Hammers 4 NOLA: Like a new penny!

There's no place like home. I was blessed to go back to the farm for the Holidays, and spend time with family & friends. I'm missing them already! I flew back into New Orleans at midnight on Wednesday the 28th, and was back on site by 7:30am on Thursday.

Miss Yolanda still comes by every day. She jokingly hassled me the other day about where I'd been, and I could tell she was happy for me to have been able to take a vacation home. She understands better than anyone I know, the longing to go home.

I'm really learning a LOT. I'm learning how to lead groups from 1 person, to 24 persons. From 12 yr-olds, to 87 yr-olds. From Ethiopia, Mexico, New York, Wyoming, and many more. I've felt pretty confident working in this atmosphere. But, the finishing stages of a house, i'm finding, is where I really struggle. Physically, and perhaps even more mentally.

Remember when you were a kid, and you used to hide the broccoli under your spoon so your mom couldn't notice that you hadn't eaten it? Yeah. I've caught myself starting to do that, in order to reach the goals and deadlines that we'd set... err, actually Johnnie caught me. I was getting anxious, tired, and just wanted to finish a step, to get started onto the next. Johnnie slapped me around a little this week, and explained that quality was much more important than quantity. He is Right! Miss Yolanda deserves a nice house, rather than a sloppy faster-finished house a week or 2 in advance. I know in my last blog entry that I wrote about putting quality over quantity... I think it was my conscience coming out onto paper...

So, I arrived back into New Orleans and had a group of high school volunteers meet me on site Thursday morning. These guys were entertaining! Haha we had a good time, and were able to get a lot done for the project.

Young Judea group

Putting the pieces of the puzzle together... Laminate Flooring!

Friday we had a group from Cabot Methodist come on over to Miss Yolanda's house. Majority of the kids were in 9th grade, and were able to make some great progress on the house!

Cabot Methodist - Caleb, Jake, Lewis, Kate, Cody, Lauren, Grandma & Terry

So, check out the place now! There's not going to be a whole lot of visible changes (through photos) until Miss Yolanda moves in... lots of smaller things left - like grouting the bathroom shower & floor, hanging & cleaning doors, and laying down shoe mold. Hoping for another group of hardworkin' volunteers next week to finish 'er out!