To that end, this past month, our youth, along with their parents and the youth leaders, met and discussed how to combine fellowship and mission and take both and mold them into program of spiritual formation for our youth.  The suggestions were many and varied — many which will be implemented over the next year.  It is the dream of many of the leaders and also the Rector that the youth go on a mission trip in the near future.  Below is a report written by Heather Rountree, a member of our youth group (and also an acolyte), about a recent mission trip she took to New Orleans with the First Presbyterian Youth group.

Heather writes: Our project was putting up drywall in a house that had been flooded as a result of Katrina. From the outside the house looked alright; it had been freshly painted. But the inside was far from finished. Our initial inspection revealed that the framework on the back wall of the house was bad, we could move the entire wall just by leaning on it. The house was older, and it was obvious that building codes were not as strict when it was built.

My first task was taking out broken window panes, after that I joined the rest of our group working on drywall. But hanging drywall in this house was a challenge. Nothing was square, and no corner had straight edges, and everything that could possibly be crooked was. We found this out quickly, resulting in us having to measure each section of wall in about five different places….

According to our Team Effort staff member, that neighborhood had seen anywhere from four to six feet of water. Many houses had been fixed up and rebuilt, and there were many more that were being worked on while we were there. But there were also still houses that hadn’t been touched since the flood. There were places like that all over the city. Even though Katrina was five years ago, parts of the city still look like it could’ve been a month ago that Katrina hit, resulting in the devastating flooding. We took a driving tour of the lower 9th Ward, the part of the city that had been hit the worst by the flooding, with twelve feet of water. In places, the streets back right up to the levees. I think that this was the most shocking part of the whole trip. We drove through what used to be a neighborhood.

There were a very few houses that had been rebuilt, and houses that hadn’t been touched at all since the flooding. But, the most common feature was empty lots, with a foundation on them and nothing else. It was really weird knowing that this had once been a huge neighborhood. It was like driving through a ghost town, without the buildings. Even the streets were abandoned, some of them in such poor condition that we couldn’t drive over them.

The buildings that were still standing but hadn’t been touched since the flood all had an “X” spray painted on the outside somewhere. We learned that groups spray painted these on structures after they searched them. In each part of the “X” something was written. One side had the date the structure was searched, and the other side told what group had searched the structure. The bottom part of the “X” had a number representing the number of people found dead in the structure. It was shocking to see a house with a number in the bottom part of the “X”. It really sunk in, seeing that.
 

In dramatic contrast to the Lower 9th Ward, the French Quarter looked like nothing had ever happened. We toured the French Quarter and the Riverwalk on our last day in the city, which was very interesting. We also visited the aquarium, and sampled some New Orleans cuisine of gumbo, jumbalaya, poboys (New Orleans style sub sandwich), and oysters. This trip was definitely an eye opener for me. I had a ton of fun, and if I get the chance to go back, I will in a heartbeat.

The hope is that our youth group will grow in numbers as each member grows spiritually.  The way to grow our youth spiritually is to give them an opportunity for fellowship within the parish and with other youth across of the diocese.  But most of all, we promote our  youths’ spiritual growth by helping them to step out of their comfort zones and enable them to experience hands-on ministry like Heather experienced.