Day 9 - Midday Pickup

In the morning, I realized that I had packed my sneakers in my duffel bag. That meant that I could not wear them to church. I took this as more of an "opportunity" than as a loss. That meant I could wear my sandals. Since I had worn sandals every day last week (whenever I wasn't wearing work boots), they felt more comfortable to me anyway. At least, they seemed more comfortable until somebody asked if I could help serve during Communion. I thought about serving barefoot to keep myself from tripping if a sandal slipped off, but that might've bothered some people, so I kept them on and took extra care not to let them slip off my toes.

Dad and I left church early (in the middle of the Bible class after worship) so that we could go and pick up my missing luggage. The trip was only a few minutes from our church to the church where the second trip had started. Their parking lot was full now, and I walked into the vestibule leading into the building. To my right was my errant duffel bag.

I checked just to be sure, and took the bag with me to the car. When we got back to church, the Bible class was just about over. Since we had missed the middle of it, it was not easy to comprehend the discussion that was going on when we returned. Dad talked to the teacher after the class for a few minutes, but what I overheard didn't really help me understand it all. This was partly because I had gone to bed very late last night.

After the conversation was finished, Dad and I returned home, officially bringing my second trip to an end.

Day 8 - Returning Home Lighter

When I unloaded my luggage at home, the first thing I noticed was that there was less of it. That was not good. Either, I had left something in Louisiana (because they have a warehouse full of clothes that nobody wants, they throw away any clothes that volunteers leave behind!), or I had left something in Ohio (when we moved things from the minivan to Dad's car). Since the minivan was a rental, I had to find out fast.

I called the group leader after midnight and apologized. Then I asked if she had seen a purple duffel bag laying around anywhere. It turns out that she had seen it when dropping off the minivan, so she had taken it. She said she'd make arrangements so that I could pick up the duffel bag at the place where the trip started. After the telephone call, I went to bed.

The trip which I thought would end today would officially end tomorrow, when the last of my luggage returned home with me.

Day 8 - The Final Stretch

We decided to avoid any sit-down restaurants on the way home, and order food "to go." As we drove along, I pointed out many of the landmarks that were not as easily visible in the dark. We left Louisiana, and as we went along, the signs of Hurricane Katrina became less evident in the landscape.

Since the ONN crew had left Chalmette before us, they occasionally called by cell phone to inform us of their progress and of potential driving delays. For example, in Alabama, police were pulling over anybody who was caught driving even a few miles per hour above the speed limit. We stopped for lunch and traded passengers for the next leg of the trip. I switched from riding in the minivan to riding in the car. We passed through the rest of Alabama without encountering any traffic accidents to delay us.

In Tennessee, we traded passengers again at a gas station during refueling. With little delay, we were back on the road again. I became the "navigator" again as we approached Nashville. I used the road atlas to check the instructions from Google Maps and determined that the route through Nashville would be different on the trip home. A cell phone conversation between both vehicle drivers covered the fact that the route was different. I did not get disoriented, and I did a good job of keeping track of exactly where we were on the route. A while later, we were driving out of Nashville.

We stopped for dinner at a gas station with a Subway restaurant next to it, ordered subs to go, and hit the road again. That was in Kentucky, after we had passed Elizabethtown and returned to Eastern Standard Time. We discussed the time left on the trip and concluded that we would be in Ohio before midnight.

As we rounded Louisville and merged onto I-71 North, I got to put away the driving directions and the road atlas. This area of the United States was familiar enough to the drivers that I did not need to be a "navigator" anymore. The sun went down before we reached Cincinnati, and all the city lights were on. As we crossed the Ohio River, I read the sign: "Ohio Welcomes You!"

When we were well into Ohio, we began trading trivia questions again, but this time they had a twist--they were questions about our week in Chalmette and New Orleans. Questions included "how many steps does a volunteer climb to get to the second floor of C.F. Rowley Elementary School," and "how did the refrigerator movers at the Monoplex get extra traction?"

Before we reached Columbus, the driver let me borrow his cell phone to call Dad. It was sometime after 11:00 P.M. when we arrived where we had started a week ago. A few minutes later, as we were saying our goodbyes, Dad drove into the parking lot. Then Dad helped me load up, and we headed home...

Day 8 - The Road Goes Ever On and On

I ate a hurried breakfast after getting misinformed about what time we were leaving. By the time we actually did fully pack up the van, I had everything ready to go. I packed some of the things that did not fit into my duffel bag, which I had packed into my suitcase for the trip. That meant that everything had a place to fit, but it also meant that I had to keep track of a suitcase, a backpack, a sleeping bag, a pillow, and a duffel bag.

