RUF students enjoying Spring break from LSU. While each team leaves evidence of their work we also ask that they leave a sign displaying where they are from. These guys found an old spinner roof vent, coloring them with their school colors.
Midway Pres from the Atlanta area having a devotional
College students with Habitat for Humanity
Recreational Therapy after a long day's work
Hymn singing from our Dutton, MI team
This is a family we have been working with regarding the possiblity of building a new home. We are getting closer and closer to pulling the trigger on several new homes but there are so many details that still remain. We will build 10 of our LPC homes which are just under 1,000 sq.ft. We are also building up to 5 homes through a local agency that is providing building materials. One of the homes is currently under construction, we are awaiting FEMA to move the trailer on another property, and we are assessing several others in order to put them in the queue. Great things and lots of behind the scenes work. 
The war room. Not really but this is the place where the LPC Restoration Committee meets to discuss all things relating to construction, sheat rock, shingles, and volunteers. As you can see we are a loving, nurturing group. Actually repentence and restoration to the Savior and one another is what actually happens before, during, especially after heavy meetings. This is one example. Kenley Leslie our "token" OPC staffer will be leaving the Bay next week with his lovely wife, Sarah. We will miss what they add to the body life here. Also, a picture immediately following a Restoration Committee meeting. Absent in photos are Jordan, Carol, and Curt.
A quick visit today with Jordan to Miss Tracey, a lady who has been helped by LPC and other volunteer teams. A verrry delightful and grateful lady.
Ryan Calvercamp is visiting from Jackson,MS. Ryan has been leading several of our teams this week.
Eric and Aleshia-our chefs, restaurant managers, and all around "amazing" people. Can you believe they have been serving 3 meals a day for over one year, to as many as 300 people a day.
Mimi Sherhouse and Americorp volunteer Mark greeting everyone from the community who comes in seeking assistance. Mimi serves daily. Mark is filling in for Hailey.
The Voice, Cammie Chapman. Cammie is our Director of Reservations who guides "all" teams into the Bay.
Clyde and Dennis, two of Lagniappe's "technical" experts. These guys know what to do and how to do it.
It was a full house. I just received an email from Cammie stating that we had 49 groups for the month of March.
Among the many groups this past week we are greatful for Don Riley of Memphis for bringing this outstanding group of Scouts. Thanks guys.
Erica, Holly, Ruth, and Dan (in the back ground).
Enjoying a leisurely afternoon. Teams were on their own, either visiting New Orleans, sleeping, or just hanging out.
A special thanks to my good friend and oversight committee member, Knox Baird, for delivering God's Word yesterday. Thanks for showing us God's grace in our weakness.
Health crisis
'People here are still struggling'
By RYAN LaFONTAINE and JOSHUA NORMAN
SUN HERALD
TIM ISBELL/SUN HERALD
Laura Beil (foreground) takes notes while listening to Dr. PerSharon Dixon talk about the medical effects of Hurricane Katrina on Coast families at Pass Road Elementary school.
GULFPORT - South Mississippi - especially its children - is in the midst of the largest health crisis in recent American memory, according to experts who visited with reporters here Thursday.
"To me, it's the most significant domestic crisis that we've seen in a very long time," said Dr. Irwin Redlener, founder of the Children's Health Fund and a professor at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. He has been studying mental health in Katrina-devastated areas.
By now, because the story no longer dominates the nation's front pages or network news, many Americans believe the Coast is all cleaned up. Homes are rebuilt. Schools are reopened and hospitals, churches, barbershops and Wal-Mart are all back to normal.
But those Americans don't take showers in FEMA trailers. Their children don't figure algebra equations in portable classrooms. They don't attend church in tents and they don't drive along miles of abandoned landscape on their morning commutes.
The question of whether South Mississippi has been forgotten will have devastating effects on the mental health of local families, according to the experts who spoke to a group of health reporters from across the country visiting the Coast with the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Through tours of the devastation in Louisiana and Mississippi, the reporters have heard over and over again the varying impacts of what one expert described as the "devastating second phase" of hurricane recovery.
Children are in trouble physically and mentally, especially those among displaced families. About 80,000 children are in families still displaced from Katrina, and of those, experts say about a third are already showing behavioral, social or academic problems.
"We lock them in these trailer parks where access to services is hampered by the conditions they find themselves in," Redlener said. "The big treatment is to get these families back into their normal environments."
The federal government recently gave a four-year extension to trailer contractors, which Redlener said is a sign this problem "is not going anywhere anytime soon."
