Day Five: The Last Day / The Trip Home

After working on Thanksgiving our last evening on Thursday was highlighted with a delicious Thanksgiving Dinner at John Calvin and a presentation of a Check from John Sorensen to Jim McLain from FWFriends.

As planned, on Friday we all loaded up early and, even though we were all anxious to return home to our families, we reluctantly said good bye to Jim McLain and headed east towards Montgomery, Alabama and eventually to Atlanta.

On the way out of town we reluctantly (not really) donated 5 cases of MREs to the clinic that took care of the cut on Alex Ball’s head. They were very happy to receive them. After a 10 hour trip we arrived in Marietta at 6:00 PM.

Alex Ball's Clinic

After we arrived home this final Reflection was sent by Dan Valentine:

We all knew before this trip started that the future of the area that Peace Presbyterian and Eastminster Nursery were in was and still is uncertain. However, God has already honored the work we did there in several ways:

• We have given Jim McLain (minister of Peace Presbyterian) a renewed spirit to minister to those in the area
• We have reached several members of the congregation who were clearly encouraged by our willingness to fix up the church and nursery
• The Redondo Presbyterian crew changed their plans and spent a day and a half working on Jim‘s house after working with us (clearly a task unthinkable before we arrived)
• There appears to be a strong consensus among the team that Peace Presbyterian can be a beacon of hope in a gloomy area

Specific to the last point – we all heard that there is a lot of hand-wringing and indecisiveness about the future direction of New Orleans. Because of this, folks from this area of town are living in uncertainly and are certainly frustrated – and all this on top of having their home and lives turned upside down by the hurricane. Many of these folks are despairing and teetering on hopelessness. Is this not the exact place Christ’s light needs to shine?

Regardless of what ultimately happens in this area, the love of Christ needs to be very present now. With continued help and support, Peace Presbyterian can be that beacon of hope. When I heard Dan Roberts tell of how Minnie (one of Peace’s members) lit up when she found out we were cleaning up the church rather than preparing to tear it down, it spoke volumes about the impact an active church in this community could have. We can’t be sure how God will ultimately use our efforts but as the Bible passage below promises, those efforts will NOT be wasted. I believe that we need to do what we can to cause Christ’s light to shine brightly in this area of New Orleans even as others try to decide what is going to happen there.

Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time and effort. I Corinthians 15:58

To view many more photos of the Mission please visit: http://community.webshots.com/album/511521739OgeMqT

And from our California Team members:http://community.webshots.com/album/512574725SQqrIo/0