New Orleans Mission Trip '09: Day 5: Midway through our week

Hope for Others: Today took a little bit more energy to get going. It is our midway point through the week and we started off the day with french toast, sausage, and spicy scrambled eggs. We got another early start and we were off to John's house by 8:15 AM. We arrived and got started instantly. More sanding and mudding to do but we are getting closer to texturing and painting. John was happy to see us again today as he arrived to the group doing something a little extra. We decided to mow, weeded, edge, and sweep his yard and he had a huge smile on his face. This was not one of our jobs but thought that we would surprise John. We also explored some of New Orleans! We broke for an early lunch and ate at the site of the Battle of New Orleans. This was part of the War of 1812 fought in January of 1815. Here we learned the importance of the battle and how 3000 American soldiers made up of criminals, soldiers, free blacks, indians, and more held off and won against 30,000 British soldiers. The british soldiers had over 2,000 deaths and much more injured and the Americans had an astonishing 6 deaths and 7 injuries. After our visit of the battle field it was off to see the lower 9th ward and the Brad Pitt projects "Make it Right 9." Here they had over 28 feet of water for 29 days. There were over 1800 deaths in New Orleans from Katrina and over 1000 of them were from the 9th Ward. It was overwhelming to see were the water was and the homes that no longer exists. It is going to be an additional 8-10 years before things are back to normal. Everywhere you go people are waving and thanking us for being here and helping them get back on their feet. Hurricane Katrina really brought the community of New Orleans closer. New Orleans is also known as the "Little Big City."