Builder's of Hope - New Orleans

Well, I am in New Orleans! The counseling Pastor at our church has a friend who inheirited a house in the Lakeview section of New Orleans. When the 17th street levy broke during Katrina, this house went completely underwater. The house had already been gutted and the mold remediation had been done. Someone had replaced all his doors, and gave him four windows to replace two that were gone and two that were damaged. The homeowner, Jimmy, had been living in L A and his business interests there have dried up. He was debating what to do, stay in La... or come back to New Orleans where he grew up. He has decided that New Orleans is where God wants him for now.
Enter Builder's of Hope. Our counseling Pastor contacted our director asking if we would be able to help out. The director threw out to us, and I definitely was ready for a road trip. We made plans to come down this week, the counseling Pastor and three of his buddys were coming along with me. On the 16th of May the counseling Pastor got a supena to testify Wednesday the 28th. He tried to get out of it, but it just wasn't going to work. Since he wasn't going the three buddys decided they weren't coming either. At this point, I was going "God, What's up? Do you want me to go, or what is happening?" After meeting with our director we came up with a couple of options, and the one that worked out was that I come by myself. We have made contact with a church in Kenner that is going to provide us with three volunteers all week! See, God had a plan we just needed to wait on him, and trust him. I kind of felt that peace about this whole trip, when we weren't getting many people to sign up, when I found out that Mike and his friends weren't coming, God knows who he wants to be here, and he is in charge. ( Boy isn't hard to let go and let him run the show?)
Anyway I left Thursday morning and drove to Little Rock, Arkansas to see my good friends Steve and Sara. It was a delightful visit. I am sooooo glad, and blest, to have these two wonderful people in my life. Friday I drove into New Orleans after making a little side trip to Lonoke, Ar. Got into town went by the house we are working on, and then went over to settle into were I will be staying until Thursday. It is called Beacon of Hope (same initials as Builders of Hope, BOH), and it is a ministry of St Pauls Episcopal Church in Lakeview. It is really nice digs. After Jimmy got free he brought me some baked Mac and Cheese, and chicken Parmesan that was to die for. It was local fare from some place he knows. We got to sit and get acquainted. Very interesting guy, Worked for Levi Strauss for a number of years doing marketing. Got to build some unique shops. He then felt being called by the Lord to go to LA and be a filmmaker. He has tried to do this and it just hasn't worked. That brings us to rebuilding this house for him.
Saturday morning, Jimmy picked me up about 6:30 am and we went and unloaded some appliances for a friend of his, and also some supplies that were given to Jimmy for this house. Our plan for this week was to get the house insulated, drywall up, and try to at least start the mudding. Jimmy had picked up a couple of day laborers to help unload and we had them start insulating. The really worked hard and got all the exterior walls insulated and the vapor barrier put up! I was excited, because I didn't have to mess with the fiberglass insulation when it was about 90 degrees and the relative humidity was about 95%! As it was I was really sweating my butt off (and there is quite a bit there to sweat off...). I got two of the windows in along with giving Jimmy ideas/ advice on how to do things. We also ripped the ceramic tile off the kitchen floor. Before the storm there was a wall between the kitchen and the living room which really made both areas small. Jimmy had ripped out the wall in between and wanted to run one flooring through both rooms. When we started ripping the ceramic out, we immediately smelled mold. The ceramic was on top of two other layers of flooring, and the bottom layer was where the mold was. We were glad that we decided to rip the tile out,that way we got rid of that mold.
Tomorrow, we are going to have our two day laborers back, along with the three from Kenner, and hope to get the ceiling insulated, and alot of drywall up!