Reflections on New Orleans – Part I

New Orleans is both a beautiful city and not so beautiful city all rolled up in one.  

There are so many beautiful homes, especially along St Charles Avenue. 

There are fun little neighborhood cafes

and nice parks.

Then there is the low income side of town which is the area of the city we tend to see most when we are there. 

But even amongst those areas, there is beauty.  Beauty in the people. 
   
Before we left for New Orleans in December, DH & I were both pretty well convinced this was going to be our last trip.  Oh, we might return at some point.  We have made some wonderful friends there but as far as leading teams, we were all but certain this would be it. 

Then along comes an Albert to change our mind.  Albert is a 79 year old man whose house we helped with.  Albert is still a working man, even at 79.  Albert is one of those people who have fallen through the cracks after Katrina.  Albert didn’t receive much aid to start with and then was “taken” by two different contractors.  They took his money, did a slipshod job, took off and he never saw them again.    Albert was left with a house that didn’t meet codes (yes, there are codes in New Orleans) and had to pay someone a second time to complete/fix the work the first two contractors were supposed to do.

Our team was working across the street at Brian’s house
when Albert put the pride of re-building his home himself on the shelf, walked across and asked if we thought we would have time to help him with some sheetrock.  We referred him to the project director with His  Hands 2 Go.  After some discussion, it was decided a portion of our team could work on his home the second week we were there.  Our folks helped him with sheetrock, windows, gave him a locking door, yard clean-up and completed a small, lockable shed behind his home.
   This 79 year old man worked right along side our team the whole week, including digging a ditch.

  I don’t think there was any one of our folks who didn’t walk away incredibly blessed to be able to work with this man.   

If you want to read more about our trip, check out the outreach blog at http://crossroadsconstruction.blogspot.com