Day Four: A Day of Thanksgiving / Mission Accomplished

Thanksgiving Day - our Fourth and last work day arrived early for the First Presbyterian Marietta Mission team. We wanted to start the day early so we could finish the trip accomplishing what we came here to do. Like our other days we started with a devotional from Dan Valentine. The message today was ‘’A Place to Belong’’, which referred to the church and the fact that, as Christians, we are the body of Christ working together and that being a Christian is all about relationships with others. A fitting message as we left as a united and focused team for our last day in New Orleans

We left on time and had absolutely no traffic driving to Peace Presbyterian. We immediately started the day with Dan setting up teams to hit the specific areas we needed to finish up with. Again we had 2 energetic volunteers – one from Renando Beach, California and one local volunteer
What we focused on today and accomplished included:

• Totally removing everything from the kitchen area including counters and cabinets


• Finishing cleaning out the offices and closets of debris, counters, furniture, tiles and carpet.


• Removing all interior doors (around 20 doors) including Narthex, office, hallway doors


• Clearing the nursery area of all debris and furniture

While it was difficult for us all to leave our families during Thanksgiving we all ended our fourth day feeling so Thankful for our own personal blessings and a sense of Mission Accomplished.

Each team member shared some specific and meaningful memories of this Mission.
Some of them include:

• Cleaning up the debris in the flooded kitchen – including the Punch bowl and cups and remembering all of the happy wedding receptions which must have been held there at the Church


• The Free Wednesday Night Dinner at John Calvin Presbyterian open to the community which we attended


• How John Calvin Presbyterian freely opened their doors to us and their wonderful hot showers each evening


• Seeing all the Church Vans on Mission trips on the way down heading to New Orleans


• The Red Cross Volunteers offering us Turkey meals and cold drinks while we were working at Peace.


• How the emotionally draining all the devastation is while working here (and we don’t live here)


• Watching the positive uplifting changes in certain people around us as the days went by and as we made progress in the clean up


• The gratitude of everyone in New Orleans we met


• The sense of a Mission Accomplished as we drove away from the Peace parking lot the last time seeing the piles of debris 4-5 feet high all along the street surrounding the Church.


• Going back with the feeling that we need more people to help on the next trip


• How so many of the New Orleans residents we met have a great sense of humor, find the time to laugh and enjoy life despite their loss of homes and property


• How it’s hard to imagine our homes like the ones we have seen


• Finding numerous American Flags and taking them back to California and Marietta scout troops to take care of properly


• Throwing away so many beautiful Bibles, books, and so many children’s books including all Dr Seuss books


• The perfect beautiful weather conditions we had – being thankful that we are not doing this is 85+ degree temperatures


• Because of the flood and the area we were in how Peaceful and quiet (other than a few sirens) it was to work at Peace (Presbyterian).


• Getting an encouraging thumbs up from the National Guard and local authorities as they drive by


• Meeting the amazing New Orleans people, hearing their courageous stories and their warm hospitality with all they have going on


• Finding Christmas ornaments covered in muck – to take back and hang on our trees to remember to be thankful


• Getting a lump in your throat or a tear in your eye over and over through the day while you are working; but carrying on with your work

Finally the day ended with a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner of Turkey, ham, sweet potatoes provided by Captain Jim Umberger and his wife and Reflections of the day by Beth and Alex. The message was very fitting about the difficulty of giving thanks in the face of difficulty. Alex read many great reasons for all of us to be Thankful. We are all Thankful for the great success and we are looking forward to a early departure on Friday to Marietta and seeing our families again.