this is our group here in new orleans!! we are very blessed to be here!

Hey people! Jess again!! It is Wednesday today and we had a blast! Nothing really new happened today. We arrived at our job site today, without getting lost! (we have been having navigation problems, but we did great today!) My team has still been putting up SheetRock, and today we managed to put up 34 new sheets onto the walls and ceilings. We were amazed at how much we got done! God gave us that perseverance! We stopped for lunch with the other half of our team. We were able to go to a little shack that sold PoBoys, the native sandwich of the people down here. It took us an hour, waiting for our sandwiches. But we felt that God had a plan for the time that we spent waiting. We were able to talk to about three men who had their own experiences from Katrina. It was very interesting to hear what had happened to them. We even were able to give one man, who we believe to be homeless, a sandwich that we bought. We also were able to pray for him, and he seemed to appreciate it. What a blessing to us to be able to experience that! After lunch, we went back to work, once again. The other team was able to take a trip before supper at Trinity to go to the 9th Ward, which was hit severely by Katrina. They said that it really moved them to see all the damage that was done. My mom and Sherrie were able to talk to a lady who shared her story with them. She told them that she floated on an air mattress with her daughter, son, and niece, on their way to the Superdome. They were scared to swim in the water because (A) it was dark outside because she had to use a flashlight, and (B) she was nervous that there were crocidiles or alligators or some other creature in the water that may hurt them. My heart broke when I heard that story! She had to FLOAT to get to the Superdome to find some help!!! Can you imagine?! I could hardly believe it. We also heard from our job supervisor that during the hurricane, some convicts from the local jail were taken outside onto the bridge. But they were handcuffed so they couldn't get away. Sadly, they ended up drowning because they couldn't swim with their hands behind their back! I felt so bad that this sort of thing happend only 3 1/2 years ago, and we are still cleaning up after stories like that! It's truly amazing. God has been good to us this week, so far, and he has yet to give up on us. Again, we appreciate all of the prayers that are coming our way. Please pray that we would have the courage to talk to people tomorrow, inviting them to our block party tomorrow night. It's been really dificult , but God is helping us to have that courage, little by little. Thank you for everything that you are doing for us! God bless you!

