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March 08, 2007
Spring Break Service
Have we seen our last accumulating snowfall of the season in State College? That very well may be the case. All the snow around here had melted, except for a few stray patches, before we got around 4 inches of very fluffy, powdery snow overnight Tuesday into Wednesday morning, thanks to a surprisingly moist Alberta clipper that rolled through here. All the schools around here were cancelled yesterday because of the snow too, and I'm still amazed at how little it takes for schools to shut down. Maybe it's because they know the Borough of State College and PennDOT don't know how to plow streets. Or maybe State College doesn't plow anymore because they know the schools are going to close anyway. Oh well. At least plowing snow is going to be probably irrelevant for the next 8+ months, as a giant springtime warmup is on the way starting this weekend for most of the country.
I won't be around to experience the warmer weather in State College next week during spring break though, because I'll be someplace even warmer -- New Orleans! In fewer than 48 hours I'll be leaving with about ten other people from my church to drive down to the Big Easy and help with Katrina cleanup for a few days. This will be the fourth Katrina relief team that my church has sent down to New Orleans since last summer, but it'll be the first time I've gone. We'll stay overnight in Fort Payne, Alabama on Saturday night, and then make the rest of the trip to Louisiana on Sunday.
We'll be staying at Trinity Evangelical Free Church in Covington, Louisiana, which is across Lake Ponchartrain from the city of New Orleans, along with 200-250 other people from around the country who are going down there for next week. They say that the devastation down there from is still absolutely mind-boggling, even though Hurricane Katrina hit way back in August 2005. Because cleaning all that up is still the primary need, and not building (though they do have teams doing that too, just not as many), from Monday-Thursday we'll probably be gutting houses. That way the inspectors can come in and make a good judgement on whether the house can be fixed up, or whether it needs to be torn down completely before being rebuilt. And then on Friday we'll be teaming up with an inner city church to do some street cleaning and other ministries in the city, before we head out mid-afternoon back to Fort Payne, Alabama for Friday night, which will put us back in State College on Saturday night.
Once meals and gas and everything else are factored in, the trip costs approximately $350/person. If any of you would like to donate anything to help offset the cost of the Katrina trip (even $5 or $10 would be a help), feel free to drop by my office in Walker, or mail a check (payable to "State College Evangelical Free Church"). My mailing address is on my Contact page. If you do decide to offer some financial support, it'd be best if I could have it by early April sometime, I don't need to have it before I go down there. And if you can't offer any financial support, your prayer support would be appreciated too, that we would be able to be a blessing to the people down there, that we would be flexible to whatever God sends our way, and that we would be willing to learn what God wants to teach us while we're down there. Thank you in advance for your support, in whatever form(s) it comes in!
It's not exactly going to be a relaxing spring break, and I'm not really looking forward to the physical labor itself (especially with how dirty it's likely to be), but I am looking forward to being able to help people. I've picked up most of the supplies I'll need, including an air mattress (we'll be sleeping on the sanctuary floor at Trinity Church), work boots, work gloves, goggles (the church is taking care of getting masks), and about the only thing I still have to maybe get are some cheap clothes that I wouldn't be afraid to throw away after a work day or two if they get particularly grungy.
Trinity Church does have wi-fi, and I am planning on bringing my laptop computer and camera down there, so I should hopefully be able to put a couple of updates on my blog during some of the evenings at the church. I also hope to spend at least a little time working on the intro chapter to my thesis when I'm down there, but we'll see if that happens. I may very well be too exhausted to be thinking properly about that when I'm down there.
Time to get to work and get to class.
Posted by Jared at March 8, 2007 09:29 AM
Comments
Jrad, maybe if you had gotten control over the weather sooner there wouldn't be that big mess down there. No, its my fault, you don't have a quantum comp yet. I'll get on that but then I expect great things. Hope you have a good spring break and get a lot cleaned up! I'll be visiting dubC.
Posted by: Dave at March 8, 2007 06:48 PM