4:30 a.m.   A tired group of semi-unrecognizable adults and teenagers boarded a bus to the Pittsburgh airport. 

5:30 a.m.   In the bus ride down, the group had energy to sing...the Oscar Meyer wiener song, Jesus Loves Me, and Rise and Shine.

6:00 a.m.   Check-in went well (some luggage was over the 50 lb limit; however, we were offered grace...Ashton, 56 lbs.; Mr. Hunter, 54 lbs.; Nicole C., 53 lbs.).

Arrived at the airport...boarding and flight went smoothly. 

9:15 - 2:30  Now........we are sitting, sitting, eating, eating, sleeping, sitting for five hours in Atlanta until our next flight to New Orleans.

Various ways we are entertaining ourselves:  Juggling (a few select talented ones), reading, talking, eating, shopping, LISTENING TO THE PIANO MAN at the food court, comparing high school memories.

7:00 p.m.  After arriving at the church in New Orleans, we settled in and had pizza.  We practiced for the church service, and then were entertained by a gentleman who does French Cajun accordion playing.  He taught us the waltz and other dances.  It was a blast!  His website is http://www.brucedaigrepont.com

We really enjoyed the Cajun dancing.  First you kinda giggle at it thinking it's sorta silly but then we really got into it and had a blast.

The showers were outside but very adequate and not cold.

We became acquainted with others we don't necessarily know real well.

Cockroaches are HUGE in New Orleans!!!  One ran across Lisa and Shane's feet already.

7:00 - 10:30  Woke up, got dressed and practiced for church.

10:30  Gathered and met the congregation.

11:00  Our SHYG led the worship service.  During the service we sang several heartwarming songs which seemed to move the congregation. We met in small groups with the congregation to gather their joys and concerns.  One elderly lady told her story.  She was 79 yrs. old when the hurricane hit.  She was forced to climb to the attic and break through the roof to reach safety.  She remained there until rescue crews came. The service was a blessing and very moving to the congregation as well as all of us.

12:30  We then enjoyed lunch with a few of the congregation. 

2:30  We loaded into the vans for a guided tour (by Cliff Nunn, the pastor) of the hurricane devastation.  Words cannot convey what we saw. There were blocks and blocks of houses abandoned.  In the hundreds of houses we saw there was hope, though.  We saw an abandoned house with a field of flowers next to it, we saw abandoned neighborhoods and then one house that was redone and having a huge birthday party outside, we saw two streets lined with colorful Habitat houses.

7:00 We met in our groups to talk about different situations in our lives and how we saw "God's Wonderful World".  It was a great day!  Tomorrow we get to work!!!

6:30  woke up, got dressed and had breakfast

7:00 left for our work sites for the day.  Some of us finished drywall at a house owned by a woman named Yolonda.  Others ripped out cabinets, cleaned up the church yard, and painted houses.  We took a break for lunch and worked until 2:00

3:00 free time starts.  People getting showers, playing four square, and even sleeping. 

6:00 dinner is served, cajun style.

7:00 Our guest Bradley from Teen Leaders comes to chat about how the flood has affected his life and what he expects in the future.

8:00 Broke into groups for devotions. THEME: how we can make a difference.

 ps. this is from Logan and Jake. who are adding in a few things here or there.  on precisely betweeeeeen the hours of 3 and 9pm Logan purchased a 99cent bag of chips with a 100 dollar bill.  now I no what your are thinking, well actually i have no idea wat you are thnkin so im gonna type like i do on AIM. but ya ok.

Get ready for the ride of your life. =)  A Story in the life of the A-Team.

    Well today at six o'clock (when teh real men get up) we had a scrumptious breakfast of yummy delicious pancakes, cereal with some seriously pasteurized milk, and DDT fruit infected food stuff.  That was a run on sentence.  On a more serious note we left the church at precisely 7:04am (this was the A-team/skill squad that no other group can contend with because we are just that amazingly good looking.  We have Lindsay Lohan on our team... which is actually Shane.) With this and our badly constructed sentences...we are currently listening to Jake's awesome voicemails, there's like 23.325434 of them... back to the mission trip stuff.  On this morning of spectacular sunshiny weather with a side of clouds and debris with high grass and humid temperatures in conjunction with the A-teams amazing good looks.   We installed drywall and insulation in a home that was affected by the flooding of Katrina the hurricane <(''<).  Now this part was really moving because the owner of the house decided to stop by.  Now she is currently pregnant with her 3rd son :) now this motivated us to work like we have never worked in our lives.  We really want this family to be able to live in a house of their own and grow up with a normal and beautiful life.  Her husband could not stop by today but he is teh SHWEETEST barber you will ever meet in ur life.  He has dread locks, amazing.  Well that pretty much sum's up our day.  HAHA thats a lie. We did have a break at the BK lounge (Burger King) and then came back and worked some more till around 2:23:46pm.  Now you also must be thinking what did the other groups do?? Well i will tell you, one group went on a safari and cut through a jungle (which was actually a backyard that had not been touched for about a year and half).  many others were also painting, and when i saw them, i was convinced that there was more paint on them than the walls.  but that is ok because we are here to have fun and fun we do have.  At around 4pm everyone was back in the church after a hard day's work.  Now some went on a refreshing trip to a swimming pool and cooled off, but many others like myself (jake) slept.  After 30 seconds of trying to type the word slept we can get back to typing about our day.  Now we had a very unusual dinner which included eating some crawfish, hot sausage, and amazingly good potatoes.  Logan and I ate some PBplusJ, we dont like fishfood that much.

Today was awesome, just like always.

6:00 -- we get up as usual. Interestingly, some of us were doing Yoga with Leanna this morning. Breakfast included delicious pancake-wrapped sausages on a stick and cereal.

7:00 -- we are working. At the worksites, we had some interesting experiences. Those of us painting at Robert's house learned about what happened to Robert during the Katrina incident. The ice cream man came back to Yolanda's house again, although with a slight delay.

2:00 p.m. -- most of us are back from working. Some of us already had lunch. I (Jimmy) had lunch at BK.

5:00 -- we left at this time to Mulate's. This is a fantastic fancy Cajun restaurant. We listened to and/or danced to some fantastic Zydeco music. In case you didn't know, Zydeco is a french-ish Cajun influenced type music involving an accordion most of the time.

9:00 -- we are back at the church at this point in time. At Devotions, we discussed how we may have seen Christ in fellow mission trip people.  We learned more about each other in this activity. Later on that night, we celebrated Nicole Forkey and Katie Flynn's birthday parties. We had a pinata and cakes. It was amazing!

Then we went to bed. Good Night!