Friday, March 17th (St Patrick's Day)

This was our last full day in Slidell. Our team went back to Larry's to finish up the house. Did I mention that on Thursday Larry had brought us mix cds?? I love Larry.

Today the big job was to knock down the ceilings and insulation. My neck was itchin! Rachel was given the duty of climbing into the attic and pushing down the ceiling from up there.

The rest of us finished up what was left of the walls, and tried to get all the sheetrock, tiling, and insulation out of the house. Sarah bestowed upon me the job of knocking down the tiles in the bathroom. We bashed those tiles so hard, my friends. That might've been my favorite job of the week - who knew??

I wish I had a picture of this, but I was knocking out the bathroom closet (with Jim or Seth's help) when this tiny little green license plate came out that said "larry" on it with the Louisiana logo "sportsmans paradise" written at the top, just a miniature little license plate. It was wedged in between some wood in there! So I brought it out to Larry, and wow, I did not expect the reaction he gave! He couldn't believe we'd found it. I guess it was his old bike license plate from when he was a little kid, a good 40 years ago. It must've gotten wedged into that closet a long long time ago. This really brought home what I think Seth or Jodi had said earlier in the week - that these people have resigned to the assumption that absolutely nothing from their past is going to be salvaged. So when stuff shows up (like those little figurines from wednesday, or an unruined copy of his favorite book, or this license plate), it's like it's brand new to them. You could tell that Larry was taking nothing for granted.



I loved how the day ended. There were two other teams working in different locations. There was Scott's team that was working on someone's house and then there was the team that was working at Rose's house. They finished up around noon or a bit later so they all came over to our house for the last few hours (everyone but Jess and Karl) so our whole team, sans J & K, got to work together as a giant team for the last few hours! There were people inside trying to tile the bathroom floors (impossible, Larry said not to worry about it, but in the process of trying to get it done, Lee hit his finger really hard twice with a sledgehammer) and clean up the rest of the house. There were people in the toolshed trying to get stuff out of there. There was Scott, who had shimmied his way up this mongo tree and was cutting it down bit by bit. There was a team that was helping Scott. There was a team consisting of Will, who was videotaping Larry for his documentary. It was just an awesome sight to see everybody gather together and take on different roles to serve Larry as a team!

Remember that house I posted pictures of on Wednesday? Here it is now:

And speaking of hitting your finger really hard with a sledgehammer...

This is the blood blister that Adam got after he hit his finger really hard de-tiling the kitchen. I honestly don't know how it managed to form itself into that shape. In the car he was ready to pop it, but Scott was like "Don't pop it!!" Apparently it's like raw meat under there, and just ripe for infection. Ouchie.

After everything was said and done, we all kind of hung out and took pictures (click on the link to Jodi's blog to see a good one of her and Maren). Here's a picture of all the FTAers present (minus Lee):

And then all the girls from the trip:

After that we made a circle in the street (yes, road blockage...) and decided to close up our week in prayer since we were all together (again, sans Karl and Jess). It was amazing to see how united we'd all become over the course of this week, how God had orchestrated certain people to be in specific houses, how He'd provided us energy and strength to make it through every single day, how He'd kept us safe all week (4 nails pierced shoes this week 0 pierced feet). After all that, it just felt good to lift up what had really been an amazing week to God, and to pray for New Orleans, and the other volunteers, and the Iowa team, and...yeah. It was a good.

After that, a few of us said our goodbyes to Larry, and then we went home.

After dinner we had cake for Krista's birthday (!!), then Tami, Scott, Jim and I went to starbucks, and then we came back and while we were waiting to watch a dvd of the hurricane, Ben and Seth decided "hey let's race on stools:"

Why is Ben wearing that hat, you ask? I must have forgotten to mention that it was St. Patty's Day:

Also this night we had to rush one of our lovely ladies to the hospital because of an eye issue. For those of you who haven't talked to her this week, she's feeling a lot better now! Praise God there was no permanent damage because I just love that girl...and her eyes are what make her see things, so I love those too!

In closing, here are a few pictures:

Here's a picture of the Monday night bookclub girls who were on the trip:

And here's a picture of the whole team:

I think we were all pretty bummed to have to leave the next morning and say goodbye to New Orleans...yeah, a week later and I really wish I was still back there.