I did start a post called New Orleans to Colorado sometime at the end of July, I just never got around to finishing it, and now it's the end of August....
I guess I will finish this post, and then catch up with the rest of life sometime soon...
Since the start of June, I've made trips with the FPCA youth to both New Orleans and Colorado. The trip to New Orleans was a mission trip involving 19 youth and adults ranging in age from 8 to 79. Prior to going to New Orleans, I don't think think I realized that New Orleans was still so devastated from from Hurricane Katrina. One out of every 5 homes is still not lived in. If this house tells you anything...
We took our a group of people on our annual "Music and Mission" trip. This meant we did a lot of manual labor during the day, and then in the evenings the youth choir (the Agapes) sang at retirement homes and at a church. This is our group (minus two people) one evening after the youth sang at a church in Covington.
While we did our fair share of work, one of my favorite parts about these trips is the interaction with the people who live there. The youth know they can take breaks during the day to take "prayer walks" around the neighborhood. These prayer walks involve praying as we walk (thus the name) but also stopping to talk to people we meet, learning more about them and their stories, and offering to pray for them. We have interaction with the homeowners. One night we were there we had a block party down in the lower 9th ward at one of the houses where we were working. We grilled some hot dogs, offered them to anyone who wanted one, and just had a good time hanging out and getting to know people in the neighborhood. This is Ruby (one of the homeowners), Molly, and Hannah one night at the block party.
Our final day in New Orleans, we only worked a half day, and then we went down to the French Quarter for a little R and R. We took the group on a paddle boat cruise, had some time to walk around the French Quarter, and then ate dinner there. This is Homer and I in front of our boat.
About a week after I got back from that trip, I left with 25 others to drive in the other direction to head to Gunnison, Colorado for the Great Escape (a junior high conference put on by Youth Conference Ministries).
This is our group as we are about to load up into the vans and leave.
The Great Escape is awesome. We have worship in the morning and evening with 400+ youth from all over the country, and then we have the afternoons free to enjoy the Colorado Rockies. It was colder than this year than it has been in past year, but we still had a great time. Monday, we went rock climbing.
The speakers are always good at the Great Escape, but this year's speaker was awesome - Jim from The Maze (a Christian illusionist). His tricks were phenomenal. But even more importantly, he connected with our youth really well.
There are a lot of late nights at the Great Escape, but I would still get up early to go for a walk (or a jog). It was too pretty to not take advantage of the change to enjoy the outdoors. This is Katherine and I one morning when we went out for a walk.
One of the best parts about Jim's illusions, is that he involves the youth. James got pulled on stage one day!
While we are at the Great Escape, we stay at the campus of Western State College- and this is one of the very noticeable landmarks we always play on.
so we could cross a river (last year there was a log to help us cross the river, but there was so much snow run off this year, the little creek was bigger and the log was gone),
This is the FPCA group at the end of our hike. After we got back in the vans, we drove into downtown Crested Butte where we walked around for a bit, ate ice cream, and got burritos for dinner before heading home.
And then Friday morning, we begin our drive back to Texas! It was sad to leave, but it had been an awesome week!
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