Wednesday evening

Today was truly incredible. As Lara told you, we finished the house around 12:30 p.m. We had been thrilled late in the morning to have a city crew arrive to pick up all of our trash pile! Helen had been told it might betwo to three weeks - and here they picked it up almost before we were done piling it up! The timing couldn't have been better, with our final large loads going on the pile before the crew arrived. What remained was small indeed -- but did include a sink, so we took an "everything including the kitchen sink" picture (though it was actually a bathroom sink -- we weren't picky!). After a quick lunch and showers, Rev. Fred Meade took us all on a tour of New Orleans' devastated areas -- it was sobering, and so vast as to be beyond comprehension. The lower Ninth Ward is a wasteland -- houses shoved off their foundations, crumbled into heaps, cars thrust into living rooms, cars UNDER houses. There are small signs of recovery, but very few work sites there. It was somewhat different in East New Orleans, which is a middle-class and upper middle-class neighborhood -- there is still tremendous damage, but more FEMA trailers and signs of hope.

We're having wonderful devotions and reflections about our experience.
We'll tell you all about them on Sunday! See you in church.

- Jenell