NOLA Mission Trip Flashback

As I put in my Friday the 13th post, mission trips (although i’ve only been on one) are one of my favorite things. The summer after my senior year in high school I went on a mission trip to New Orleans. I got to cross two things off my bucket list that summer…go on a mission trip and visit New Orleans. I had no idea what to expect all I knew is I wanted to go. So, after a lot of support letters sent out and many generous family members and friends (thank you all!) I was headed to NOLA with some of my good friends! Here’s our crew right before we departed:

 So, a long car ride in a van and we are headed to Louisiana. Some people got bored along the way.

During our lunch break we stopped and saw this cool thing in the parking lot.

My church had gone to New Orleans a couple years before this one but I never had the option to go so I was pretty excited this year. We stayed in a house owned by the local Presbyterian Church. Every morning we got up EARLY and traveled to schools in the area to clean/decorate/move furniture/etc to help get them set up for the upcoming school year. One school we went to we were in charge of re-painting the upstairs bathrooms.

(Above left) The mural some of us painted in the boys’ bathroom. (Above center) My youth pastor, Patrick, and I taking a break from our hard work to pose for a picture. (Above right) The mural in the girls’ bathroom.

My talented friend, Reeana was the one who drew the outline, while the rest of us not-as-talented folk just painted it in. You think you love painting until you’re doing it for two days in a row…ow, arthritis. I thought I knew what tired was, but I really had no clue until I was on my feet for basically a week straight!

At another school we moved furniture out of the classrooms for the school administration to get someone to clean  and get ready for the upcoming school year.

My favorite part of the trip was the day we got to sightsee around New Orleans. This was my first time going so everything was new to me. We had limited funds (I was in charge of organizing the activities) so this was one of our activities, a FREE ferry ride across the Mississippi. This is a picture of me that Reeana took. She can draw and photograph. What can’t this girl do?!

We walked around and Madison did this:

We saw this bus with kids singing out the windows:

As activities director of the trip I decided what we did on our free day and we went to the Audubon aquarium:

We also shopped:

Then Reeana and Sarah baked cookies:

Another evening our group walked around the French Quarter. We stopped by Cafe Du Monde for dessert (It’s a must) while we were there. If you haven’t had a beignet yet, purchase yourself a round-trip ticket to NOLA just to get a beignet. Okay, maybe not go to those extremes, but beignets are definitely worth forgetting food allergies for.

One of our last evenings there we went to a house of one of the members from the local Presbyterian Church and had dinner. This is Madison and I with their daughter:

On our last day in New Orleans we took one of our bright neon yellow shirts and had everyone sign it. We hung it on the walls for future groups to see.

As you can see, we all had a blast working in New Orleans from the aftermath of Katrina AND we got to glorify God at the same time. What could be better?