Update from Camp Restore - New Orleans

Miciah and I arrived safely after a long bus ride. We got on the busat 9pm Christmas Day and arrived then next day in New Orleans at8:30pm the next night. Thanks to 2 bus great bus drivers the trip wasuneventful. One slept the other drove, back and fourth all the way.A few trip hightlights: It was funny to drive through St. Louis andnot stop after having lived there during the our time at the sem.Driving through Memphsis I thought about a Bob Dillon son "...Mephasis blues again..." as we were driving by a billboard for"Heartbreak hotel" next to Graceland. No we didn't stop there either.The first morning at the camp started at 7am for breakfast. We haveto be seated by seven or we're singled out for "special duty." I'mnot planning on finding out what that is.I was assigned to one of the Laborers for Chrsit named Paul. Wecaulked some leaks on one woman's house and patched the roof at HolyCross Lutheran Church.Holy Cross was under ten feet of water. The inside of the church iscompletly gutted. Bare studs and floortiles. Sometimes as I lookedat the damage I was overwhelmed with how much work there is to do justto get even this church back up to usable. Many of the houses herehaven't been touched since Katrina. Most all of them bear themarkings show when the house was searched for bodies. It's a big Xwith the date and some codes that I can't decipher. One of the mostcommon numbers is 0 at the bottom. I think that's the body count. Ihaven't seen any with anything else. but I'm only guessing.Miciah stayed at camp today and did "housekeeping" as it turns out forher it was cleaning toilets. She took it like a trooper. She'shaving a pretty good time. Tonight two big Orphan Grain Train truckspulled in. There's a farm truck and a van, for use down here. Weended the evening with Devos for the South Dakota Group and then abunch of folks went to Wal-Mart on a needed shopping trip. They weregone quite a while, they said that everwhere seems to be understaffed.I don't know what tomorrow will bring. It's my birthday, I've beenthinking of volunteering to clean toilets... that'll be a change fromthe roof to the can.I've taken some very interesting pictures... but there's not a good wefor me to get them on the blog yet so we'll save them for later.God's BlessingsPastor Watt.