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The young missionaries from Congregational United Church of Christ arrived July 20 in New Orleans, after a 13 hour drive. During a visit to a local restaurant, one of the adults asked a couple sitting nearby what was good to eat. The couple responded by asking where he was from, and then why he was here and about the group.  To their great surprise, the couple came over to say hello, and insisted on paying for their dinner - all of them.  One good turn deserves another, they said, and thanked them profusely for coming to help.  The waiters thanked them as well.

During the past few months the News & Record has spotlighted the work and the fun moments of youths such as these, who in many cases spent the past year raising money to be able to reach out to help someone else by living their faith.

This morning we went to the UCC Disaster Relief Ministry office at Little Farms United Church of Christ.  The director, the Rev. Alan Coe (Minister for Disaster Response for the South Central Conference of the UCC), talked to us about their work, showed a video the UCC produced last year about their efforts, and sent us on our way, bidding us to watch for fire ants but to not worry much about the alligator near one of the sites. Fortunately, it is not our site.
Our group consisted of Ken Aldridge (adult), Jon Michael Aldridge (youth, graduate of Weaver Academy of Visual and Performing Arts), Jennifer Chi (youth, graduate of Early College at Guilford College at Guilford College), Lena Eyring (youth, student at Early College at Guilford College), Alice Franks (adult), Gentry Ranson (youth, student at Grimsley High School), Jade Stoner (youth, student at Page High School), Kathy Rice (adult), and Paul Davis (adult, trip leader, Minister of Christian Education).
Our group is working at the house of Sam and Cheryl Williams, about half a mile up the street from where we are staying.  They have been living in a FEMA trailer for 2 1/2 years, which hugs their front yard.  Houses here have small front yards, non-existent side yards, but generous back yards.  The water came only up to their floor; this being the high area in New Orleans. Their house was in pretty bad shape, even though the UCC group has been sending them volunteers for over a year.  The pace of work here is slow; rehab work is difficult.
Our tasks this week are to tear down a shed and rebuild its floor system, on a newly poured foundation.  We got the shed down, and tomorrow we'll start the foundation, building the forms and mixing the concrete by hand.  The second set of tasks are to repair floor damage.  Some repair work has been done, mostly the easy stuff.  
It is hard to know where to begin or stop, since there are bad spots everywhere, and yet the floor is mostly tongue and groove pine that is strong and hard.  Except where it is soft and mushy.  There is no sub-floor, but we think another layer will go on top of our work.
Cheryl and Sam Williams are probably in their late 60s, both have been in the hospital recently for chronic ailments.  She has trouble walking and going up stairs.  Plus, their son was killed recently, a victim of gang violence.  Their house is immediately behind The Notre Dame Seminary, so the general area is good, but their street looks poor and run down.
What we noticed (on tours) depended on what one was looking at.  The women noticed the destruction, the houses not lived in, the people not here.  Ken, Jon, and I noticed a lot more activity than last year, in every part of the city we have been to.  There is traffic, there are people walking and riding bikes and riding street cars, there are buses, there is life.  Even in the 9th Ward, both Upper and Lower, there is more going on.  Not that all is well by any means, but most things seem better than last year.  Something like Charleston was following Hugo, say three months after the storm.  Three months, three years, who can count with numbers like that?
We still saw houses that were not occupied, houses that should be torn down, houses that were being worked on.  But we saw many more houses where people are again living.  Our guide said that if one wants to buy a nice house that has been renovated, the prices are high.  If one wants to buy a house that needs to be renovated, the prices are quite low.  And if one owns a house near a levy, the government is offering pennies on the dollar of pre-Katrinia value.  Who says the government is foolish?  
We were also told, repeatedly, that volunteer groups have made more of a difference than private contractors or government efforts.  I don't know if that means large volunteer efforts, or small ones like ours.
- Paul Davis, pastor of Christian education

The people we're working for in New Orleans are great: 62 -year- old Sam usually sits on his front porch, quietly smoking cigarettes right down to the filter as he uses a knife to peel off the plastic casing around tangles of wire, salvaging the valuable copper inside. The view from his porch ain't the prettiest. A stark white FEMA trailer stands in front of any view of the city street or the Big Easy Sky, crammed into the small shred of property between his house and the road, and the gravestone of his 30-year-old son lies sadly under a towel at his feet.
But Sam remains thankful and hopeful.  You can see it in his quiet brown eyes and hear it in his soulfully wheezy voice once he starts talking.  One day this week, while my dad and I worked behind the house, building a new shed to replace an old rotted one, Sam wandered back to watch us.  We were pouring cement into a wooden mold we had built for the shed's foundation when we got him talking.
Pointing towards the slushy cement we were mixing in a rusty wheel barrow, my dad asked Sam if he wanted a mud pie.  Sam quickly jived back, "Oh no sah, that stuff is too stiff going down," and gave a hearty laugh. And when Paul started singing wild spontaneous spirituals to the darkened rooms and rotted-out wall studs from inside the house, Sam asked concernedly, "Who's that singing?" and then grinned and chuckled to himself and shook his head.
And then when he really started talking, mumbling quietly about young folk these days who want everything instantly and nodding his head "yeah!" at talk of the joy in life being in waiting for something, so that you can really appreciate it when it comes - these were the moments when we really felt the family's thanks, in beautifully subtle ways. And Sam might have to wait a while:  6 months, 9 months, a year or maybe more, before his house is liveable again, but in the meantime he's content with quiet cool rains on the front porch and bike rides down to the corner store, smiling and saying "You just gotta keep livin'."
- Jon Michael Aldridge, a Weaver Academy of Visual and Performing Arts graduate

It is incredibly hot in New Orleans.  I've learned that there is not a difference between sheet rock and drywall. I think my right arm has gotten 10 times stronger than the left from pounding nails into endless 2 x 4's. When I first came down, I anticipated the work to be difficult and dirty and unpleasant. Don't get me wrong, a lot of it has been and it was hard - but there are so many gifts we are receiving and giving to others with this experience and it really makes all the challenges pale in comparison. New Orleans is a beautiful city, despite all it has been through; the people we meet who are so supporting and gracious; and the huge amount of hope and faith you sense wherever you go, that will keep you going and brighten your day above all else.
- Lena Eyring, a sophomore at The Early College at Guilford