Hello everyone! This is Jessalyn, typing at the Trinity Church sanctuary in Covington, Louisiana. We have had a great past few days here. We started our journey at Liberty Bible Church on Friday night, and we left with a big 15 passenger van with all our luggage put into it along with the Keys' personal minivan. We left at approximately 10:30pm. The night was pretty long for most of us. I know that a lot of us only got a few hours of sleep in those uncomfortable vehicles. We stopped a few times for breakfast and lunch. At about 4:30pm on Saturday, March 21, we arrived at Trinity Church. They welcomed us with open arms! We, then, went to church the next day. The service was really interesting for us. The worship was similar to the kind of worship that Sacred Ground uses at LBC. But they had a special visitor from Russia come and speak. He was representing Jews for Jesus, and he explained how you can find Jesus in the Passover tradition. It was really something! After church, we all got in our two vehicles, along with our cook for the week, Sue, whom we invited to join us, and headed down into the city of New Orleans! We headed across the Causeway, a 24 mile long bridge across Lake Pontchartrain! We later found out that it is the longest bridge across any mass of water in the world! I was amazed! The only downfall to it is that there are so many bumps when you go across! You feel like you're on a boat traveling down a lake or river while going pretty fast. The other problem is that once you go on it once, you have gone on it a million times! It is the same thing going both ways and you can only get so many pictures before it gets pretty boring! When we got into the city, we kind of got off the main road and went looking into some neighborhoods. Some of them were nicer houses, but lots of them were houses that we knew were damaged from the hurricane. Lots of the houses were re-done very nicely, but lots of the homes had yet to be fixed up. It broke my heart to think that some of these people have been living with these circumstances for almost 4 years! I know that it would be very hard for me to get along in that situation. After that, we parked downtown and took a stroll through the French Quarter. I got lots of pictures because we don't have anything a whole lot like that in Chicago. There were also a lot of artists, drawing and painting people and other objects. Some were even selling their artwork on the street. But I suddenly felt very uncomfortable when I saw psychic readers on the street, convincing people walking around New Orleans that they could read their future. I felt so bad for those people because I know that they are lost and they need to be found! It broke my heart to see those people so desperate that they felt it necessary to go into that field when, really, God is the only one who can go into that field of work. He is the only one who knows what is ahead of us. We also saw some street dancers who had gathered quite a crowd, but unfortunately, they made some crude remarks about women and other things that totally ruined it for me. But it was still kind of fun to watch their stunts! That was basically the end of Sunday for our team. Monday morning was our first day on the job. Our team of 13 (Denis and Ellie did not come along with us :( ) was split into two different teams. One team went to finish up a house by painting, putting up cabinets, and laying tile. My team went to a house that we thought would need to be painted. But we realized that this house had some bad drywall up. So our job was to gut the house of the drywall that was up (when we got there, all that was left to gut was the ceiling) and then put up SheetRock on every inch of the walls and ceilings. We knew that we wouldn't be alone in this job. We ended up being paired up with Harvard Graduate Students!! It was very interesting to meet all of them. Lots of them are international students. One of the students was from Ireland, some others from Singapore, another from China, and another from Germany. And there were also some from the States. One girl was from Virginia, another guy was from Milwaukee, and one was from Texas. It has been a privelege to get to know these bright grad students. Adam especially loves to hang around with the big guys, who will sometimes play Star Wars with him! Now that is fun to watch! So our team the past two days has put up SheetRock! We have even gotten to use those screw guns! Yes, I used one of those screw guns! It's kind of hard at first, but once you have the hang of it, it gets pretty fun! Even Adam uses it! We have gotten to meet all kinds of people while being here, as well. Yesterday, a man came up to us and started sharing Jesus to us and how Jesus had brought him through so much. He just wanted to tell us thank you. Another man came looking for a job. Our job supervisor gave him some money and told him to come back the next day and help us work on the house, in order to earn it back. We weren't totally sure if he would keep his promise, but sure enough, as we were packing up to leave, he came walking up! We were so happy that he came back to help us out! Our job supervisor is one of a kind, as well. Today, we stopped working a little early to have a little devotional. He shared with us 1 Corinthians 13:13 which states, "And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love." He explained to us that he lost his four-year-old daughter to a brain tumor during the 1970's. He also suffered the loss of his wife from a heart attack a few years ago. He told us that even when he questioned his faith and had lost all hope, he still had the love of Christ going for him. And that is what he has been able to live off of; Christ's Everlasting Love. Before we all left the worksite, the grad student from Ireland asked if we could all lay our hands on him and pray for him! It was very moving for our whole team! I believe that we have had a successful past few days here in Louisiana. I will make sure that I update this blog more often that way I don't have to write so much! haha! Thank you so much for all of your prayers, for they are greatly appreciated. Please continue to pray that we would have the strength the keep on going the rest of this week. We miss all of our friends and family back home! Thanks again!

Hello! This is Jessalyn! I have just created a blog for our New Orleans Team this year. We just had our last meeting, as a team, today! We are all very excited for God to use us to do His work over Spring Break down in Louisiana. We will be leaving on Friday, March 20, 2009 between 10pm and 12 midnight. So we have all of this week to be getting ready! Our team consists of 14 people. We have Mr. Paul Rhodea, who will be our team leader throughout our trip. His daughter, Robin (17), is also going with us. Then we have Mrs. Sherry Stephens and Miss Debbie Stoltz going, as well. The Key Family, consisting of Mr. John Key, Mrs. Carol Key, and their daughter, Debby Key (11), are coming along with us. Rachel (17)and Ellie Rettew (15) are coming, too. Then we have my family, the Ayers Family. My dad, Mr. Dan Ayers, and my mom, Mrs. Angela Ayers, along with me, Jessalyn (14), my sister, Katelyn (11), and my brother, Adam (8), are all taking a trip down to New Orleans with this team. We are all very excited to be able to serve the Lord by taking care of those people in need down in New Orleans. Please continue to pray for us as we prepare to leave! Thank you!