Last Day Here

Well, it's Saturday the 14th and our last day in New Orleans. We're catching a plane to Dallas this afternoon, and from Dallas to Seattle. We should arrive around 8 this evening.

Yesterday (the notorious Friday the Thirteenth), was a free day with no work to be done. We had breakfast at Cafe Du Monde (which is famous for its beignets) and then broke off into groups for shopping. We got plenty of souvenirs (and the boys got feather boas!) and then met back at Cafe Du Monde and went to see Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix in a small theater. The book was way better in my opinion. We had dinner at Mulates, a restaurant of mainly seafood and alligator. Almost everyone tried the alligator. It was good and tasted like warped chicken. A couple of us (not including me) became CCDs (Certified Cajun Dancers). It's easy once you get the hang of it, but at least one of the dancers has to know what they're doing. You become a CCD by dancing with a certain person (whose name I do not know) at Mulates.

After dinner, we had a final discussion about the trip and then held a dance party in the church's library. That was a lot of fun. You'll hear more from us when we get home, and we'll be doing a presentation at Adult Ed on the 29th.

Many thank to all the chaperones, especially Nancy, our cook. It's been wonderful!

Keep New Orleans in your prayers.

-Written by Bodil Jensen

On Thursday there was hair braiding going on at the summer camp




A poster of handprints from volunteers, staff, and kids at Camp Ubuntu summer camp.


On Thursday evening, we got together with
folks from St Paul's and St. Stephens (Seattle)
for Gumbo and Jambalya.

The Things We Saw and The People We Met

Today was deffantly an interesting day. Ten people went to the Homecoming Center and seven people got to sleep in. They got to help serve food to people in the church were staying in. They didn't have to start work until 1 o'clock our time.
I was with the people who went to the homecoming center. Today was award day. We got to see all the kids faces light up. It was amazing. When we got back, we got to meet some of the people still that were having dinner at the church. They were amazing people. We got to here a lot of great stories. After that we all went to dinner with a church from seattle and we met the church group from St. Pauls. We heard their stories and saw their expiriances. They showed us a slide show and almost everyone in the room was crying. We were all touch by the stories we told and the expiriances they shared.
We are all watching sweet home alabama right now so I will go and let you wait for the rest.
Bless you all and goodnight!!
The Fuzion Youth Group
~~writtin by jennifer maes

July 11th pics

(The two house we helped build)

(every body working hard)

(group photo infront of the houses)

(BBQ photo)

Wed. July 11, 2007

We here are all sorry that there was not a post until late tonight, 10:38 ourtime & 8:38 back home. We stayed night last night watching Space Jam (for those of you who don't know aliens come to earth to capture the looney tunes and they chalenge them to a basketball and they mix with the real world in order to save the looney world). Basically we ended up getting up late and as such didn't have time to update the blog an we didn't make it back until now because the church had a vestry meeting.
we had a very busy day today building new houses. we woke up about 7:45 and ate a scrumptious breakfast of french toast prepard by Nancy Wray. around 9:00 we went to help at a job site working with an organization called Cross Roads that rebuilds houses. we finished up the framing in two houses as another group simoultaniously cleaned a finished house. one thing that was really great to see was that about 75% of the studs had some sort of prayer writen on them form the differant groups had put on when they were working.
at 4:00 we left for a quick stop at home on the way to the pool which we went to directly in order to cool off. we played at the pool for a little bit and then went to a BBQ at our sister parish St. Pauls. (which has the most beautifull stain glass windows I have ever seen). and then to the adult crews house to hang out until the vestry meeting at our host church was over.
we came home and are now watching another movie about extreme sports.
that about wraps up the days events but I have to sign off now because other people want to use the computer. but we will blog again tomarrow.
signed,
Fuzion Youth

Pictures of New Orleans Experiances

Photos (see the post below)

the yellow line is the water line of the flooding

this is tyler after painting his shirt by pressing with paper

this is a picture of a house split in half and collapsed

this is tyler playing soccer with the kids from the homecoming center

this is Mr. Kevin Roacherson and Big Bertha and their do not harm sign.

this is the cockroach found in the girls bathroom that I (Jennifer) got the pleaser of killing.

this is the doll found in a house.

New Orleans Experiances(continues)

OK everybody I have more to say. I wrote this morning but we hadn't really seen much of the real damage. Well, now we have and it is truly heartbreaking. We got a chance to go to the ninth ward. Homes were completely destroyed and some homes weren't even there. We saw a house that had been split in half and collapsed in the middle. Also, some of people in our group had a story to tell when they got back to the car. there was a house that was hard to see. they went up to the door that was actually blown off and they looked inside and saw... debris everywhere! they also saw some pictures on the wall and a doll laying on the ground. I am actually glad that I didn't get to see that house because it would have been to sad (in my opinion). Before we went to the ninth word, we went back to the homecoming center that we went to yesterday. Today was a little bit different though. We met a group from Texas. Also, today we got to take the kids to a soccer field after the morning chores. Of course everyone from Washington was not used to playing soccer in the hot, humid weather. While we were at the fields, some people decided to get their faces painted. Most of them got them painted by the little kids. And I must say they looked beautiful. *by the way-- Logan (human), Mr. Kevin Roacherson, and Big Bertha (aka the cockroaches) say hi.*Also, Tyler has become very good at pool! We have found the sanctuary above us and many of us spend a lot of fun times up there. currently Nancy is making dinner and it smells delicious! I'm going to go help. We will keep you posted and keep adding pictures. Keep us in your prayers as we will do with all of you.
Love from the Fuzion Youth Group.
written by Jennifer Maes

