Thursday July 23rd (New Orleans)

Thursday July 23rd

We struggled to get up at 6 am. We had to walk to the dome a mile?? away to get on a bus for our work project. One or two people could walk the distance in 25 minutes, but with 22 people we left the hotel at 7 am to get there by 7:45. As we walked, we noticed people walking toward a pick-up point near our hotel and I wondered if The Gathering hotel people had talked to the people scheduling work projects.

Walking with the kids and keeping them together, I compare to herding cats. We walked for a while and had to stop and wait for the dawdlers to catch up. Sheri realized that the gloves for the work project (and all our cash) was left back at the hotel, so she and I ran back to the hotel to get them while the others went on. While I waited for Sheri, I talked to the doorman. It was the first of many encounters we would have with the New Orleans residents. He told me how he was happy we were in the city helping out. I was going to call and check on Sheri’s progress finding the gloves and mumbled, I had better not call…..that will just create problems. He said “how long you been married? must be a long time to know her that well.” We talked about how important it was to work hard on marriage and it takes a lot of work. I thought it was interesting that he was happy that we came to New Orleans even though the tips for him this week would be much less than when a normal clientele would be at the hotel. Sheri and I decided to take a cab so we could catch up to the group instead of running to try to catch up. We found the gloves caught a taxi, and boarded the bus at 7:45. It took a while to get going and once we got to the staging area in St. Bernard Parish, The Gathering person informed us she had no idea what we were going to do, and that the people in charge were not there yet. So we “hurry up and waited” until 9:30 when they decided we could pick up trash.

I wanted to do some “substantial” work like build homes, etc, so I was grumbling at first about it. Nick said, “This is a job no one wants to do and we are able, so it needs to be done and it’s a good moral booster for the residents. We spread out on a relatively busy street to go to work. We had a wheelbarrow full of water follow us to replenish our water bottles. Many people would drive by and wave, honk their horns, say thank you and give us the thumbs up. Three or four people stopped to thank us personally for our work. Two of them came and gave us ice cream, popsicles, and cold water to drink. It was obvious they genuinely appreciated our help. At the end of the day as we waited for the bus to pick us up by a snow cone stand, I ordered snow cones to let the kids share. I noticed that they were living in the stand and I wondered about their Katrina story. The lady did not speak very good English, so I didn’t attempt to talk to her much.

It was a hard day picking up trash, but we could really tell we did make a positive impact on the community. We were dreading the 45-minute walk to the hotel and Sheri was talking to the driver and talked him into dropping us near the hotel, so our 45-minute walk turned into a 10-minute walk. We decided to go late to the Superdome and not sit on the floor, so we could have more time to relax.

Thursday Speakers

Thursday speakers were Jay Baker, son of Tammy Faye who talked to the kids about God’s grace. Viola Vaughn who started an education program for girls called 10,000 Girls, completely self-funded and run by kids. She commented that she is still the only adult. Becca Stevens started a ministry for women on the streets, called Women of Thistle Farms. All the speakers started with an idea that blossomed into a growing ministry. What struck me is that Viola wasn’t really interested in starting a ministry. God kept calling her further and further into ministry. All God inspired projects that were meant to enlighten the kids that one person can make a big difference in the lives of others.

Thursday Night Life

Thursday after The Gathering, we decided to check out some of the planned evening activities at the Sheraton. People were elbow to elbow and it took 10 minutes to get into the door to meet. We sent the kids off and waited. For the second time, someone decided I looked hungry and gave us a whole pizza. It ended up being a mistake for the kids because there were so many people, they couldn’t do anything