We circled up for a prayer, and then said our goodbyes to Chuck and the other people we had befriended through the week.

We had return trip instructions from Google Maps since we started last Saturday. We brought these instructions out. The ONN crew was already on the road ahead of us, and would occasionally call us to keep tabs on our progress or to share updates with us.

So we began the trip back to Ohio. I gave the first two directions, intending to backtrack the way we came, and thinking that my instructions matched the ones from Google Maps. But as we drove on, we realized that we were not heading the right way to leave Chalmette! After we turned around, I tried to figure out what went wrong. What I figured out was rather dismaying: Google Maps was giving instructions for us to leave Chalmette by way of residential roads! We would have needed to guess, as none of the street signs were still up.

I examined all of the instructions as we exited Chalmette along our familiar route, and saw that our instructions varied significantly in Nashville as well. I made a mental note of this, then tried to make sure I was focused--the week had been tiring and I still felt sleepy.

Day 7 - On a Day Like This

Today's morning devotional was led by the regular devotional leader (who had been gone most of the week). He gave a message that began with a pair of inspirational videos. The first one was called That's My King, and the second was called Never Been Unloved. The first video inspired me, but I had already seen it on my first day of my first trip. The second video moved me to tears. I needed that.

Later during the devotional, the devotional leader led us in a round of "On a Day Like This" which is a song that I remember from my first trip.

The rest of the team had been to a different house during the time that I visited the clinic. Before we went to our assigned house for today, one of the people from the group drove me to the Walgreen's pharmacy to pick up my prescription. I was worried that I would not be able to go to work, because the pills indicated that they needed to stay at room temperature. But since they had to be taken only two times a day, I could leave the bottle at Camp Rowley after taking one pill. The eye drops were a potential problem, since they couldn't be left in the heat, but I put them into a Ziploc bag and put that into one of our coolers. Finally, since the side-effects of the pills included "nausea, dizziness, and sun-sensitivity," I drank extra water, decided not to transport debris outside the house unless absolutely necessary, and decided to put on a couple of layers of sunblock.

We would be working with a man named Steve today. Chuck was reassigned to work with some of the people who oversee the decision-making for Hilltop Rescue and Relief. Brendan insisted on showing them the work that was being done firsthand, and the best person for that job was Chuck. To me, Steve was just as dedicated, just as motivating, and just as hard-working, even if he was not the same as Chuck.

We met the home owners after stopping to ask for directions. We were in for a special treat today: the home owners had been visiting their house over the past months, spending their weekends removing muck and debris. The house was empty enough and dry enough that I did not need a mask inside until we started working on the drywall. I opened windows in the rooms of the house, and when one wouldn't stay open, Steve suggested: "break off a piece of the baseboard in the house, and wedge the window open with it." That worked perfectly.

We started working on removing woodwork from the house, and I noticed how different I felt, holding a hammer and a pry bar that hadn't been spray painted bright orange. It wasn't that the tools weren't useful, it was that they weren't familiar. They weren't as easily visible against the backdrop of a gutted house.

We broke for lunch, and sat in the van to eat. Steve turned the engine on and used the air-conditioner, which gave us a welcome reprieve from the hot sun outside. There weren't many places for shade, so I was glad to be inside a vehicle where I wouldn't feel the burning of the sun on my sensitized skin. I asked a woman from the group to help me take my eye drops. I am squeamish about anything or anybody touching parts of my eyes (myself included), so eye drops aren't easy for me to take. With no mirror, I could not give them to myself. The woman I asked was finished administering the eye drops before I could tense up.

We went back to work, but time in the afternoon really flew. The drywall removal was almost completed, and we had torn down sections of the ceiling in most of the rooms before we had to stop for the day. We loaded the tools back into the trailer, and then headed back to Camp Rowley.

Dinner was very good tonight--there was ground beef, lettuce, chopped tomato, guacamole, shredded cheese, and all the other things we needed to make some very good tacos or burritos. I piled everything together on my plate, over a layer of blue corn tortilla chips. Some of the people from the group sat together with the ONN crew, and when one of the people working in the kitchen offered us a dessert of chocolate pie, we all accepted.

