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30 hours of driving along an endless highway, chasing the white lines, the towns shrink into desert and the desert blossoms into trees, 1600miles over we had arrived in New Orleans. New Orleans to me was one of those cities that I had always heard about, but never really thought of visiting. So the experience there was all the more exciting.  On our first few days in New Orleans we repaired a house of a man whose name was Laurence. His house had a termite infestation, his roof was leaking and the whole house was in need of a paint Job, and Laurence being 60 years of age and only able to walk with a walker was unable to do the Job himself. I was part of the roof repair team, which ended up only be me and Sergio (one of our Staff From Ywam). What the roof repair team did was, we ripped of all of the slate that was on the roof, with hammers and spades, so that we would replace it all with Shingles, but when the slate was removed we found that the wood underneath was moldy and also full of termites. A simple roof shingle job turned into us needing to strip almost the entire roof bare, and rebuilding it. This project took us 2 full days in the boiling sun and the first day ended in me getting a slight heat stroke, but in the end our roof was Magnificent and would keep Laurence dry for the raining season that was to come in the following few weeks.  Another one of our projects while we were there was a kid’s ministry in a community that people over there called ‘The Projects’ an African American Community. In the Center of the community there is a little park where all of the children from the community played, children from the ages of 3 to as old as 13. And most of these kids are without Fathers, for their Fathers came and left them all when they were very young. I was playing with one of the 3 year olds there and had been for about 15 minutes, I got tired so I set him on a table and he looked me straight in the eye, and punched me in the face. So I asked him why he did that and he said, ‘Because I hate White people’. And this was coming from a 3 year old, whose parents are the only ones he could have learned that from. His only Influence.  Our last ministry there was a homeless ministry, when we went down underneath a bridge where there was a lot of homeless waiting to be fed by the organizations in the area that visited daily. I took a group of Kids from the team to go and talk to some of the homeless guys. And we talked to this one guy called Charles, who was really encouraging because he told us that, even though his house was destroyed in Katrina and his has medical conditions that make him have to spend 4 hours 3 days a week In a hospital, that he was living each day to its fullest, with a smile on his lips and a dance in his hips.
New Orleans is an amazing city and everyone there are accepting and giving, truly a wonderful place. God Taught me so much on my Trip, he stretched me and molded me and I would Love to do lots more work like this again. Thank you all for your Prayers! My Love Jacob Kemp |
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