Sixth and S Saratoga

Here's my last New Orleans story. I share it partly because this is the kind of stuff that happens on mission trips - stuff that throws a wrench into your plans, that churns up a little chaos just when you thought you had everything working for you, and that will definitely be talked about the next time you go on a mission trip, the time after that, and probably the time after that. I also share it because of the response that it generated among our team.



We left Rock Hill with 22 people - and 2 met us there. We had 15 on the church mini-bus and 7 on a rental van. We pulled into New Orleans late on Monday night. On Tuesday morning, we left for our work site about 8:30am. Part of our team spent the day working on houses that were in various stages of completion. The other part of our team spent the day doing yard work around the neighborhood - cutting grass, weed-eating, etc. About 4:00pm, we began to pack up and call it a day. A small problem arose when the driver of the rental van (Jimmy) couldn't find the keys. Then the search began. A group began to retrace Jimmy's steps. After a few minutes, this is what they found.







As Jimmy had been running the weed-eater, someone had needed the keys to the van. When he had put them back in his pocket, he hadn't been able to get them all the way in while wearing his gloves and the key fell out as he did the weed-eating. Trevor Ashe, our lawn mower man, was following Jimmy and proceeded to chop the key into oblivion. A few calls to Avis (the greatest rental company ever) from Andrew Kiel led to a new rental van being dispatched. However, Trevor, Jimmy, Andrew, and Mic Anderson had to wait at 'Sixth and S Saratoga' for about two hours for the new van to arrive. As they sat in a rough area of New Orleans, I'm sure there were some uncomfortable moments (and more than a few laughs, I think). But there were good attitudes all around as we waited for the 'Sixth and S Saratoga' gang to get back to where we were staying. As always, we learned the necessity of flexibility on a mission trip. It was tremendous to watch our group grow closer during a moment (albeit a somewhat brief moment) of adversity.


-- Peace, Jamie