I found out that one of the ONN crew members had been to the clinic for eye problems similar to my own. He'd even been prescribed the same anti-inflammatory eye drops I'd been given. I warned him that the list of side effects for my eye drops included "hallucinations" (I am not making this up), and pretended to warn him:

"If you start having 'visions' of chocolate pie sitting in front of you, don't believe in everything you see." We talked for a while longer, but then the conversation turned to the trip ahead. We split up to pack, wash laundry, and get ready to leave. The ONN crew asked permission to get some final interviews before we left Louisiana.

I decided to spend the last exposures of film in my second camera, taking pictures of group members. At last, with a single exposure left, I found Chuck.

"Do you mind if I take a picture of you?" I asked him.

"Only if you're in the picture with me," he said.

It was a fitting way to wrap up a long week.

I went to bed with almost all my laundry cleaned and packed. I fell asleep for a while, but got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and get a drink. The teens from California had just returned from sightseeing in New Orleans, and I got to speak with their youth leader before we all turned in for the night.

There was a long journey ahead of us, and we would need all the sleep we could get.

Day 6 - I Spy

We had to say our goodbyes to the ONN crew as we ate lunch. They had a lot of footage to edit and assemble into their Hurricane Katrina anniversary documentary. They also had an interview scheduled with Dr. Phil, concerning the psychological after effects of Hurricane Katrina.

I was about to return to work, when one of the team members spotted the discoloration of my right eye and remarked that it had gotten worse. I admitted that I'd suspected pink eye (from viral causes), but that I'd intended to get it looked at after returning to Ohio. But Chuck wanted to get a look first. He instructed me to pry open my lower eyelid and look upward, then to pry open my upper eyelid and look downward. From what he saw, he decided that I was going to get my eye looked at as soon as possible. I said I'd need somebody to drive me to the clinic to get my eye looked at, and Chuck said he'd make the arrangements. In the meantime, I returned to the back room of the house to clear away more debris.

The son of the home owners came inside with Chuck once the front room had been gutted. He looked at the beams and the studs in the room and had to come to a hard conclusion--the house could not be repaired. If the wood looked as bad elsewhere in the house, then it would be better to demolish it. Immediately following that consent, our working orders changed. We were now to sift debris and search for sentimental items. Debris was to be removed only if it was directly in the way of our search. We dug through the back room, pulling up all we could in hopes of finding a coin collection that used to be in a box. All we could find were handfuls of Mardi Gras doubloons, with the occasional collectible doubloon turning up.

But we did not find the collection before it was time to leave. We returned to Camp Rowley in the middle of the afternoon to pick up another assignment before the end of the day, and to drop me off with the person who had noticed the condition of my eye. Chuck told me that I didn't have to shower and change just to visit the clinic, so I went as I was. After trying to find out which entrance was the correct entrance for the clinic, we arrived at the right place. What usually took "at least three hours" for people who'd visited the clinic before, took a little over an hour. And that time was spent inside a building with air-conditioning. I filled out my paperwork, then I was examined, I was asked about my symptoms, and then given anti-inflammatory eye drops, antibiotic eye drops, an anti-inflammatory shot in one hip, and an antibiotic shot in the other hip. I was also handed a prescription for Ciprofloxacin (antibiotic pills).

On our way out, we met the youth group leader from California and one of his teenagers. She had cut her hand and would only need a few stitches. We left them at the clinic and returned to Camp Rowley. After I'd showered and changed, I searched for Brendan. When I found him, I asked him where I could help out. He referred me to the kitchen, since dinner was almost ready. I arrived just in time to help carry food to the Cafeteria, and then I was allowed to eat and prepare for the evening devotional. Unfortunately, the food prepared for the group was not enough for everybody. Some people ate leftovers, and I think some never even showed up for dinner.

After the devotional, Chuck took me to the Walgreen's pharmacy to submit my prescription. One of the California volunteers came with us to buy batteries for his digital camera. The prescription would be ready to pick up in the morning tomorrow.

Day 6 - Chuck's Way

After breakfast, we got one final chance to say our goodbyes to the Michigan teens who had worked with us. We took pictures, and had pictures of us taken together. Some of the people exchanged cell phone numbers or email addresses, and then we saw them off on their journey. The group diminished in size, but three people were added: the two volunteers from California, and a third person, who I never asked where she was from. We also had four more people added to our crew: the ONN crew was going to work with us today.

We drove through damaged neighborhoods until we found a house with a bright orange sticker affixed to the center of the front window. It was a demolition notice.

