this sunday, june 13, 2010, at 2:30am, ross and i will be heading down to new orleans for our week long mission trip with the youth group.  almost everything has come together, not necessarily in the smoothest way, but God has been gracious and faithful to not let us completely fall on our faces. which is kind of amazing if you think about it, because the leaders for this trip are made up of 1) someone who’s never been on a mission trip before, 2) someone not even 25, and 3) a short kid who looks like she could still be in youth group.  now that’s an all-star team right there.  that’s God’s way of saying through ME you can do all things.

we’ll drive 13ish hours through the night, periodically stopping to relieve ourselves or stuff ourselves and will arrive at our site on late sunday afternoon.  there will be 4 other churches present:  2 from texas, 1 from illinois, and 1 from california.  we’ll be participating in various social or construction ministry sites (we won’t know until we get there) and getting to see a bit of the city in the evenings through a tour of historic downtown, attending a local church service, and hosting a cookout.

on the way back (friday) we’re planning to spend the day at an amusement/water park and spend the night at a birmingham, AL  AMiA church before driving home on saturday morning.

please please pray for our trip, for traveling mercies, group unity (8 of us in a suburban for 13+ hours – two ways), boldness, building relationships, and growing in our faith.

our group:

katie

mary kate

kellen

casey

J.L.

todd

ross

jennifer

i know God will do awesome things on this trip.  i know this, because he is God and he always shows up in a big way when we’re obedient to his call.  Nawlins, here we come!