Hope

Happy Easter! Hope everyone had a great Easter weekend.
I spent the weekend in New Orleans, with some of my friends on other teams. We had a 4 day break, so we met up here on Friday. I took the lovely Greyhound from Lafayette super early Friday morning, and rode for 3 hours to New Orleans. Others came from Biloxi, Pascagula MS, and Lake Charles LA. This is the first time my group of friends has been all together since we left for our first projects back at the beginning of February. One of the best things about this weekend, other than being with awesome people, is that some of them call me Daigle. I am not quite sure why, i think it is because they are amazing people and want me to feel like I am at home. It makes me smile!
We've done a lot of the touristy things, but since we are all traveling on foot, we have been limited somewhat by what we can go see. We did go on a tour of the historic French quarter through the National Parks Service. That was pretty cool. There are quite a few other people from other teams here too, so we constantly ran into people we know. This cold front has hit us down here, like most of you around the states. It was rainy and cold most of the weekend. Of course most of us didn't bring any coats from Sacramento when we came down, so we've layered up with the light hoodies we happened to bring. Ya'll know me and cold weather. . . grrr!!!
Our hotel was downtown, near the French quarter. That area was definitly spared in comparison to other parts of New Orleans. There was a little flooding, but a lot of the businesses, restaurants and what not have opened back up, looking a little beat up on the outside. A friend of mine, Sean, has been living in the Broadamoor district for the last few weeks, so Sunday morning Heather, and I went with him to a church he has been going to. This area was flooded pretty badly, and it is still very evident today, a year and a half later. They are in the process of rebuilding their church. THey have the walls up now, so they built a little platform, and they have worship inside the church. There is no heat or AC yet, so it was pretty chilly in there this morning. One part of worship that was powerful to me was, when the congregation joined hands and sang the Lords Prayer. Here we were, in an unfinished building, worshiping together, praising our awesome God who sacrificed His son, and raised Him, giving us an everlasting Hope, that conquers everything. Hurricanes, floods, stresses, frustrations, etc. It was a huge reminder that the people are the Church, we are called to praise God, and serve Him, and no matter what this world throws at us, in each of our lives, that is what we all were doing this morning.

This break from my team, and Amerilife has been nice. The last two weeks have had their ups and downs. My team has been working on a house in Delcambre LA, a small town about 20 minutes south of Lafayette. The owner, Mrs. Lucy, is legally blind, and has been living in an assisted living center for the last year while she is waiting for her house to be rebuilt. We have been putting down plywood on the floors and started with the sheetrock this past week. I personally feel like more of the house should have been tore down, because it is incredibly crooked and uneven in most of the house, walls ceiling, floors, you name it. I feel like I got pretty good with putting up sheetrock from the Mississippi trip last April, but the crooked ceilings have made me question if i have ever done this before!
The experience has been different than any mission trip I have been on, where we did construction projects. A lot of it has to do with the differences in group dynamics, but I am learning more about myself through the frustrations both on the project and with my team. I am also learning to trust God more and look to Him, for things big and super small. Decisions like what am I gonna do in October, down to smaller ones like the rediculous team drama i have to deal with. Maybe learning to deal with people, outside my comfort zone of friends, and love them, is one of the things He is trying to teach me?

I am enjoying Lafayette, even though it doesn't sound like it sometimes. The break came at a good time, and now I am ready to get back into the swing of Amerilife for the next 6 weeks till our week break.
I will get some pictures up later this week. Have a wonderful week!