He said recovery - emotional, economic and physical - has sunk in the morass of bureaucracy and political posturing at every level of government.
"It's one thing for adults, but here we have children developing physically, mentally and emotionally under these conditions," he said.
Dr. Persharon Dixon, who runs the Mississippi Gulf Coast Children's Health Care Program, which sends a free medical bus around to local schools, said the parents of four students have been victims of suicide in the past few weeks and one child attempted it. Those are just the cases she knows about.
"The people here are still struggling with housing issues and insurance issues," Dixon said. "They are still under a lot of stress."
The bus, which sees 20 to 40 children a day, will soon be equipped with a video system so other psychologists can monitor sessions with Coast children and offer a diagnoses from their offices around the nation. It's an effort to help ease a physician shortage and handle a boom in uninsured children.
Redlener said the problems in Mississippi were actually more obvious than in Louisiana. He said the recovery has "absolutely failed," many children are depressed and missing school, and families should have been out of trailers "a long time ago."
"The actual interventions that these kids need are straightforward and (involve) a sense of hopefulness." Redlener said. "If we don't do anything differently, we're heading down a path that we're really going to regret. All of us are going to regret it."
rainbows but he doesn't seem to get as excited about them as I do. He was on the phone, so he couldn't take too much time to come appreciate what was happening. (So often, that is how we are-too wrapped up in things to notice what God has planned. I'm not picking on Andy, I'm just using him for a good lesson I learned.)
I grabbed the camera, came back outside, to find Kate standing up in the stroller.
As it rained, and the sun was shining, there were 2 beautiful rainbows. It was so great to realize that even when God brings us rain, He's working on something even more beautiful for us-not just the sunshine but the other things that He designs. God is bringing me rain, but how great that He brings me through that to see what all He has in store for me. And just when I think He's only got 1 rainbow up His sleeve, He has so much more. I'm so glad that He's not limited to my plans!
The roof is looking pretty good!
i have a really fun job at Lagniappe. As the scheduling/reservations director, I get to field phone calls and emails from all around the world. It's amazing how God is moving people to volunteer with us here in the Bay. It's neat to work with the team leaders and help them make plans for their team, explain our vision, and get their trip started. Although it is disappointing to me when I have to lay down the law (like telling groups we can't facilitate charter buses, telling groups that they can't check in at 2 am, turning away individuals or unskilled workers) I am growing stronger from being able to do so.
The disconnect I feel is not being on the team side of things-not being out in the community rebuilding homes, not being able to work with the teams during the week. Since I work primarily from home, at times it feels like I am running a call center. It's fun to meet the team leaders when they arrive (if I can remember who is coming....sometimes all the groups run together)! Sometimes I feel like I blow in and out of Lagniappe like the wind, since I don't work there 40 hours a week.
I'm thankful that I can work from home and be a stay at home mommy. Sometimes team leaders are so gracious-if my daughter is having a fit, and it's obvious to the caller, they will mercifully say, "Would you like for me to call you back?" Thanks for that.
I feel very special when a staff member tells me, "So and so was here this week and they were asking to meet you." Have I reached celebrity status yet? Just kidding.
So if you are in town, hopefully I'll get to meet you. And if I miss you, I'll catch you the next time. Because I know you will want to come back.
one of the greatest lessons i have learned during my time in the Bay is that my righteousness is not in myself or anything I do. if I make a mistake, it's okay. i really do not like making mistakes, but i've learned that i am still very much loved when i make them. and boy do i make them daily.
perhaps this was best visualized during homecoming week when we were working on our facility. being a new mom (first time mom I might add), i thought i knew everything we needed for the nursery. i had some great ideas, even down to the garbage can we needed to use. but there were other people with ideas-moms with several children and even grandchildren. but what did they know? i'm the hip, new mom. i know everything. they now make these special garbage cans for dirty diapers, named Diaper Genie. When you have a dirty one, you can insert it in the can, twist, and POOF! no smell, no fuss. you only have to empty it once per week. we got one when kate was born, used it, and really liked its convenience.
i suggested we get one at LPC. idea vetoed. my feelings were crushed. my character was attacked, i felt, since my idea wasn't liked. my heart was stirring and i wanted to be heard! i wanted everyone to know i was right!
it took a few days, but God taught me so much. my righteousness, my self worth, my likability was all tied to the trash can.
the trash can was returned to wal mart, and i'm glad to say that it's gone. the nursery is beautiful, probably the cutest one i've ever seen, and it's all no thanks to me. if i had my way, it would be nothing like it is now, but God opened my heart to others and let me know that it's okay that i'm not okay. that i can be wrong and that i am wrong.
and now we have a regular old trash can and it's just right. and i can still laugh about my diaper genie righteousness. don't worry- I didn't even mention during that week that i had stopped using the diaper genie given to my family as a gift-because even when you used it you could still smell dirty diapers.....