During orientation, we had been told stories of Hilltop Rescue volunteers mucking a house even with the bulldozers across the street from it. Chuck told us that the demolition list for St. Bernard Parish has at least one thousand houses on it. He also told us that a home owner could choose to have a house removed from the list by filing the requisite paperwork. We were going to try to clear out the debris and find sentimental objects, and gut enough to give the home owners a choice. We prayed, and then we got started.

Inside, I discovered that the front window was set in a metal window frame that had no visible hardware, no locking mechanisms, nothing that suggested a way to open it. It was flush with the wall on all sides, so I told Chuck about the problem. He told me to continue opening windows and not to worry about the window in the front room. I managed to open most of the other windows before hitting a new snag: There were some windows in the back rooms of the house that could be cranked open, but the cranks were nowhere to be found. Chuck told me to get pliers and turn the stumps where the cranks attached. It was not easy, but we got three of the windows opened this way.

The last window was in a room piled high with debris. When I tried to turn the stump of the crank here, there was heavy rust all over it. The pliers slipped off over and over again, but the stump never turned. The window was stuck. Chuck tried prying the window panes apart, but there was a threaded bolt of some kind fastening them together. I tried turning the bolt, but it rotated freely, giving me no indication of whether it had anything else holding it together.

Chuck asked me to muck out the room and stop worrying about the windows. I got help from the two California volunteers, and at one point heard a group member remind another that speedy debris removal was less important than salvaging the valuables for the home owners.

Day 5 - Now Hear the Word

The leader from Michigan used the "Feeding of the Five Thousand" passage and discussed a group of monks who practiced "chewing on the Word." They would meditate for days (sometimes without eating or sleeping), to draw every drop of meaning from what they read. Since we did not have time to do that here, we would only spend about five minutes. The leader from Michigan would read, then let us meditate for a minute, then say "Now Hear the Word of the Lord." Then he would re-read the passage.

I focused on how I had found strength in the Word today. The song "As the Deer Thirsts for the Water" is based on the 42nd Psalm. Jesus provided strength to me, in the same way he satisfied physical hunger among the five thousand. Jesus is also the "bread of life" because he satisfies a spiritual hunger for God.

When devotional finished, our group gathered for a final meeting. There Chuck expressed uncertainty about whether he should stay in Louisiana, or return home to visit his parents. His dad was having an operation, and since he was on medications to reduce clotting, he'd had trouble healing in the past. Then we prayed for Chuck.

Day 5 - The Ohio-Michigan Demolition

The ONN reporters had interviewed us about the Ohio State Buckeyes and University of Michigan Wolverines football rivalry on Monday. We had not been "rivals" at any time on this trip, and as we headed back into the Monoplex, I thought that our group of volunteers should have a name to show that we overcame any rivalry between ourselves.

At the Monoplex, there were five full-sized refrigerators. If they'd stayed vertical, we could've used a dolly to roll them away, but they had all wound up laying down on their backs. Tipping them onto a dolly vertically would let out all that "wholesome goodness" that people at Camp Rowley call "refrigerator juice." Since we agreed that it is the worst smell we've ever smelled, we did not want to let that juice leak out. So that meant the refrigerators needed to get pushed across the floor.

We caught up with two people who were working to align one refrigerator to get it out of the house. With a couple of shoves, we got it through the door into the garage. Then we gave it a couple more shoves, until it was able to slide down the driveway. We kept pushing it until it reached the curb. One down, four more to go.

Back inside, we gathered around the next refrigerator. I noticed then, that our group of four consisted of two people from Ohio and two from Michigan. An idea for a team name popped into my head: "The Ohio-Michigan Demolition" (Or "The Michigan-Ohio Demolition" depending on which state you're from). We pushed the next refrigerator to the same exit leading into the garage, then down the driveway and out to the curb. Two down, three more to go. This was getting tiresome, at the end of a very tiring day.

We went back in. I suggested trying to put a dolly at each end of a refrigerator and trying to roll the next refrigerator out of the house. I was told that we had only one dolly. If we'd had a flat dolly we might've gotten somewhere, but we did not. The only level path to the curb was through that one exit in the garage, so each trip was going to get longer and longer, because each refrigerator was farther into the house than the last.

The third refrigerator hit a snag, and we had to tip it ever so slightly so that the object could be pulled out from under it. We shoved the refrigerator all the way to the garage exit, but lost traction on leaked refrigerator juice. We couldn't get out of the house. The construction worker asked a woman to help us, but she said she was "whipped." He explained how she could still help: she'd have to try to plant her feet as firmly as possible. This gave him a foothold. His pushing got us clear of the spill and onto dry flooring again. We entered the garage and pushed the refrigerator down to the curb. Three down, two more to go.

