Kelley McClurg Reflection

My favorite story of New Orleans, was definantly when our team was assigned to be under the bridge giving water to the homeless- but we found ourselves in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. When we left the church that morning to go out to our sites for the day, our team (accompanied by the lovely Kathy Roeters) had expected a day of building relationships and taking the time to sit and talk with the homeless people under one of New Orleans large bridges. But when our huge white van pulled into the parking lot and we all came tumbling out with enthusiasm, the plan quickly changed when we were immediately approached by the police and asked to leave, because they didn't want to homeless to stay under the bridge and giving out the water would just encourage them stay. Then we were really lost as to where to go! But one of the men told us to go over to the mission right across the street and just hand it out there. So thats what we did. Soon after arriving me and about four others from our team ended up in a long conversation with a man named Nathaniel. He was very nice but skeptical of us and the God that we were sharing with him about, he had a hard life and shared a lot of stuff that us teenagers cant even imagine going through, but it was still an awesome conversation. We later found out from the leaders at AIM that almost every group that came had met and spoken to Nathaniel. Which was encouraging to hear that maybe we were just planting another seed. When the conversation died down we joined the rest of the group inside where we got invited into an AA meeting (alcoholics anonymous). There we met a guy name mark who was very young compared to the rest of the crowd, and seemed like he was in his early twenties if that. He had been struggling with alcohol for a few years and was trying to stop drinking but was having a bad withdrawal, getting really shaky and having lots of hallucinations. A couple of the older men in the meeting took him under their wing and were going to get him to a hospital for help. We prayed with him as a group and one of our leaders even gave him their bible. They sent him upstairs for a shower and when he came back in a clean shirt, freshly showered, he look like a new person. His eyes weren't shaking and his hands were steady, he looked so much more peaceful and a tad less scared. The transformation was astonishing. We don't actually know where Mark ended up after the men brought him to the hospital, but he is one person I know I will never forget. I know God had us at that meeting that day for a reason, so many people in our group were touched by that meeting, and in different ways. It was just so obvious God had a lot to teach everyone on our team that day, and we all took home a different lesson.

Claire Stack

I saw God on this trip in my brothers and sisters in Christ whom I had the pleasure of spending the week with. When they worshipped, served, prayed, encouraged, they did it with their whole heart. One night, we did an exercise as directed by the AIM staff where all the adult leaders got in a circle and the youth got in a circle around them and laid hands on them. Every one of us simultaneously, and out loud, prayed for the leader closest to us. It was amazing to hear the selfless, encouraging prayers coming from the mouths of every single youth. Then the leaders turned around and prayed for us. I have never been so moved by God as I was by the prayer that Steve said over me and the people near me. God showed me that night how much he loved me by surrounding me with 80 people who love the Lord fully and fearlessly.

I have been on several missions trips and FCWCs, but never have I experienced a group as close and as on fire for God as this one. Each person there blessed me more than they'll ever know.

Claire Stack

Stephanie Boris

God taught us a lot during our week in New Orleans. Between the charismatic church service and Mama Jan’s rehab center, God showed us that he doesn’t fit into a box like we sometimes put him in here in the suburbs of Rochester. Through all their faith healings, slayings in the Spirit and prophecies we got to see more of God’s power. Though through this God also taught us to test everything (because some of it was for sure more theatrics than God).
While at the church service on Sunday, my spirit was struggling with confusion and even discomfort at some of the things happening around me, but at Mama Jan’s I felt more at peace. After we listened to her testimony we were standing in a circle worshipping and she started asking if we wanted to be “touched by Jesus.” I had never really seen something like this before. She would go up to someone and ask them this, have them say something like, “Jesus save me; I want to be touched by you,” and then she would lightly touch them with her finger and they would fall backward. (Someone would catch them so they didn’t get hurt.) Well, being me, I decided that I didn’t need her to touch me, so I said those words to Jesus in my heart. It felt like a glowing warmth in my chest and I started to fall backward. Only there wasn’t someone to catch me, so I stuck my foot out so I wouldn’t get hurt. Back to worshipping Jesus and it happened again, and I caught myself again. Then when Mama Jan came over I finally had someone to catch me, and I lay there laughing. I probably shouldn’t have been so worried, if Jesus was going to knock me over then he wouldn’t let me get hurt. I guess my faith is increasing little steps at a time.
On another day I was in a group with Megan and Eric at the Riverwalk. We had just started out when Megan said she really felt like we should go and talk to the man wearing green on a bench on the other side of the park. So we went over to him and got to hear his story. He kept saying he used to be a “bad man;” they called him the baseball bat man. He was married and had a family. Then he beat the man to death that molested his four-year-old son, and he spent 15 years in jail. During this time he came to Christ, stopped drinking and joined a Bible study. Despite his efforts at communication, his family stopped talking to him. He is now homeless and uses his food tickets to pass out water and soda to other homeless people in the park as well as to feed his seven dogs that have become his family. He talks to other homeless people about Jesus and tries to help them stop drinking. What’s more, he used to be 411 pounds and the doctor said if he didn’t lose weight his heart would fail. But he had a gland problem and couldn’t lose weight. The man in front of us was just a little overweight and we found out that he had gotten cancer, which had helped him drop the extra pounds. He had perfect faith that God had given him the cancer for that reason and that when he was back to a good weight, God would take it away again. He said that he used to be depressed but had never found a good enough reason to kill himself… This man, Sam, had such an inspirational faith, and I think I can say for the three of us that we were really blessed that God directed us to him to hear his story.
We had been told to be praying and listening to where God was telling us to go on Thursday, which had no set schedule. I had been praying, but I was not feeling led in any particular direction. Then on Wednesday night I got pretty sick. When it was still sick the next morning I found out that I would be staying at home base and sleeping. Well I was pretty disappointed obviously, but then I got really excited because I realized that’s where God wanted me. He wanted me praying for everyone else. I went from one minute barely being able to sit in a chair and on the verge of tears, to the next practically skipping around with joy. I managed to stay awake all morning in prayer for our teams. Which reminded me of the night before when we were doing this prayer exercise where we would go up to a random person with their eyes closed and they would pray for us. A person prayed for me to have strength and joy. Which were exactly what I needed and what God gave me. So, God did a lot of working in me, and I can only hope and pray that God used us to bless New Orleans as much as it blessed us.