Andy Chapman emailed this photo to me earlier tonight. It was from Google earth or something similar and he pointed out that you can actually see our bunkhouse on the lower right hand corner. He noted is still 'not connected' together and that the hole in the roof of the main building is still visible.
It got me thinking (here is where you should get some coffee....) Lagniappe Church has been in existence long enough to have had a Google satellite photo taken of us AND there has also been enough activity since the time that photo was taken to make it VERY outdated. NOTE: the hole is fixed and presently there are 3 more completed bunkhouses on the Lagniappe 'compound'.
Interesting isn't it? The 10,000 foot view- it has a way of making the 'messy', 'unfinished' things look kind of cleaned up and making the progress seem somewhat irrelevant. Six months from now the satellite will pass again and all that will have changed in the photo will be some black and grey pixellated rectangles added for bunkhouses and a silver square noting a closed up roof. There might be some more cars in the Sicily's parking lot across the street but other than that no big deal, image updated.
I am usually not very focused on the 10,000 foot view. I am more prone to find myself in angst about the one foot view- the details in the office, or the kitchen, the nursery (yes, we have a nursery), the copier or whatever. At any given point in my frantic self-reliance the satellite will pass again and 'CLICK' the 10,000 foot photo is snapped with anxious, fretful me not even visible to the lens. My fears and obsessing become somewhat irrelevant don't they? The 10,000 foot 'big picture' puts things in the right perspective.
I like the 10,000 foot view, it's like a providential rear view mirror. It's like a chance to look back by looking down from a higher vantage point. Thing are clearer in the rear view mirror, aren't they? Jesus promised that HE was building His kingdom and that the gates of hell would not stand against it. Roofs DO get closed up. Bunkhouses DO come together. A bit of cold spaghetti at dinner DOES get heated up, right? From the throne of heaven the picture isn't one of a Lagniappe 'facility update' it is one of a Divine KINGDOM moving forward.
Dream for a moment. You are in the war room, the 'oval office of heaven' if you will. (P.S. If you think we shouldn't allegorize images of heaven take two C.S. Lewis' and call me in the morning!) As the angels and archangels strain to see the troop map there are pins and markers and placeholders in and around the Bay. "The troops are holding!" cheers erupt! 'The troops are holding!" Just then, wet from the darkroom and pungent with the aroma of developer, an updated photo arrives- another 10,000 foot view- "roof closed! more room for teams! materials moving out! teams coming in! residents worshipping!" Like rain on a tin roof, shouts and cheers fill the room! "To our God and to the Lamb! From every nation tongue and tribe!" TO OUR GOD AND TO THE LAMB...
And at the one foot view were out of toner. What words are shouted? "Who was supposed to order that?" Ahhh, typical. Right then I have a one man pity party for the martyr-like existence I live. It is difficult being the ONLY ONE WHO EVER refills the toner, right? Where are my notes for orientation? I can't find anything around here! There's dust on everything, on EVERYTHING! As I throw my head back on my chair I need to hear what I CAN'T seem to hear only looking at the one foot view of Lagniappe. I DO need a one foot view, but NOT of Lagniappe- of the war room! I need to look from here to there and see something bigger than me, than houses, than Lagniappe or the Bay. I need to hear sounds louder than my sighs, to hear the peals of heaven, to hear the coronation trumpets of the King!
We had a home dedication today. Another family was restored. The Gospel was proclaimed there. We rejoiced in being able to participate and God was given the glory. The oval office cheered again and for a moment you could hear it, even from the Bay.
It is good to hear it, isn't it? It is. Please keep us in your prayers. Pray that we can, 'see Thee in the heights' though we dwell in the depths*. Thank you Father for the 10,000 foot view. Amen and Amen.
-Jean F. Larroux, III Lagniappe Church
P.S. Don't forget we still need you. Come if you can, give if you are able and skip both of those if you will REALLY pray.
*Reference: The Valley of Vision
Computer people, lookout, for "the times, they are a-changin'!"
Staff-house, take two!
Re-vamping the kitchen.
As a teammate prayed, "Thank the Lord - one year later we're still here!"
The Bradford Family