New Orleans Experiance (so far)

Hey all you Washingtonians. I'm sure you know already that we are in New Orleans. And you're probably thinking that we are suffering down here from all the heat. Well, I have to say it is pretty hot down here but we all seem to be handling it. The worst part about being down here has to be the cockroaches. They are huge. And the guys seem to think its pretty funny to catch them and scare all of the girls. There are two currently in cups and they are being fed. But that's not all that's happening down here in New Orleans. We have seen a lot of damaged areas. We have also seen the hieroglyphics on the front of the houses. The hieroglyphics stand for 4 things. The date, what was found in the house (dead or injured animals or people), the unit that searched the house, and the number of dangers in the house. When we found out what these hieroglyphics meant the impact of New Orleans hit us harder. I think most of the people here have really gotten a sense of what the people have gone through, and the trip has only begun. So far, we have worked with kids at Camp Ubuntu. This is a free camp where kids can go and do arts and crafts, indoor and outdoor games, and play computer games all day. Today we are going to take the kids to the park to play soccer and other games. We plan to do a lot more work within the week and we are sure that this experience will effect us in more ways than one. We will keep you posted on what is happening here in New Orleans and we will keep you all in our prayers as we hope you do with us.
Bye Y'all and God Bless!
Saint Margaret's Youth Group
-- written by Jennifer Maes

Bubba Gump and more

Day's 2 and 3 have definitely been smoother than day one! Yesterday we worshipped at St. Paul's, and had a chance to meet Will Hood, their rector, who visited Seattle for our previous Annual Convention. Then we visited the French Quarter, where we saw St. Louis Cathedral and the Mississippi river, as well as the excitement and seediness of Bourbon St. We had dinner at Bubba Gump's, a seafood and steak kind of restaurant. We were in bed by midnight so we'd be ready for today, our first real work day! (Things start a bit later here--we don't have to be anywhere this week earlier than 9 o'clock, much to the relief of the youth group!)

Today, we had our first real work day. The youth group was assigned to help at Camp Ubuntu, which serves children in a community which was heavily affected by Katrina--most houses were flooded to 7-9 feet, and most families couldn't afford to evacuate. It was extremely relaxed (the heat tends to have that affect on everyone), the kids were a lot of fun, and it was really our first chance to begin to hear some Personal stories about the storm. Tonight after dinner we head off to the local cathedral for orientation for the week. The adult group also began their work today, but they were assigned to construction work. We expect to see them again tonight, so we can provide you an update on their experience sometime soon!

This is really a beautiful city, with a constantly noticable contrast between joy and despair. I've heard that New Orleans has always been kind of like that, but Post-Katrina you can see it in most people's faces.

Tomorrow we'll be off to Camp Ubuntu again, so stay posted for more stories from the road!

Tim and the rest of us.

Sunday was a fun day for us. After attending the service at St. Paul's, we ventured off to the French Quarter for the afternoon. Get some of that souvineer shopping done early! We then at dinner at Bubba Gump's. Monday we head off to St. Luke's to help out with their day camp.

Pictures from Day One!

These are some pictures from our first day in New Orleans!

We're here!

Nick Rothermel and the rest of the group says Hi to the folks back home! We're officially here and settled in, and things have gone, well, passably so far. The food has been fantastic (French fast food at Le Madeline's turned out to be declicious!), the city is beautiful, and the heat hasn't been too bad. The accomodation is nice too, and the boys group had a great introduction to New Orleans' semi-tropical climate last night when they spotted several genuinely huge cockroaches--one of which was on Derrick Kuleta's pillow!

We had a bit of a long day yesterday--we made it through the airport adventure, but had an hour hold up with our rental cars. We made it through that, and then there was a mixup with our accomodation--basically, the youth group hadn't been booked in to the place that they told us we were, or well, booked in for accomodation at all! Several frantic phonecalls and another hour later, we were sorted out though. Luckily St. George's--our assigned housing spot--was indeed available and very helpful in getting us in! Thank goodness for the kindness of strangers!

Today's going to be pretty relaxed: we're headed to St. Paul's, Lakeview for worship, and then to a tour of the French Quarter. After that a few of us may head to a traditional Jazz concert at Preservation Hall, and then tomorrow it's on to our various work sites!

New Orleans here we come!

Hi guys,

This is the official blog of Fuzion Youth/St. Margaret's Episcopal Church's trip to New Orleans, July 7-14 2007. Check it out daily for updates on our experience!

Tim