Trip

The most thing I really enjoy is the moment we spend with the Muslim community. I have hear a lot from them like the charity they are putting together to help people without forcing them to convert into Muslim. But they are helping everyone who want to join the group. They also tell us about the things they are facing but the most thing is to help kids with education and put them on the right way. They also send us a gift which was the crawfish, we really like it and also we enjoy the moment by learning how to eat them.

Big jobs and big appetites

Thursday, March 24

After a three day stretch of doing gratuitous amounts of painting on Ms Renee's house, working with United Saints, we took a "break" from the painting gig and put our muscles to work for the VIET (Vietnamese Incentives in Economic Training) organization. We spent about half of our day working to help prepare the site for VIETs after school academy in Orleans East, which serves over 250 kindergarten through sixth graders from the area. The tasks of the day varied from tearing down Sheetrock and digging out a sand volleyball court to breaking down a pile of sticks and cutting grass with scissors. The sun was hot and the work hard, but knowing that what we were doing was going towards helping kids provided the motivation we needed to push through the day.

Tonight was our big night out for our group dinner and we had a wonderful time. We spent a couple hours hitting up the shops along Magazine Street before heading to Joey K's restaurant for some authentic New Orleans cuisine, which we may have indulged in just a little too much. We have developed some great friendships during the trip and it really showed in all the smiles and laughter we had at dinner.

Josh

The Heart of this City

Hello there world (well those that care to hear us Spring Breakers ramble haha), it's Dorian and I'm here to bless you all with some of the experiences and insight that we have all been embracing since arriving to such an incredible place, New Orleans aka N'awlins!!!! Wednesday was a day of random yet exciting fun. We started our day out with breakfast at the church, and headed over to Ms. Renee's to finish up our final day siding and painting her house. We made an immense amount of progress and were able to put up much of the new siding and detail a lot of the borders of the house and the corners of the windows. As we had just finished closing up shop, Ms. Renee returned home and we were able to speak with her about her life; her home, her family and her supposedly crazy dog who was calm whenever we were outside working. It was incredibly rewarding to see the smile on her face after seeing the work that we had done. Sharing such a moment, in turn, brought never-ending smiles to our faces for the rest of the day. It's a beautiful thing when you are able to give back and do service for others. After that we headed back to the church to have dinner (Taaaaaaaccccooooooossss!!!! Mmmmm!!!!) and, lo and behold, our friends from Masjid Rahim brought us 50 pounds of spicy, delicious crawfish!!! It was scary for me at first, considering I don't particularly care to suck the juice from a sea creature's head let alone pull it apart and eat it. But, I did eventually try the latter :) so all is well over this way. After stuffing our faces we had our reflection, in which, we used images from New Orleans to share our sentiments about our experiences and the City of New Orleans so far. It was a meaningful reflection to me. Following reflection some of us headed down to the French Quarter and tried out Popeye's, which was amazing!!!! It turned out to be all that we had imagined plus more, don't be surprised if all of us come back 10 pounds heavier. You can blame it on this tasty cuisine!!! :)

This Hard Work is Worthwhile

Even though I didn't get a chance to go work on Monday since I was ill the night before and couldn't go to work then. Although I did get the chance to work this Tuesday by helping to redo some siding that wasn't done properly the first time. Even though it wasn't the kind work that the rest of the group was doing (they were all painting at the time), I still felt that it was very rewarding work. In the end, the siding was redone in a more efficient way that wouldn't allow water to get through, and this was much better for the house overall.

However, I never did get to finish all of the siding, but at least I finished most of it. The rest will be finished by groups later in the week, but it is nice to have finished so much of it. Once the work today was finished we got to meet the owner of the house that we were working on. It was nice to get personally thanked by the owner, and it really made me feel that the work was worthwhile.

In the midst of hot, humid days under the bright New Orleans sun, its moments like these that make it all worth it in the end.

-Ryan Spies

Getting out of the bird cage, learning how to fish

It's our 3rd day here and our first day of service. We volunteered with the first street united saints program. We went to Renee's, whose house had been damaged from the hurricane. We spent the day priming the house, getting it ready to paint tomorrow. We also had the opportunity to revisit the mosque, which we visited yesterday for breakfast. There we also got to be present for an interfaith dialogue. The dialogue sparked a lot of ideas amoung our group , specifically about how to help impoverished communities.
Soon after we returned from the dialogue we had our usual group reflection. We read a short exerpt from The Nature of Oppression by M. Frye called The Bird Cage. It is from a mix of this dialogue and the reading that our group managed to pull together a strong problem of impoverished communities.
The main underlying idea of our discussion was that we need to take a macroscopic view of "the birdcage" in order to see that it's a systematic oppression which keeps people from getting out of the cycle of poverty. This leads to the title of our blog, which is the idea that it's not enough to just help people, but is important to help them learn the skills to help themselves.

-Rola and Elizabeth

Family, Faith, Community

Today 3/21 we were invited by Hamline grad Tony Wilson to come to a celebration for families with students that participate in the Bible Bowl. It was really heart warming to see the support of the parents and the passion of the students for a bit of competition. The intersections between Family, Faith, and Community are always inspiring. I love to see people come together and embrace each others differences for a common cause, the youth that participate in the Bible Bowl. After the BB we had an opportunity to talk with the pastor at the Salvation Army. I loved hearing his insights about low income housing options in New Orleans, and service in general. It was amazing to hear how both the pastor and Tony had made service a major part of their life, it shows me that as a social justice major there are a lot of opportunities out their to help others and continue service for the rest of my life.
MC

An imam and a minister walk in to a bar...

Hey everyone, this is Mac, coming to you live from First Street Methodist Church in Central City, New Orleans. It's only our second day in town and we have done so much! This morning we slept in (relatively late) and then headed over to Masjidur Rahim to have brunch with the imam, a few members of the mosque, and Ms Joanne, a volunteer for the church we are staying at.

While munching on our brunch, Imam Rafeeq was telling us about how they have been working hard to change the negative perceptions people have of Islam. It is a religion of peace and service and they engage in lots of interfaith dialogue surrounding those tenets of the tradition. These people are exceptionally generous. They care deeply about their community. They work hard to make positive change.

After the mosque, we got to experience the fervor for life that New Orleans has. March 19 is the celebration of St. Joseph. The streets were filled with floats, people, community members decked out in feathers. We couldn't really figure out why this celebration was happening, but it really showed us the kind of community that exists down here. One group of men was walking down the street in the parade chanting their area code-504. No one is afraid to celebrate and have fun here or get a sunburn. The back of my neck is evidence enough for that.

Overall, I think we're pretty tired, but its all worth it. The night is warm and the breeze is cool. Bourbon Street is calling our names, even though our alarm clocks are set for 6am. See you with the sun.