Tales (Part One)

We've been home for almost 48 hours as I write this. Everyone was exhausted when leaving the bus on Sunday night, after a 14 hour ride from Nashville. This old man chalked the fatigue up to the work, the 'few' hours of sleep each night and the fact that being on a bus with 48 teenagers for that long a stretch isn't something most adults dream of doing. But now that I've been home for two days with two good night sleeps behind me I'm wondering why I'm still so tired and I can't help but think that it's going to take MORE time to get relief from the emotional exhaustion.

These past 11 days produced some real personal stories: some from the worksite; some from inside the individual; some from dreams; and some from experiences in New Orleans itself. Some are quite humorous while others are deeply emotional. Some can be shared by me while others must come from the student him/herself, and some of these will be told on the video.

During the next few days I would like to tell you some of the stories---and these are only the ones I know of---there are, I am sure, many more. Every now and then I will also take a day and post only pictures, of which there are hundreds!!

While driving home on Sunday I spent some time stopping at various seats on the bus to talk to the kids about their personal feelings re the trip. When I stopped at Jessica Boothe's seat she said, "Sir I have to tell you about my dream last night." Right across the aisle from her was Sam Elvin and Sam said, "Yes, you've got to hear this."

Jessica said, " I woke up around four o'clock this morning because I was dreaming that I was in one of the houses that we had been working on--even when I was awake at that moment I thought I was in that house."

Sam joined in to say, "And sir I was awake at the same time and I asked Jess why she was awake. When she told me I told her I was having the same dream!"

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A couple of the students have been awakened over this past week by the response of some of the Katrina victims. Our students have been overwhelmed by the number of people who, despite their hardship, perceive themselves to 'be blessed'. More tha once they heard residents say that they 'know God has a plan for me'. I think some of our young people will come away with a different perspective of hardship and how to view it. Someone once said to me that "God will never give you more than you can handle," and I think the people to whom we spoke in Louisiana believe that! If any of the readers are familiar with the piece of work entitled "Footprints" I think it's safe to say that many of the residents would be very much believers of the sentiment in that poem.

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Stay tuned. Tomorrow I'll fill you in our one group's excursion for Chinese food and one young lady's experience at McDonalds.....Not every event was a 'great'.

Finally. You will see that the blog title has been changed.

The new title represents the collective name the group has chosen for itself: The Katrina Cougars. And "Our number is 11" represents the number of houses that we were successful in gutting over the three and a half days of work!!!!!