Winding down after a great day…

Tuesday, June 26th

9:55 p.m.

Hi everyone! Sorry to get to you so late. We had a full evening that I’ll tell you about in a second. I wanted to let you know that a lot of people are following our mission trip. Yesterday we had 125 hits on our blog! We joked that 123 of those were from nervnus parents. We think it’s great that so many of you are “with us” as we do God’s work.

Today was an awesome day of work! The two groups got a lot of work done at their respective sites. At Dee Jones’ house, the group continues to make progress with the drywall. They even started painting today! You’ll see in the pictures that Ms. Jones was working right alongside of them. That has been the most meaningful part of the experience.

The other group is doing great things in the sanctuary. In the pictures you’ll see some of the accomplishments. I think even Brother Vance is surprised at how much we’re getting done!

In addition, Rachel Sylvan was tapped to help paint murals in the kitchen area of the mission center. What a talent! They are looking great so far, and Rachel had the additional bonus of overcoming her fear of heights by spending time on a ladder.

 I’m happy to report that we still remain injury-free. A few scrapes, a few splinters, but nothing more serious than that.

Tomorrow we’re working for a half day, then knocking off early to enjoy the French Quarter. We’ll see some of the sights (the PG ones only!) and then head to Cafe DuMonde for world-famous bignets (a delicious fried donut covered in powdered sugar). We’ll then go into a group-wide sugar coma.

Tonight after dinner, the group headed over to the houses on which we worked last year. It was a sobering experience. Both houses were still not inhabitated, and the house on Majestic Oaks hadn’t been touched since last year. In fact, the little red wagon we used as a wheelbarrow was right where we left it! It was disappointing to see that nothing had been done. It reminded us that this recovery will take decades.

In our worship tonight, we talked about what it meant to have unfinished business. We have realized that we’re not going to get done all that we want to get done this week, and the lack of progress on last year’s houses just intensified that feeling of frustration. We read the Bible passage in Exodus about Moses dying right before he entered the Promised Land. He died with unfinished business.

We’re going to leave this place with unfinished business this week. Walls will be unpainted, trim won’t be in place, and there will be thousands of houses still untouched. But we trust that it’s God’s business, not our business. What we don’t finish, we pray God will finish through others. Maybe it is not our job to finish the work; maybe we are the people who do the legwork that allows the next group to finish. We pray that when we come back next year, we’ll get to see some finished business of which we were a part.

It’s lights-out in a few minutes, so I better sign off or lose power! We miss you all and can’t wait to get home. We’ve been well-fed, well-cared for, and worked hard. We’re doing our best to make you proud and to glorify God.