Day 1 - Traveling to Alabama

The first time that I went down to Louisiana, I joined the teenagers from my church youth group, the youth minister, and the teens and youth minister from a different church. We numbered 26, which was enough people to put one person in each seat of our charter bus.

After we had a prayer, we loaded up and got ready to go. Little did we know the things that would await us. I am sure that I was mentally unprepared for what I would see, no matter how "ready" I felt about actually taking the trip. They are definitely two very different things.

On the trip, we played a version of "speed dating" which we did to give everybody a chance to get introduced to everybody else. We stopped in Kentucky to eat lunch at a McDonalds. When we got back on the bus, people began to notice how hot it was in the back, but there was no real way to figure out what was happening. So we decided to put up with the experience.

In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, we stayed at the University Church of Christ. They use their church as a "way station" for groups that are headed to the Gulf to help in the reconstruction work. A group from Xenia, Ohio got there a few minutes before us, so all the food was set up and waiting for us when we got there.

That's right--I said food, and I mean FOOD! We were expecting a place to roll out the sleeping bags, not "full service hospitality." We had barbecue, squash casserole, green beans, dinner rolls, salad, all you can eat. Since their building is a remodeled gymnasium or school, they have a locker room with showers, which they allowed us to use. They even invited us to stay for Sunday worship.

Everybody wished that we could stay, but we knew what we had signed up for. Everybody wished that we could come back and stay in Tuscaloosa on the way back, but we didn't get that chance.