Day Four – NOLA2010

A TGIF day for our mission group.  The Annunciation dormitory has been packed all week with teams from Charlottesville, VA and other places.  They leave today and we have the place almost to ourselves tonight.  This may seem trivial but if you have30-40 individuals vying for four showers and two toilet stalls each morning and evening having just our group in residence is a luxury.  We also lose Phil today who flies home for a Saturday departure on a long-planned family vacation.  We end the work week for some of the teams we share projects with.  The All Souls production #1 of the Moses and the Israelites made its debut today.  The children were beside themselves with anticipation wearing their simple costumes and diving themselves into different types of plagues.  The frogs were a’ leaping, the locusts swarming and the storm and lightening raging.  Some quotes:

‘Pick up your plague and come to the front of the room”

“Yes, it’s ok to have four of you playing Moses, but please, would one of you be Pharaoh?”

“It’s gonna be kinda boring around here next week when all the white folks are gone…”

We have a special audience of about 30 children from another church who come to hear the play and then sing gospel music for us in return.  They are simply magnificent.  Their leader is a tall, imposing blind man with a deep baritone voice.  He calls “If you can hear my voice, clap once” and a few children clap, then “If you can hear my voice, clap twice” and more children clap twice, and finally “If you can hear my voice, clap three times” and ALL the children clap three times and are then completely silent and ready. 

We finish part one of the Altar Guild project, a binder with photos of their collection of donated vestments with a table /index detailing what the item is, what it’s used for, when should it be used and in what season, plus a reference to an Episcopal Dictionary with even more information.  Do you know any church having three maniples, 17 scapulars, 10 Burses, including 7 green ones, 30 Chasubles, 34 stoles and several unidentified items included a fiddle-back chasuble in the mode of an 18^th century Spanish or Italian vestment.  Some churches were clearly cleaning out the bottom of their closets.

Tomorrow (Saturday) is another work day.  Two of us will be training the All Souls Altar Guild, others will be working on a Jericho Road lot clearing project and the third group will finish the drywall removal at the Beacon of Hope.  It’s our last work day for this trip and there is a sense of accomplishment as well as unfinished business.  We are debating whether our work in New Orleans is over and whether we need to look for other mission trip opportunities in different locales for next year and the years beyond.  We also know that the need will continue here for more work groups for years to come.

The day ends with our traditional trip to Williams Plum Street Snowball stand and the obligatory group photo with all our brightly colored tongues sticking out.

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