New Orleans was awesome!! I'm extremely glad that I went! Each day's schedule went about like this: 5:30: wake and do devotions. 6:30: meet for breakfast in the cafeteria on the 3rd floor. 7:00: meet outside cafeteria and leave for the warehouse. 7:30: get to warehouse and split into work groups. 8:00: get to worksite. 8:00-4:30: work at your worksite. We'd take a lunch everyday and do a devotional together. 5:00: meet at warehouse and get back into the bus. (yup! we took a charter bus!!) 5:30: get back to World Trade Center (WTC - the place where we were staying) and shower / get cleaned up 6:30: meet for dinner on the 3rd floor. 7:00: meet outside cafeteria and leave for a local church we were using for the week. 8:00-10:30: worship and a lesson. 11:00: get back to WTC and hang out on 3rd floor till midnight or later. X:00: go to sleep. I hope that made some sense. It does to me! :) thats just the basic jest of each day. Our theme for this week was "EMBRACE SACRIFICE" and I really dont think there could have been a better theme for the week. We got wristbands with the words "embrace sacrifice" on it....ask me and I'll show you anytime. It was a constant reminder when you'd look at your hand to remember "I'm here to serve, to give, to show love and give love, to do whatever needs done, to sacrifice for others." It helped me have more of a servants heart and take the tasks I was given with the right attitude of "this'll be fun!" even when it wasn't. Jesus embraced sacrifice on the cross. That right there is the ultimate sacrifice. What I did was nothing at all compared to that. Jesus prayed and said God, if theres any way we can save these people without me dying, please lets do that! but if not, I'll gladly die for them. There was no complaining, no arguing, no forcing. It was simply "Yes Lord, your will be done." That's what this week was about; doing whatever needed done with a heart willing and ready to serve. The sacrifices I embraced don't even seem to matter anymore. What matters, and what I remember, was the way which the things I did and the sacrifices I embraced touched peoples lives and changed peoples lives. The group I was in was the roofing team, hence, we re-did a roof on a duplex. We tore off the old and put on the new. It reminds me of dying to sin. You slowly and painfully (I definately got blisters) take off the old and throw it off the roof, and replace each shingle with a new one; slowly and carefully. That's just how our Christin walk with God is. We are constantly re-doing our roof. We never stop taking off the old self and puttin on the new us. God is constantly cleaning us out and replacing the old and nasty. Roofing is hard work and it gets really hot and sweaty and gross and nasty and your tired and wanna quit and wanna just stop and give up. That also reminds me of the Christian walk. It is hard at times and you just wanna quit - and sometimes you do; but the good thing is even when you stop for the night, you can still go back to it the next day. God's always there and waiting for you. It's never ever too late to turn back to him. The worship and lessons were very good! I didn't really know all the songs that great, but they had some good lyrics and I learned them enough to sing along. It was awesome to see the heart of the guys leading worship. There was so much prayer going on during the worship time for people and friends and each other and everyone it was really really neat. I prayed for people that I didn't know at all. People that had never met me before prayed for me. I encountered God during the worship time on the first night. It was amazing. I didn't get to spend a ton of time with Afton. We were in different groups, she was doing drywall sanding and I was doing roofing. We were able to eat breakfast together everyday and sit together for the bus ride to the warehouse. We'd split up there and get back together at 5 and ride back to WTC and we'd meet up for dinner then go to the worship session together and then come back and we were actually able to hang out from like...10:30-12 or so in the cafeteria. Whenever we hung out there were a buncha people around, so there wasn't really "alone time" to just talk together and whatever, but...i think it was good. I think it helped our relationship and grew us a lot. The drive down and back was soo much fun! Singing and laughing and just having a good time. ahh...it went by soo fast. We brought so many snacks! lol it was sweet. We were in the 15 passenger van for the ride. I loved it! I love road trips so much its not even real. Everyone was safe and I think we only had car trouble once and that got fixed pretty fast. I'm not really sure what even happened. The people I met were the best part of the trip. The stories I heard from people about what happened during the hurricane was unbelievable. Michael lived across the street from the house we were doin the roof on, and he stayed through the storm. After the storm was over, the water started comming in. He and his friend went around the neighborhood getting people out of their houses. within 6 hours there was 7 foot of water. He saw dead bodies floating by him. The guy he'd just seen at the store the day before floated by him, dead. A woman, holding two babies against her to keep them safe, floated by, all three dead. He spent 4 days on a bridge, with no food or water or bathrooms with a few hundred other people. One morning he woke up and the woman next to him had died during the night. Another guy with a two story house was there when the storm hit and his roof flew off and he watched it being taken off his house from the inside. A lady we talked to was raising her grandchildren now because right as the storm was comming, her son killed his wife and then committed suicide in front of his children. The stories I heard from these people I will never forget. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to be there. I was very moved as I heard these stories and watched the people tell them. They've been through so much I can't even imagine it. You can tell they are hurting and need to tell someone their story. We prayed with so many people on this trip and a few people even came to know Christ. I also met a buncha sweet people from the church we went with from columbus. I made new relationships and friendships. Many people were blessed by us just being there. People were asking why we were there and what made us want to come. God blessed this trip and blessed me through this trip. Thank you so much for your prayers and for helping me go! God bless you!! ~Abe | 