Matt Leistra

During our trip to New Orleans, I saw God work in many ways, but one very tangible effect of his work showed itself on Wednesday while my team was at lunch. Earlier in the morning, we had gone on a prayer walk through a lower income neighborhood. After we finished that, my team decided to go out for lunch to a local restaurant. Soon after we arrived, it started to pour. Usually, during a rainstorm, it pours for about 1 or 2 minutes and then tapers off. This time however, it didn’t taper off but kept on pouring. In the afternoon we were scheduled to hand out bottles of water in a park down by the Mississippi river. When we had finished our lunch and were ready to go, it was unfortunately, still raining. Our adult leader called back to homebase to try to find out what we should do. The answer we received was so simple and obvious and yet made perfect sense. The answer we received was to pray, and that is exactly what we did. We then proceeded to sit on the sidewalk outside the restaurant and simply pray. We didn’t think about what the people walking by thought of us, we were only asking God what his will for us was. After we prayed, we realized that it was God’s will for us to do to the riverwalk regardless of the weather. No sooner had we left the restaurant, then the rain completely stopped, leaving a cloudless, sunny sky in its wake. We continued on to the riverwalk and ended up spending three hours simply talking to the people we met and handing out water. On ething that will really stay with me from this experience, is the simplicity of the answer we received to our problem: pray. We should always turn to prayer with whatever problem we have, no matter how insignificant we think it is. If we don’t pray, we may miss what God’s will for us is which is exactly what the devil wants.

Lisa Brice

On Monday, July 4th, our team was scheduled to go Under the Bridge in the morning and then do a Prayer Walk after lunch, the experience that stood out to me though was how God used our tired bodies to do great works. Before we set out to walk the streets we broke into two groups of seven and planned to meet back at the van at 3:30. My team decided to walk around aimlessly so that God would tell us where he wanted us to be and it worked. We ended up walking outside of the neighborhood of Treme and into the French Quarter where we happened upon a park under renovation. This was towards the end of our walk and we needed something to cool down but on our way to the fountain I met a woman named Sonya. At first she did not want to talk with me or pray with me at all but the Holy Spirit moved in her and allowed for me to talk and get to know her. I found out that she was a teacher in Japan just south of Tokyo, she was from Los Angeles and she wanted prayer for her students and the health of her loved ones. As a bit of backstory the people we had met thus far were uninterested in prayer or would not even talk to us, so to have her want to talk with us and at the end of the prayer hug us because we wanted to talk and listen meant a lot to me, and it really showed God's faithfulness in our trip and our lives.

Audrey Kelly

I want to tell you about every day, every moment, every answered prayer, but I won’t do that to you. If you will though, please allow me to tell you about my favorite day of the week, Thursday (day four). Our schedule that day read: ATL. Ask The Lord day. We were instructed to start that day with no preconceived ideas and just sit in prayer together for as long as it took asking God to lead us where to go/what to do. It’s a difficult thing to do, to ignore what YOU are planning and be still and listen to what GOD is planning.

In prayer I only saw these random images that made no sense, like this pattern of bricks, part of a sign with big circus-like light bulbs, and a graffiti face on a wall. I had no idea what/where they meant though. One kid, this little freshman boy, said He felt God wanted us to be a prayer-mobile, driving around and just praying or finding the other teams to pray for them. Others said they saw a hospital and a café. Two of the boys said they wanted to minister to kids with sports, and another boy said he saw a black shirt with white skull and crossbones on it. Hearing all this we really didn’t know how they all fit together or where we were headed, but I see now there was no need to worry about that.