We walked three-fourths of the way back through the Monoplex to get to the next refrigerator. I was getting tired, and each time we stopped for rest, I prayed for strength by reciting a line from "As the Deer Thirsts for the Water:" I pour out my soul deep within me / Deep within me I pour out my soul! We finished pushing the refrigerator to the curb. As we turned to get the last refrigerator, Chuck and another woman from our team came out of the garage with it.

There was one other refrigerator, but it was a wine cooler, not a full sized appliance. It took little effort to tip it onto a dolly, and it took only one person to roll it out of the house. The rest of us watched and made sure it never hit a bump or leaked on the way out.

Some of the people from the group then gave in to their curiosity and decided to peek inside the refrigerators. I did not care to look. We had a prayer before heading out. When we got back to Camp Rowley, we had hamburgers for dinner. Two of the people who helped move refrigerators ate a total of eleven burgers.

The youth group leader from Michigan led the devotional tonight.

Day 5 - A Second Chance

We had known since Monday that the teens from Michigan would have to leave on Thursday, so this was our last day to work with them. After breakfast, we found out that we would be going back to the Monoplex today. We were delayed, however, when Dr. Phil McGraw visited the FEMA camp next to Camp Rowley. Because his vehicles and his crews inadvertently blocked Madison Avenue, we had to take a different route. Some people disagreed with Dr. Phil, and some people agreed with him--as long as he carried the message that people still needed help in Louisiana and in the rest of the Gulf.

At the Monoplex, we were surprised to find that the piles of debris that we had left on Monday were gone today. We took that as a blessing, because it would give us all of that space again, to pile up today's debris from the house. We prayed together again, then got to work.

There was a lot of woodwork to remove from the walls, from baseboards and door frames, to paneling and shelf brackets. We went through the rooms removing the woodwork and cleaning out the rest of the debris. I was on my way out to the pile with another loaded wheelbarrow when the second ramp began to wobble. I struggled to stay balanced, but had to step down off the ramp to keep from falling. I stopped using the second ramp after that.

Later, I wound up helping in a closet in the back of the Monoplex, trying to figure out how some shelving was mounted on the wall. Wire shelf supports had been screwed down to some of the wooden shelf supports. After finally detaching one, I learned how the rest of them were put together. The work got easier after that.

We took a break for lunch and returned to tear out more woodwork. Chuck inspected the rooms as we went, and gathered us in one of the front rooms for a "Master Class" in drywall removal. This time, he had actual drywall to work with. As he gave step-by-step instructions, he worked on the wall. At the end of his instructions, he and another group member had a chunk of drywall that was as long as the wall, and still in one piece. They carried it out to the pile and returned. Chuck pointed out that some of it will always break off and wind up on the floor, but this method was definitely better than using a sledge hammer. There was much less mess on the floor, which made for less work cleaning it up later on.

We split up into teams of two and three, and spread out through the Monoplex. As we began removing drywall, rain moved in again. The group I worked with cleaned out one room and its closet, then worked its way down the hallway. At times, we helped push drywall off so that people on the other side of the wall could take it to the debris piles. We even got a drywall piece big enough that it took three people to carry it out to the debris pile. But time was running out. And there were appliances to be moved out.

It was already the end of the day, and tools were being loaded up in the trailer. I threw my dust mask away, when one of the teenagers from Michigan turned to me.

"They're probably going to need more help in there with the refrigerators," he said, "We should go in."

Day 4 - Putting a Face on the Work

Yesterday, we never got to see the home owner. On Sunday, we had seen people in the neighborhoods we "explored." On Monday, we talked to neighbors who were in the area of the Monoplex. But we never saw the home owner.

Today we did. She was an 81-year old, living in her FEMA trailer right beside a duplex house. This one happened to be an authentic duplex, and we found out that half of it had already been gutted. We prayed in the yard, and then got to work. The ONN crew interviewed the home owner and a few more team members, then went to gather more footage.

None of the windows inside the house would budge. I quickly discovered why--they had been nailed shut. I had to pry up four nails from each window pane before I could raise it. One of the people from Michigan helped me open windows in the back of the house, where they'd been caulked shut. He used the straight end of his pry bar as a chisel. He also helped decaulk, dismount, and remove a window air-conditioner. I asked him if he'd had any experience in construction, and it turned out that he had. I made sure to watch him when I could, and noticed he used his hammer to drive the pry bar into the kind of crevices and cracks that I'd always had trouble getting pried open.

