Christmas Letter

Merry post-Christmas!
In all of our holiday traveling, I forgot to post our Christmas letter. It's more of a photo-review than an actual letter, but I hope you enjoy it none-the-less.

If you have a moment, post a comment here with your best 2007 memory before you go.

Happy New Year!
click the image to see it full-size

fixing the house and leaving the country

Wow, the house is nearly complete! After several weeks of entertaining workmen in our home, while trying to work out of it at the same time, we are thankful to see them go :) The job foreman is the only one here today, as he does a little touch up paint, and prepares the rear exterior wall for its paint job. All the major repairs (hole in the wall, new roof, new siding, new windows and doors...) are complete! Let's pray for no more natural disasters in the neighborhood this year.

So, by the time we return from our trips on the 9th of June, our house should be 100% complete!

We leave tomorrow morning with Bill and Laura from Loyola for our 10 day missions excursion to Port-au-Prince Haiti. Please pray for us!

After that exciting trip, Jen and I will celebrate with a week of vacation on the beach in Florida--praise the Lord!

We'll post some pictures and stories of everything when we return.

Pray to the Lord of the Harvest

[pic from the swamp at UL-Lafayette]

Luke 10:2

[Jesus] told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."

Jen and I have been praying from the moment we discerned God's called to New Orleans' universities that God would call others to work alongside us to reach the thousands of students represented at Tulane, UNO, SUNO, Dillard, Loyola, Delgado, and Xavier.

This spring, we have some prospects. Today, we are in Lafayette, LA picking up an intern from the Diversity Project to come visit Chi Alpha New Orleans for the weekend, and investigate whether or not God might be directing her toward this ministry opportunity. There is a married couple that we are actively recruiting as well.

Please pray that God will give these missionaries grace as they search out His will for their futures in campus ministry.

In other news:

My good friend, Dan, and I were able to do some construction work on our house yesterday. We built a frame, and installed a new front door. It's such a blessing to be able to walk through the front door, again.

We should have some contractors out to do more of the major work on our house's structure.

Praise God!

Tornado

Wow!
Jen grew up near Tornado Alley - in Iowa, but we thought we wouldn't have to worry about those things down in New Orleans; hurricanes are enough. Well, we were wrong. This is the second winter in a row that the New Orleans has been hit by tornadoes. This time, our house was dead center for the path.

The car on the left was parallel parked. When the storm sucked out our rear windshield and the front door of our house, including the frame of that door, the car was spun around to where you see it.

We live in a townhouse with two units. This is the other side of our building. Thankfully, the young lady who stays on the third floor there was out of town. Our side doesn't look quite as bad from the outside, but the interior betrays that the side wall has been pulled away from the roof and the main structure of the building.

The tornado hit around 3:05am Tuesday morning. We were sleeping, and awoken by our alarm system. As the rear french doors were being blown in and out, in and out, the alarm system picked sounded. We thought someone was breaking in, but the way the doors were moving, and the eerie sound made it seem like something paranormal was breaking in. Then there was a huge 'boom' as the house 'exploded'. It was the most terrifying 5 seconds of my life. Jen said she was trembling for the next hour. It was traumatic...

We are safe. Our house has some pretty serious structural damage, but insurance should cover everything. Several students from Tulane and UNO came out to help us during the day as we cleaned up our own mess, and helped some neighbors. We are blessed. Thank you for your love and prayers.

see pictures we took for the insurance company here.

see pictures of the spontaneous work day here. [I hope to have this link working soon.]

Here's a picture from across the street, and one house down on the same side. (Our 'corner bar' is no more. Thankfully, there were no injuries in our little area where the storm 'touched down'.)