As we got ready to head out for the day, we hung around our base for a extended amount of time to pray for the other groups until a group of young kids from a program ran into the gym where we were and started playing basketball. We all got chills when we noticed one of the girls was wearing a black shirt with white skulls and crossbones on it. We prayed for the girl and headed out into the city in search of the hospital or cafe, with a 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 attitude of praying continually.

We found the hospital and then the café and we prayed but we didn’t know exactly why we were there. One of the freshman girls spoke up while we sat in front of the café saying I feel like I need to pray for that man walking near us. So she and I got out of the van and approached the man asking if there was anything we could pray for him about, he was very receptive, and as I bowed my head to pray I noticed the sidewalk was the exact pattern of bricks I had seen in prayer. We left encouraged but still confused on where to go next.

We ended up in the neighborhood that we had done our prayer walk in and just got out of the car to pray for God’s direction and clarity. Without going into detail God really used that time to give us peace and unity. Josh, the freshman boy who had spoken up earlier, asked if we could still try and find the other groups to pray for them since that was strong on his heart. We weren’t even all back in the van to do that when another team drove by us! Excitingly screaming we stopped them and surrounded their van in prayer. Coincidence? We KNOW not!

From there we decided to head over by the homeless bridge area to pray, first stopping at a gas station to use the bathroom. As we pull in a girl says look Audrey, there’s a graffiti face on the wall, I said that’s not it but then, and I kid you not, a man walks out of the gas station who has the face of the man I saw in graffiti. His name was Josh and we got to pray for him! Coincidence? Not with our God!

Continuing to the under-highway area we’re about to park when ANOTHER team’s van drives up next to us on their way to a shelter. We make them pull over under the highway so we could pray for them. Just as we are about to start, little Josh sees a woman, Lisa, that he had sat with for hours our first day by the river (a whole different part of the city). He yells her name and together they run into each others' arms. Coincidence? Not a chance!

After praying for the other group, a freshman girl timidly comes to me and says she feels like we need to go to the “living water” spot by the river, I say “then that’s where we will go!” As we pull into a parking lot space by the river, one of the boys, Hunter, spots the trumpet playing man, Buddy, walking home whom he had connected with on our first day. They excitedly greet each other and he shared with him something that God had put on his heart earlier that week regarding him. Minutes later, who drives by us in the parking lot but ANOTHER team! We of course pray for them and then start on a prayer walk.

On the prayer walk we found the homeless woman named Shirley that God had put on the trip's main leader, Kathy’s, heart. What a gift it was to sit and talk with this woman, as well as to see her face light up with the gifts of a pretty yellow dress, purple shirt, and shoes that Kathy and two of our girls had bought for her and her husband the day before. We will never forget her.

To end this long story (sorry guys) it should go almost without saying that God brought us to the other two teams to pray for them, as well as running into a man we had met on the trolley. All I could say was “either this is a tiny city, or we serve a REALLY BIG God!” Coincidence? Ha!

God showed our team especially how powerful prayer is and how reliable and trustworthy He is. I thought the truest sign of how life changing the trip was for the teens, as well as the leaders, was how on our fun day of shopping and riding a steamboat tour, the witnessing continued, unscheduled, with no leader prompting, just true Christ love shining!

Jackson Wheeler's Story

On the Thursday we were there my team and I decided to go a youth center for homeless teenagers and young adults. We arrived expecting and hoping to talk to the people who were staying there and to help out. The people that greeted us told us otherwise. They were very kind people and knew God's love, but they were firm in telling us that they wouldn't allow us to talk directly with those staying there-the building was called the Covenant Life Center or something simiar. They did however refer us to one of the men in charge of maintaining the building and the area that it encompassed. So we spoke with this man and he quickly had a job for us. We were put to work for seven hours in 95 degree weather painting a portion of wrought iron fence that surrounded the facility. The group handled it really well, I was really impressed.The work was really tedious and physically demanding but still we were happy to do it. I was content with the work we were doing but deep down I wished that there was something extra that I could've done to help. I was happy with the work we had done but I still felt a pang of emptiness that I really wanted fix. But then Matt-Matt Tice our leader-started talking to us. Apparently the fence we had just finished painting used to be routinely painted every two years in order to preserve it. After Katrina they didn't have the funds or manpower to get it done. That day completely unkown or precedented by anyone who worked there-12 kids and 3 adults showed up at their doors with nothing but Jesus' love in their hearts and a desire to serve. They didn't know what was going to happen that day and we definitely didn't know what was going to happen that day and we got to help restore something that meant a lot to them. That experience meant a lot to me and I know that I'll be telling the story to everyone I know.