New
Orleans Mission Trip
November 21 - 26, 2006
A group of 10 of us headed down to join with Operation Blessing in the continuing clean-up process after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast late in August 2005.
We put down our sleeping bags at Operation Blessing's base of operations in Slidell and then headed into different areas of New Orleans to clean up. What we saw amazed and horrified us. Whole neighborhoods are wiped out, every building abandoned and barely standing. Most of the flooding is gone, but huge puddles remained in many parking lots and vacant plots of land. Malls, gas stations, restaurants, and other businesses you'd expect to find in any normal American city sit closed and boarded up. There are still many areas with no utilities - no water, no heat, no electricity.
On the trip, we got the chance to work on two of the 300,000 houses that still need to be cleaned up in the city. Our job was to completely gut the homes, removing drywall, insulation, paneling, carpeting, refrigerators, washing machines, and every piece of furniture, clothing, and other odds and ends that remained in the homes. This was not a job for the squeamish - it entailed rotting food, families of mice, decomposing furniture, molded clothing, one rat, and a zillion cockroaches.
It was a dirty, stinky, exhausting few days, but it was all worth it to help a family who had nowhere else to turn.
> Videos
Video Clip 1 - 1:09
Video Clip 2 - 0:29
Video Clip 3 - 0:36
> Photos
November 21 - 26, 2006
A group of 10 of us headed down to join with Operation Blessing in the continuing clean-up process after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast late in August 2005.
We put down our sleeping bags at Operation Blessing's base of operations in Slidell and then headed into different areas of New Orleans to clean up. What we saw amazed and horrified us. Whole neighborhoods are wiped out, every building abandoned and barely standing. Most of the flooding is gone, but huge puddles remained in many parking lots and vacant plots of land. Malls, gas stations, restaurants, and other businesses you'd expect to find in any normal American city sit closed and boarded up. There are still many areas with no utilities - no water, no heat, no electricity.
On the trip, we got the chance to work on two of the 300,000 houses that still need to be cleaned up in the city. Our job was to completely gut the homes, removing drywall, insulation, paneling, carpeting, refrigerators, washing machines, and every piece of furniture, clothing, and other odds and ends that remained in the homes. This was not a job for the squeamish - it entailed rotting food, families of mice, decomposing furniture, molded clothing, one rat, and a zillion cockroaches.
It was a dirty, stinky, exhausting few days, but it was all worth it to help a family who had nowhere else to turn.
> Videos
Video Clip 1 - 1:09
Video Clip 2 - 0:29
Video Clip 3 - 0:36
> Photos
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| Our team | First house | Second house | Toy ambulance | |||
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| Coca-cola ad? | A lost photo | Jake in the mirror | Neighbor kids |