Another Day on the Job

Today was another great day of demolition and construction! We started working on the roof of “the shed” and are halfway done! We prepped it for new metal shingles installation tomorrow and finished the all four windows. We had half the team working inside doing more demolition, breaking down walls, ceilings, and termite-infested floors! We had some conversations with people walking by, and Philip dropped by again and we got to eat lunch with him. Please continue to pray for safety and strong unity amongst the team. God’s been very good to us.

First Day of Work

Finally, after days of travel and anticipation, we got to work on the future location of New Orleans Baptist Church! Since we are so many in number, we were able to divide into multiple groups.

One team cleaned out some of the rooms inside the main church while another team demolished the interior of the side building with sledgehammers, sawz-alls, and brute force. Thankfully, no major injuries occured amidst the falling plaster and exploding toilets. Another group worked on “the shed” – installing windows and prepping to install new siding.

Philip, one of the men who occasionally attends the church, dropped in to help throughout the day. Please continue to pray for safety and unity as we head into day two tomorrow!

Church Service and City Streets

This morning we jumped up after a great night’s rest, and got to join in on Pastor Kyle’s Sunday morning class and church service. He preached on Melchizedek. We met members, like Rosaline and George, and guests who do full-time missions in Sudan. We were thankful to be able to be, inexplicably, a part of this church’s soon-to-be history. Tomorrow, we will begin the work.

The afternoon was spent walking downtown and taking a train car to the historic French Quarter. Everyone we passed by as a group was so friendly, always stopping to see what so many people were up to!

We grilled outside for dinner and got our hearts and minds ready for the main work ahead. We look forward to seeing just what God has in store for us.

Welcome to New Orleans!

After a night on the train, the team rose to watch the sunrise, read, and play games until arriving in NOLA. Once in the city we made our way walking and by bus to NOLA Baptist Church. Kyle welcomed us in and told us the story of their church. He also gave us a word of encouragement for the messy job of demo work ahead.