Day 7: Hope

Today was our last day working at the home we have been helping to rebuild. After a difficult day yesterday our enthusiasm was not diminished. In fact, our frustration after the tour of the city seemed to have made us that much more determined to finish our work with care. We have fallen in love with our homeowner, whom we have never met. We yearn for her and all of her neighbors, friends and family to be home and for this city to be fully alive again. And we sense that that is happening. We have a palpable sense of really being the hands and heart of Christ - and we have all learned how to hang sheetrock too! In fact, we transformed a house from a maze of studs into a house of rooms, a place looking very much like people will indeed live there again soon.

This is the last post to the blog from New Orleans - at least for this year. We all start heading home in the morning. We bring home with us the love and gratitude of a city and, more strikingly, we bring home our own gratitude for the opportunity to grow closer to God through being those hands of Christ. We have seen resurrection at work and we have participated in creating resurrection. Death no longer has hold over us or the people of New Orleans, if we are guided by hope and driven by love. We have all, in one way or another, fallen in love with this city and its people and we all hope that it will thrive again. We are grateful to be able to be a part of it - and to all who have supported our journey and work here through donations and prayers. This trip has created love between the Southern Maine Seacoast and the city of New Orleans. That love makes us and our nation stronger and the world a better place.

Remember to come and see some of what we have seen, Sunday, March 2, at St. George's (407 York Street/Route 1A, York Harbor, Maine) for a multimedia sermon at each service, putting all this in the Gospel context, and time from 10:00 to 11:00 to interact with team members and hear first-hand experiences or the rebuilding of a city.

God Bless the people of New Orleans and the love that connects us!

Steve+