Outside, Chuck orchestrated the setup of a ramp using an extension ladder and boards scavenged from a debris pile nearby. Inside, Chuck was ever-present to give a helping hand, and a hint on how to make the work easier: "Pry sideways, instead of up-and-down" he told me, "and you get more leverage." Sure enough, he was right. "That door frame will come off easier if you pry out the threshold first." He was right.

Later on, I broke part of a window frame, so that the windowpane would not stay in place. Chuck came to help me, and started by pulling rusty nails from different studs. He pounded the nails partway into the window frame, then tapped them on their sides until they bent like hooks. We hung the windowpane on the hooks, and Chuck secured it with more bent nails until it didn't shift when we let go of it.

After lunch, Chuck gathered everybody in the front room to show us how to remove drywall. He punched a hole in the wall, pulled out a chunk of particle board, and then changed his mind.

"This stuff is beaverboard. It doesn't work like drywall, so just get the biggest chunks you can and throw them in the wheelbarrow." He instructed us to spread out (to give each other room to work), and begin to tear out the wall material. In another room, we discovered four layers of wall material: wallpaper, paneling, drywall, and more drywall. In the midafternoon, the construction worker from Michigan climbed up into the attic, and began dropping the ceiling panels down onto the floor. He progressed from room to room. For safety reasons, we would stay out of the room he was above, until he finished. Then people would return to clean up the ceiling panels. Some were big enough to simply carry out to the pile--the exact thing Chuck suggested when dealing with drywall.

Toward the end of the day, we were running low on time again, and again we decided to stay longer and try to get more done. This time, we succeeded. After rounding up all of the tools, we got ready to say our goodbyes to the home owner. She insisted on hugging every one of us even though we were covered in sweat and dirt. When a person from Michigan said that reminded her of her grandmother, the home owner replied that we could call her "grandma" if we wanted to, since everybody else did. As she hugged me and said thanks, I said "you're welcome, Grandma."

I noticed yesterday that the devotional leader that had been at Camp Rowley was not there. In the evening, the youth group leader from California led the devotional. The same thing happened this morning and in the evening. I found out that anybody could volunteer to speak for a devotional, so I volunteered. The youth group leader from California asked me to talk to Brendan to make sure it was okay. But when I talked to Brendan, he asked me to talk to the youth group leader from California. In the meantime, two people had already volunteered to lead devotionals tomorrow, so the soonest I could speak was Thursday.

Since I don't consider myself to be that good of a speaker with crowds, I started thinking of ways to make an idea I had worthy of retelling.

Day 3 - Teaming Up

Breakfast was followed by a short prayer, and then cleanup of the Cafeteria. We had found out last night that the minivan did not have a trailer hitch, so that ended our idea of being an independant team. There was no way to carry all the tools and coolers and supplies that we would undoubtedly need. After all of the volunteers helped clean around the area and take out trash, we found out that our problem had already been solved for us.

I was told to leave the wheelbarrow full of tools that we had prepared last night--"we would not be needing it." I found out why when I met Chuck beside his tool trailer. Chuck was a staff sergeant at one time, so he had a way of organizing that would make the rest of the week's work go so much better. We had been assigned to work with Chuck, along with a youth group from Michigan, and two college students who came alone from California to volunteer. Problem solved. Chuck had just spray painted all of the hand tools bright orange so that his yellow hammer and his yellow pry bar would not blend in with them. It also made the tools easier to see. No matter where they were laying the tools wouldn't get lost easily. Chuck asked for pairs of volunteers and assigned them different tasks, from preparing and packaging the next day's lunch and bottled water, to opening windows (I got assigned to that), to opening doors and removing them from their hinges, and on down the list.

We formed a circle, prayed for a successful work day, and then got into the van. We would be needing that prayer when we found out where we were going. After a drive into New Orleans, we arrived in front of a duplex home. Inside, however, some walls had been taken out, converting the building into a large family residence that we nicknamed "The Monoplex." It had 19 rooms, and they were all full of debris. We got our masks on, we got our work gloves on, and following Chuck's lead, we got down to work.

