David W. Swanson

Pastor and Author

new orleans update #4

Aubry left the following in the comments of New Orleans Update #3. I’m putting them here as well to make sure everyone see them.  Thanks Aubry for your very honest (and funny) update.

Today was tough.
Our group has been building a wall…that’s right, building a wall. It’s huge. We’re like the anti-Jericho.


So, for those of you who know me, you know I’m not exactly a labor friendly person, I’m more people oriented. For those of you who don’t, now you know. Therefore, I have been struggling a lot with being locked up in this room with five other people that I know really well already, and not being out “sharing the word.”
As you can imagine, this morning when I woke up and found out that we were building the wall for the second day in the row, I was a little discouraged.
I sat through worship with my arms crossed.
I “prayed” with my eyes open (I KNOW! I’M SUCH A SINNER!).
I dragged my feet all the way to our little wall room.
I complained about being hungry the whole time.
I yelled at our leader because I wanted lunch.
I yelled at a fellow team-mate (Sorry, Otto!) because I couldn’t get one of the screws to go in the dry-wall. To say the least, I was NOT a happy camper.
So…do you ever have one of those moments where you’re all “Nobody can even touch me!” and then later on someone, who isn’t even meaning to totally smacks you across the face with some nice comment like “I’m really learning to work in whatever I do as working for the Lord, and not for men”.
Yeah…I have. So now, here I am, Tuesday night, feeling like a moron and letting you guys know that even though we all trudged down here to New Orleans and we’re like…SO GOOD, and SO CHARITABLE, we aren’t perfect, and we still need your big time prayers.

So, now for the real update.
We’ve gutted.
We’ve build walls.  We’ve given kids piggy back rides until we were about to puke.
We’ve eaten macaroni and cheese that seems like they just melted cheap American cheese on the top for the cheese part.
And the coolest part, is God’s kept us a live (and still kickin’!).

So pray for me and my grumpy self.
And also that the wall doesn’t end up knocking ME down!

-A.Red

Earlier posts in this series:

David Swanson

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One response to “new orleans update #4”

  1. Stephanie Pugsley Avatar
    Stephanie Pugsley

    Aubry, sweetie, I know your cranky and I understand why. I think it’s important not to “put God in a box”. Try to remember that each day is different and God has a plan. As one who has dealt with enormous change (even recently) I will share my mantra with you. “Just keep swimming” Yes, that’s right the annoying little song from “Finding Nemo”. If we can just keep swimming and trust God to take care of the rest – He will!! He has brought me through a tremendous amount of upheaval this spring and He is continuously, unerringly faithful in His care for me and my family. Maybe God has plans for you to minister to your own group??

    I’m so pround of you for your committment to this trip and the people of New Orleans and YES I will keep praying for you and your crabby self even as I pray for all of the members of the missions team in New Orleans.

    Love,
    Steph Pugsley

    Reply

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