation where I wanted to start working right away, and we didn't get to work until Monday morning. We had gotten there Saturday afternoon....a day and a half of sitting. So Mike Olson and I took a walk across the street into a neighborhood hit by the hurricane (I say this as if any had been spared...they hadn't). It was amazing. The air was heavier with mold, there was so much junk on the sidewalks, but that junk wasn't junk six months ago. It was the things that people used and treasured daily. It was an intense walk with people having spray painted on their homes that they'd be back, and some giving up hope saying that their town was dead. Sunday morning, the same neighborhood was walked by myself and some more friends and we got to see a lot of decimation. We also got to talk to a gentleman that had been cleaning his house out. He was a record keeper for New Orleans and had hundreds of photos ruined by the hurricane. This was just getting more intense. After going to church on Sunday and experiencing a "double barrelled shotgun of truth," we went into the city itself and hit up the French Quarter. This was a region largely unaffected by the hurricane. The music was incredble, the architecture beautiful, and the food delicious. Some guys and I also bought some cigars from a shop where they made them themselves in the downtown area. That led to an amazing conversation just having cigar time with some of the guys. God really helped to create fellowship.

Finally we got to work! Day 1 of work started by waking at 6 AM. For those of you that don't know, this is slightly earlier than I get up normally at school. So after getting up, getting dressed and rolling to our worksite in a short bus, we got to see one of these houses completely untouched, ready to be worked on. It smelled, it was ugly, and it was intense. I was given the distinction to be a team leader, so I got to delegate duties. Thank God Dan Herron was there. He really helped coach me on how to lead that first day. We put on all of our safety gear and we attacked the situation. It took a lot of work and the house was dark and dank. However, after seeing the things that these people owned, seeing the was their house was layed out, it was clear this house was actually a home. After gruelling work for 7 hours, the tool trailer returned and we were forced to leave our house. I was definitely disappointed about the shortness of time that we worked, but I had to play by the rules of the system. Day two of work was different. Our pace quickened like mad and we got a lot of work done. It was so amazing to see the improvement, both in the crew and my leadership. I was still frustrated that we didn't get to finish the house though. We did get to talk to the neighbors and that was a very heart warming and heart wrenching experience. The third day included more work and allowed us to finally finish the house. It also allowed us to have more time to talk to the neighbors as we finished work early. I also got to talk to our homeowner over the phone and he was ever grateful. I was amazed to hear what he had to say. He was a Christian as far as I could tell, and it was great to hear his words of encouragement. That night...I think it was that night, I got to talk with Mike A. Mike is a great guy. He has my sarcasm in every way. He also has a lot to offer in every situation. Finally day four of work came, and I was sad that this was it for us. We got to finish the process for one house in the morning and in the afternoon we got to start a new house. You should've seen our pace on the last house. We were flying. I was SOOOO proud of my group. They attacked it hard. Although we probably attacked it too hard at one point as we ran into a conflict. It was so great that we got to work through it. God really is a multi-tasking God as he was working on us as well as the homes we worked on. A staff member from the church at Ohio State that was there coincidentally with us talked about an analogy of us being homes and God breaking down the walls inside of us so he could rebuild us into a palace. That was so perfect for what happened that day for us.

The entire week was filled with quality fellowship and worship almost every night. The music was great and we have very talented musicians in Illini Life. The food was also phenominal at the military camp. It tastes extra good when you add a day's worth of hard work. The Thanksgiving dinner style meal after the first day of work definitely ranks up there with some of the best meals I've EVER HAD. Also, Wednesday after work, after I had showered, and I was just hanging out, I was foolish enough to fall into the creek behind our tents. Go ahead and ask if you'd like more info. But I was knee deep in mud. I did salvage my sandals though!!!

Our trip back was just amazing. We got to choose who we rode with, so I rode with a plethora of people...or at least a small variety. It was so cool that I got a chance to talk with people I barely knew before the week started. We stopped in Memphis on our way home. Once again, we were in one of the top music cities in America. It was so cool to catch live music while we ate. And glory did we eat!!! The plate was fantastic, and Memphis knows how to do BBQ. Then we got to hear more live music, and let me say that Blues is a genre I'm not sure I know anything about, but would love to! Finally, the last day of the trip was our drive from Memphis to Champaign. The guys I sat with all that day were HILARIOUS....We freestyle rap battled over the walkie talkie to the other vans and really had a BLAST. We also go to stop at a place called Lambert's in Missouri. It was amazing. So much food, and it was SOOOO good too. Finally rolling into Champaign, I was sad. The trip was over and that meant school was starting again. Here I am though, not doing the homework thing because I'm working on telling you all what happened. There is so much more to say, but I've already made an intensely long post. So now I will instead go work on my school work and let you talk to me about it yourself later. I can just say it was glorious and incredible and amazing and phenominal and so much more...