I began opening windows and taking down curtains and blinds. As I struggled with a curtain rod, Chuck appeared and said "It's easier if you pry them like this." He demonstrated, and the curtain rod came away easily. Later on, I was dumping a wheelbarrow full of debris, and there again was Chuck: "If you give it a push before you reach the pile, you can get it to tip up." He grabbed the skids from his wheelbarrow when it tipped up, and overturned the wheelbarrow. When he dropped it back down, it was completely empty. When I tried his technique, it really was easier to fully empty the wheelbarrow.

We had two injuries, unfortunately. Somebody stepped into mud and a nail went through his shoe. Somebody else stepped into mud in a different place, and a piece of glass went through her shoe. Since Chuck had assigned two volunteers to be "medics," the injuries were quickly taken care of.

During the first half of the work day, the ONN crew interviewed several of us when we took breaks to drink water and rest. They later drove through New Orleans and collected more footage. There were plans for an "Anniversary" documentary covering the lasting after-effects of Hurricane Katrina.

In the afternoon, we got all the way to clearing out the flooring from the rooms. Some photographers from Europe paid us a visit during a clearing in the afternoon rain, and asked me not to empty one wheelbarrow of debris. The photographers wanted pictures of the group, so we gathered around that wheelbarrow, decided not to smile, and had our pictures taken. We got back to work a few minutes later.

I took a wheelbarrow out once, and it was full of tiles. They were heavier than they looked, which was heavier than I was. As I went down the ramp on the porch, the wheelbarrow sped up. I had to speed up with it, and found out that I could not slow it down. There was another set of steps with another ramp in front of the Monoplex, and since I could not slow down, I aimed for the second ramp and hoped for the best. The wheelbarrow sped up again, and rolled through mud without slowing. It rolled through an inch-deep pothole in the street, and slowed down a little. It was just enough to let me get back in control and stop it in front of the debris pile. When somebody commented on the amount of energy I still had, I explained that I was only trying to control the wheelbarrow.

Later in the afternoon, carpets were rolled up and pitched onto the debris piles, but the day was coming to a close before we could handle the drywall. The team decided to stay working for longer than usual to try to get as much finished as possible.

We found such a large number of sentimental objects in the Monoplex, that it took some time getting them all inside the house again so that we could leave the house alone. After that, we loaded up the van and headed back to Camp Rowley. We arrived with barely enough time to shower and then eat quickly before devotional. Most of us were hungry enough that we ate first, outside the Cafeteria on picnic tables that were set up for that purpose.

I resigned myself to the possibility that we would not get to finish the Monoplex. I spent the time after devotional washing my work clothes, preparing tomorrow's clean clothes, and getting ready to go to bed. I did not have any trouble falling asleep.

Day 2 - Sunday in Louisiana

In the morning, we were informed that there was a church nearby that was open again. Worship began at 10:00 A.M. Inside their building, the walls were up but not fully painted, parts of the framing of the building were still exposed, and we all sat on folding chairs on their concrete slab floor. But anybody could see signs of life in the people. Greeters at the door welcomed visitors with a hug or handshake, prayers and Bible verses were written all over the walls, and when the pastor called for everybody to gather to pray for revival in the community, everybody gathered.

After church, we returned to Camp Rowley to have lunch. We cleaned up the cafeteria, and then we went out to "see the sights." We stopped in one neighborhood and took pictures of some of the storm damage, including a shrimp boat sitting in the middle of the street (it has been burned down since we visited). The ONN crew followed us in the neighborhood, and took pictures of their own. We also headed into the Lower 9th Ward, something we did not do in my first trip. We saw all kinds of devastation, crews cleaning up in some areas, and houses moved off their foundations. One of these houses was stacked on top of an upside down pickup truck.

We then drove into downtown New Orleans. It was similar to my previous experience--for the most part, downtown New Orleans has already been cleaned up or rebuilt. We parked on Bourbon Street and I got to see more of the sights than I did in July. I bought a couple more souvenirs as we walked the street.

For dinner, we ate at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company in New Orleans. Then came the return trip. On the way back, I thought about the damage we had seen, and the fact that we were there to reduce just a small amount of it.

We began preparing for the next day, getting new "Hilltop Rescue" identification cards, and getting ready for orientation. A 26-member group from California arrived, and orientation began. After that, the other "veteran" on my team took me to help get tools for work tomorrow. The one problem we had, was that we only had seven people from Ohio. We did not know if we would be added to another work detail, or whether we would work alone. We were advised: "prepare as best as you can for your team to work alone, just in case your team actually has to work alone."

