Work day in Pontchartrain Park

On Saturday morning, a group from the Seminary split up into teams to go into Gentilly and help with debris clean up from the tornado. Our group went to Pontchartrain Park, which was hit pretty bad. The house we worked on was only a few doors down from where Mrs. Stella, the 85 year old woman, was killed by the tornado.

This is a picture of where Mrs. Stella's house and FEMA trailer were before the tornado.

Mrs. Stella's family has put up flowers at her house in her honor.

This is another house that was hit across the street from Mrs. Stella's.

I talked to a neighbor down the street and she told me about the night the tornado hit. All the neighbors came out in the rain in the middle of the night to help Mrs. Stella's daughter try to find Mrs. Stella in all the rubble. Please be praying for this family and for this community.

Our group, joined by a team from LSU and some employees from The Times Picayune, worked at the house of Mr. Melvin and Mrs. Mary. They are living in a trailer in front of the house, but haven't yet started working on rebuilding. We worked in the backyard which was packed with stuff that had been damaged by Katrina.

He had a huge shed full of ruined things, but the shed had been damaged by the tornado and was about to collapse. He also had 5 motorcycles or bikes, 3 or 4 ovens, 2 boats, and 1 refridgerator in the back as well. We spent all morning clearing the debris and bringing it to the front yard by the street.

Halfway through the morning, Chad drove around and found the FEMA guys that pick up all the debris. He got them to come pick up what we had done so far so we would have more room to put the rest.

Mr. Melvin was extremely grateful for our help and we got to pray with him and his wife before we left. We were exhausted, but it was a great day of practically showing people the love of Christ.

This is the group from the Seminary that worked at our site.