Hey everybody. This is our 3-day trip to New Orleans, in our small contribution to help out as part of the Katrina relief effort. We’ve memorialized it on the web, thanks to Geraldine, one of our team members who happens to be a web designer.

Why
Why did we do this you may ask? Well we did this for 3 reasons.

1.	To let everyone know that God is just doing a mighty work down in New Orleans, churches are coming together, the Gospel is being preached and people's needs are being met.
2.	As a tribute and a thanks to the workers that are there and laboring.
3.	As an encouragement that it is both safe and needed for other workers to go.

Thanks to...

Shai
First of all we'd like to thank Shai (Shelley) Morgan for being the pioneer of Harvest Rock Church in Pasadena and going first and then reporting back. It was Shai’s account to our cell group that got us started. Yup, the importance of testifying.

Harvest Rock Church and Pastor Che
We'd also like to thank our church and Pastor Che for always preaching us to go out and serve and for our cell group led by Corrie and Benita for their prayer, encouragement and financial help. May you belong to a body that both equips and encourages.

PRC and Carlos
Next, we'd like to thank the Pastor's Resource Council (known as PRC). They were the coordinators for our trip and they are the ones you will want to contact if you or members of your church want to go. They are not the only organization doing good work down there but I will testify that God’s hand is in their work. You can reach them at www.prccompassion.org. Carlos is one of their volunteer coordinators that gave us the orientation and deployed us.

Steve and the Center of Hope
We stayed at an amazing place and were given amazing hospitality by an amazing (I know that’s 3 amazings) brother in Christ named Steve at the Center of Hope in Baton Rouge. Center of Hope is well run and well stocked with everything you would need so you can focus on doing the Lord’s work. Let’s see, they have bedding, toiletries, towels, showers, food, food, food and washers and dryers. Did I miss anything? Oh and Steve and his team keep it running with the peace of God everywhere.

Christian Bookstore of Baton Rouge
We also would like to thank Lucille, owner and manager of the Christian Bookstore in Baton Rouge. We wanted to bring Bibles so we found her on the web. She ordered 12 cases of 24 Bibles per case (288 in all) and had them delivered to her store. We arrived on a Sunday to pick them up and she opened the place special just for us and had cookies and coffee waiting.

Lance and Celebration Church Distribution Center
And we'd like to thank the leaders Lance and Chris and the workers at Celebration Church in New Orleans, where we were deployed. Their commitment and energy and love in the Lord are inspiring. Amen.

Using this site
For those of you who are still reading at this point: not bad at all. View our collection of photos that capture the essence of what happened each day we were there by clicking on the Day.

Are you going?
If you want to go and you're part of Harvest Rock Church or if you have any questions about our trip contact me at Patrick@optiontru.com. If you are in a far off place from us (that would be Pasadena, California) then by all means contact PRC directly.

In Christ,
Patrick.