MySpace blog: Results

Today Karissa, Stephanie and I woke up and started cleaning the apartment we're staying in. This is a picture I took of before and after cleaning the lightswitches in our apartment. We are cleaning 3 apartments. It's going to take us probably a whole day to do each one.




Well, that's actually when I had cleaned half of it and it's "after" and "before" (going from right to left)

Around 2:30 we went to Home Depot to buy more cleaning supplies and check out carpet shampooers (Larry was deciding whether to rent or buy one for the apartments), and we got back here at about 3:45. Right as we pulled in, we got a call from Willy in New Orleans saying that Karissa had left her phone at Home Depot. He said that someone named Maria at Home Depot had called Liz, who called him. Karissa didn't know who Liz was, but we went back and tried to get her phone.

The guy at the customer service counter (his name was Derrick) said he didn't know who called us. Derrick was wearing a lavendar shirt unbuttoned to the 3rd button, a really girly necklace, and he had a lisp. He said "sweetie" when he was on the phone, and rolled his eyes a lot. His demeanor showed up quite brightly on the gaydar. It was the first time I'd met an African-American homosexual--another first on this trip. Anyway, back to the story...He called Maria, who brought the phone. It turns out that she received a call on Karissa's phone from a lady that Karissa helped out on our spring trip. Her name was Elizabeth, or "Liz." So we got that figured out.

After dinner, we joined the Lains (our hosts here, and our friends from Redding) on their usual Wednesday night activity--rock climbing in a rock gym about an hour away in Lafayette.

Larry told us it was really great to have us here just to have familiar faces around, because they are going through a lot. It is really tempting to feel like we're not accomplishing things when we're just spending time with them and not working physically, but I know that fellowship is important, because they told us it is.

On the way out of the apartments we saw Gary Spiller and Gordon (the Lains' neighbor). Gary is the man who had left his faith after the hurricane. In January and February of 2005, his mother and his wife died. When the Hurricane hit, he was stranded on his roof, where he watched his neighbor's 2 kids drown. When we came, he said he could not believe in God.

He spent one evening in February talking with Bev (who is a counselor at Simpson), and we ended up giving him a TV. Tom Taylor (one of our staff sponsors this spring) has maintained contact with him and Gordon.

Gordon is also a Christian who had been away from his faith. He had planned on moving back to South Dakota, but is surprisingly still here.

The new church is just a small group right now, and consists of the Knightens (the pastor's family), the Lains, Gary, and Gordon. Gary and Gordon have become good friends, and are both full of joy. Their change is utterly astounding, particularly with Gary. It was so good to talk to them--seeing fruit from our spring trip was satisfying enough that I would feel like this trip was worth it even if it accomplished nothing else. Those are the kind of results that make me understand how valuable the work being done in Baton Rouge really is.

Larry is really trying to get me to move here and take an Americorps position for a year. It would be working with him, and I need to pray about it. There are still so many options and I still need to wait on the Lord and pray about my future.