NOLA-DRCC-Monday-July 18

That's alot of acryonyms. It stands for New Orleans, Lousiana, Deep River Congregational Church. And NOLA is code for our 2011 mission trip to New Orleans to help rebuild post Katrina. Yes it was 6 years ago. Yes it got alot of media coverage. And yes it was (is) catastrophic. But until you are here you can't fully appreciate it. Hundreds of square miles of heavily populated area were flooded with water that reached (typically) about half way up folks 1st floor. That doesn't do a house much good. 6 years on the devastation is still pretty vast. On our tour of distressed areas yesterday we saw various neighborhoods where the houses were 70% devastated, 50% devastated, 30% devastated. Still.

Today, Monday, we got to our work sites. You never know what you're going to do. All of us this time are mudding (compounding, spackling) drywall in anticipation of painting finished rooms. It's a final step to the home owner moving back in (after 6 years). That's a good thing. The job of sanding compound and patching rough spots is a bad thing. Incredibly dusty, hot, sweaty stew. Our modest, temporary inconvenience is a small sacrifice for the gift we can provide a homeowner who has waited years for this day. We are a tiny part of solution but it feels good.