NOLA Fall 2011 - Day 2

Day 2 is really Day 1 in the field for us - shaped up to pretty good for us...after a semi-shaky start. This is the first time we have come down here with very little work lined up. It's a challenge to schedule work more than a week or so before you come down as people are still a little hesitant to purchase materials. This stems from all the fraud that was going on right after the storm. Even though we've worked on over 100 homes and have kept our promises to the homeowners we've worked for - people are still a little reluctant. One of our MAJOR jobs was going to be carpeting the sanctuary at Metairie Baptist Church (where we stay), but their carpet didn't get shipped in time. Looks like that will have to happen when we're back in March.

Another challenge facing us is that we have several new (and younger) students working with us in the schools. I'm excited about the opportunity we have to build this young group into seasoned veterans, but many of them will hit the ground running tomorrow for their first time in this environment. That is challenging and rewarding to me at the same time. I'm so excited about what they are going to experience, but appropriately cautious due to the investment we have in our multi-year strategy in the schools.

ALL of those issues caved today as we found out:

1) We have more work to do as of today than we will probably be able to complete before we leave to come home. After an announcement was made in the Franklin Avenue Church Service, we had plenty of work to keep us busy for the week.

2) Our younger and inexperienced school team members had to endure training with me today. I put them through nearly six hours of constant recreation training that had them all pretty spent by the end of the day. They rose to the challenge and surpassed my expectations in every way. I feel very confident about their effectiveness tomorrow in the schools.

It was pretty humbling to watch God lay out for us the plan He had ordained long before we left on Saturday to come down here. Sure, it wasn't timed just exactly as I would have laid it out - but it was timed perfectly according to His plan. I closed the day by having students ideate (in their teams) about how they could be-on-the-look-out for opportunities to represent Christ tomorrow. I asked them to be proactive tonight about ways to engage someone for God's Kingdom without speaking about anything "religious" or having to do with Christianity. I wanted them to be prepared to BE the church tomorrow in actions as they execute their work.

Day 2 summation: It was good.