Day 1 - Hitting the Road

When Dad dropped me off where the group would depart, we waited for a couple of other people to arrive. While we waited, an Ohio News Network news van arrived also. The Servants Unite blog had mentioned the possibility of a news crew accompanying the group, but I did not know what that would entail, and sometime during the week, I had forgotten about them.

We packed all of our luggage into two vehicles, a car that the group leader would be driving, and a minivan that some of us would ride in. This trip was going to be a nonstop trip--no stop in Tuscaloosa on the way down, no stop in Tennessee on the way back. I estimated 16 hours, based on what the youth minister had told somebody at Hilltop Rescue back in July. It was after 8:00 A.M. when we prayed and got ready to go.

I wound up being "navigator" for parts of the trip after we reached Kentucky. Ohio was fairly familiar territory to the drivers on the trip, but we had road atlases and instructions printed from Google Maps. I had already taken this trip once, and there was another member of the team who had also been to Louisiana in April. We got to share some of our experiences together on the road.

The drive from Ohio was relatively uneventful, until we got backed up in traffic by two different accidents (and drove past a third one) near Birmingham, Alabama. After that, we passed a sign marking the "Alabama Adventure Parkway." We joked that we had seen enough tragic "adventures" for one day. We stopped in Alabama to eat dinner at a Cracker Barrel restaurant, then hit the road again.

In Mississippi, as we got close to the Louisiana border, the drivers struck up a trivia game using the walkie-talkie function built into their cellular phones. We traded questions from "naming the Seven Wonders of the World" to "giving the reading from the mile marker that we just passed."

I was right about not getting to see the devastation on the way into Louisiana--in the dark, it was difficult to see some of the damaged areas, although not impossible. The lights were on in some places, and not in others. As we searched for Madison Avenue in Chalmette, we had to switch from using the Google Maps instructions to landmarks and dead reckoning. Fortunately, the other "veteran" was in the van and reminded me of some of the landmarks that he remembered.

The only "problem" we had arriving in Louisiana was finding our rooms upstairs at C.F. Rowley Elementary. One of the workers told us to look for the rooms marked "Servants Unite!" but when we carried our luggage up--we couldn't find the signs. We returned downstairs, and by the time we got back upstairs with the next load, the signs had been posted.

I traded my mattress for a cot, because my body is too long to fit on the donated mattresses. There was a man from the news crew who was slightly shorter than me, so I thought it'd be a better fit for him. The cot was a better fit for me. I could stretch my legs all the way out after being in the van for so long, and not have my feet dangle off the end at all. I was so glad to be back, that I could not fall asleep easily tonight either.

There would be a difference this week. Last time, I forgot to get a camera. This time, I had brought two single-use cameras. I'd be taking pictures this week.

Day 1 - For Your Eyes Only

I looked up "pink eye" at a web site and was able to read a bit of it before leaving home. From what I could see, there were three causes: allergens, bacteria (highly contagious), and viruses. Doctors treat the bacterial kind with antibiotics, but the viral kinds aren't treatable that way. I supposed that I might've had an allergic reaction to something--I'd had it before at Fort Hill Christian Youth Camp in the summer of 1997 and it had been diagnosed as an allergy. It had happened to only one eye, caused it to become extremely red, and had gone away when I took Benadryl. That did not happen this week, so I decided to give up Benadryl.

My eye became less reddish after going off Benadryl than it had gotten while I was still taking Benadryl. I thought this was "interesting." For most of the trip, my right eye would stay a light shade of pink whenever I looked at it myself. This would factor into how I would be spending part of the week later on.

Prologue Plus Two

By the end of the week, I had printed all the necessary forms, signed them, and even packed my luggage--early this time. I finished laundry on Wednesday night, and folded all my clothes. I separated them by work clothes and off-duty clothes, and hung notecards on the drawers so that I knew where my things were for packing. I packed on Thursday night, getting all of my work clothes and all of my off-duty clothes into one huge suitcase.

As I got ready to leave work on Friday, one of my co-workers wished me luck, then said:

"I suppose you're not going to get any sleep tonight. You're probably so excited about getting to go to Louisiana again!"

I said I hoped that I would sleep, but I had a feeling he was right: "I am excited," I answered. I had a good reason to be.

He turned out to be right. I probably lay in bed from a little after 1:30 A.M. to about 5:30 A.M. on Saturday morning, before I finally fell asleep. That didn't do me any good. To be on time at the place where this group would leave from, I had set my alarm clock to 6:45 A.M.!

And so I "prepared" for my second trip.