Tuesday PM

It’s quite dark at 5:30 a.m. in New Orleans. By 6 a.m. most of us were gathered at the door of the café in the hotel waiting for the door to be unlocked. After a few minutes one of the workers inside directed us to the entrance door. We’d been blithely waiting outside the exit. Did somebody say “where’s the coffee?”

By 7:30 we were at Ferry Place, raring to go, and true to the first day at the worksite, we did the age old hurry up and wait.



We will be working predominantly on houses number 6 and 7 this week.



The street is actually beginning to look like a neighborhood. The first two houses are essentially finished and waiting for final sign offs. They are hopeful that those two families will be moved in within a month.



The work site chief honcho – Seth, who is clean-shaven this trip – gave us our Habitat orientation and before long we were in full swing.












One van load of our group went off to work at another Habitat worksite. There aren’t many volunteers in the city right now and so RHINO agreed to lend some volunteers when they have groups large enough to make it feasible.






Here’s the day from our Tuesday Team Bloggers – David Merrell and Channing Tookes.

So far the Lord has been very good to the Louisiana 6 Team!

We started out on a beautiful sunny Monday, leaving Stamford via a very large tour bus,
complete with seats, tables and lounge area in the rear of our rolling cruise ship.
The only excitement for me being an exploding soda, that soaked me as we left the parking lot, (but John Spearman kept me suitably distracted by his continuous monologue to worry about it).

JFK went smoothly, despite an earlier bomb threat, and President Bush usurping one of the runways for the afternoon. We waited on the runway in a very long line of jets, but JetBlue was a very pleasant ride, and we landed safely at The New Orleans airport at about 6:00 on a beautiful cloudless afternoon.

Having little time, all 28 of us descended upon an empty Burger King for dinner.
Which caused much amusement to the staff. They spotted us for a church group right
Away, (I wonder how they could tell?). (this time it was Channing’s turn for exploding drinks!).

Did I say we are staying at a Hotel (complete with cafes, workout room, outdoor pool, great rooms etc.) connected to a hospital, (great, in case anyone gets hurt), this trip!
It almost makes us feel guilty for earlier teams, (but not quite).

Tuesday, day one, is another glorious sunny day, with intermittent cool breezes!

Our work site is a cute street with 5 almost complete houses, sponsored by
Habitat for Humanity and RHINO. And we all put in a hard days work. Painting interiors, trimming windows, and started to hang siding on one of the houses. We have so manyhelping hands on this trip, that a group of us was sent to another site, to help on another project, (but more on that from my friend Channing.)

Peace – David Merrell





Hey y’all (that’s the southern way of expressing the collective you)! It’s Channing here. Today, Eric, who works for Habitat for Humanity, abducted seven of us. We traveled by minivan to a street in the Central City neighborhood that had two more Habitat houses under construction. We split up into two teams by who was comfortable with heights. I was part of the team of three in charge of cutting and installing the fascia. I, having never built a house, had no clue what that was at first but learned that it is an aluminum material that goes on the house to keep out the rain. The other group went over to the other house to caulk the trimming and to do some painting.

We actually got to work alongside some members of a youth group from the area who will be devoting some of their time to helping Habitat build these houses. I was excited to see some more people my age that wanted to help out those in need. It was also motivating to see that the man who lived next door to one of the houses had devoted his own time to help the building as well. He also provided the tunes, with his radio in the windowsill bumping some great oldies.

The day was hot and humid, and by the end of it my feet were aching and I was covered in sweat, dirt and sawdust (I wasn’t even cutting any wood!) Putting up fascia is one of those things you don’t understand until you have to do it. However, I found I never got frustrated. As I struggled nailing aluminum nails into a pristinely painted white aluminum surface, I couldn’t stop imagining the future. I thought about the homeowner looking at her or his new home and feeling thankful for all the volunteers that gave their time to build it. It felt pretty good (pats self on the back).



A group from a nearby church came by with a van at lunchtime and brought us a great lunch. Eric had to call us a few times before we came as we were pretty focused on trying to make the fascia look nice. Mobile Fishes and Loaves, the group that brought our lunch, provided us with a needed break and a filling lunch.




All in all, it was a great day for construction. I’m excited to get back to work tomorrow to perhaps finish installing the fascia or to start another grueling job. We’re doing hard work out here, but the rewards are obvious. It feels great to know that we’re helping out our fellow humans.

In the words of my friend David Merrell, peace.


Dinner tonight was Red Beans and Rice compliments of our chef extraordinaire, Jim Holden at the church. After dinner, a member of the church, Scott Crabtree came to share his Katrina story with the group. (If you saw Will Hart’s documentary you will remember Scott).

Our official group activities for the day ended with us making our lunches for tomorrow and then back to the hotel.



5:30 will be here quickly.

Please keep us in your prayers!