Adult Mission Trip to Louisiana – The COA adult mission team recently returned from their 12th mission trip to the Gulf region since Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005. After seven trips to New Orleans working with a group called Project Homecoming, we decided to work in an area north of New Orleans, which had experienced severe flooding twice last year due to heavy rains. It turns out that was a wise decision since the Volunteer Village we had been staying at those past 7 years was almost totally destroyed by tornadoes on February 7th .
Our group consisted of six people: Mike and Joan Henderson, Rick Link, Frank Cain from COA and Steve and Dotty Sellers from Harrisburg, PA. We arrived at the Camp Living Waters in Loranger, LA on Sunday, February 19th and worked with the Fuller Center for Housing on a house in Ponchatula belonging to a wonderful young Army family, Eric and Brittany Sullins and there 9 year old daughter, Addisen. Their home had 6-7 inches of water in May last year and then was again flooded in August with 21 inches of water.
We worked with four volunteers from Wisconsin and together accomplished quite a bit during our week there. Those working inside the house finish sanded drywall, sprayed texturizer on all the walls and primed and painted all of the walls and ceilings. The outside work included removing old siding and putting up Hardie siding, painting a large wrap around porch and screening it in. There was much more to be done before the family could move back into their home, but we had made significant progress by the time we left on the 25th .