COLA to NOLA Day 1: Riddles, Lost Grocery Stores, and Cranky Old Folks

Tonight after we were well-fed and beginning to wind down our first day here in NOLA, we shared our high points and low points for the trip so far, and the lows were pretty much unanimous. Turns out waking up at 5 in the morning and spending 12 hours in a pair of dodge minivans just isn't a fun idea, even when it's done, "in the name of Jesus." And cranky old folks don't make things much better. Our innocent little church group managed to just really grind the gears of a more elderly man standing in line behind us at lunch today, not sure why, he must have just really wanted his sandwich. Not to say that we didn't have fun at points in our trek across 4 states,

I myself learned a number of good, new riddles, and we swapped funny stories and critiqued the latest Harry Potter film. But we were all quite happy to arrive at what will be our home for the next 6 days. And what a place. For the upcoming week we'll be staying in a simple, but homey New Orleans style shotgun house, with three rooms along a long hallway crammed full of surprisingly comfy cots, a decent sized lounge area, 3 bathrooms, and a full kitchen. In addition a small yard joins our shotgun house to a Chapel which has another full kitchen and two more bathrooms, which we have been given essentially round-the-clock access to.

The girls and RevKev preparing to leave for dinner and showing off their over-the-shoulder bags

After getting settled in we headed just a couple of blocks away to a great cafe where we were able to get some good food and to celebrate the birthday of one of our trip's fearless leaders, Kevin Roberts.

 You can have the cake, just let me keep my soul...

The following dinner, the intelligent ones of the group returned to the house, and took a nice walk. The rest of us chose to go with that fearless leader Kevin Roberts, to find a grocery store so that we could stock up on food for the week. Little did we know we were actually signing up for a 30-minute nighttime tour of New Orleans, a tour on which we found very few grocery stores. We did however discover that New Orleans quite possibly has the largest number of Walgreens per capita of any city anywhere, topping off at a Walgreens for every 2 citizens.  We did eventually find a grocery store however, thanks to the help of two kind gentleman (who had an awesome house) and we actually had a great time doing it. Just goes to show... well something important and God-related I'm sure. That's about it for the day, but it's really looking to be an amazing week and I already feel incredibly thankful that I get to be here and be a part of it.

-Andrew Askins

A note from David: We're going to do our very best this week to update this blog on a daily basis, whether in the evening or first thing in the morning. Our work schedule with Habitat for Humanity will really pick up tomorrow, and that will certainly affect when we're able to blog, so please be patient!

Also, we've decided to have the young adults of our group author this blog on a rotation, and the adults (Kevin, Kim, and myself) might throw in a few thoughts here and there.