Monday morning

Greetings from New Orleans. We are at Camp Restore -- about 175 volunteers this week. Our church group will be working on 3 sites today... 2 are in people's homes in the 9th ward (the hardest hit flood area) and the 3rd group will be painting inside a school in the 9th ward. Very bizarre here -- trashed buildings and rebuilt buildings stand side by side each other. You see a trashed, abandoned motel next to a McDonald's, for instance. Of course, many people were displaced and many have not returned to the area. In addition, many of the homes in the 9th ward were handed down from one generation to the next without ever changing the deed to the house. The 'owner' of the house was a person who lived in the 1800s. Therefore, the government will not make payments to the current home owner, as his name is not on the deed. FEMA has officially left, so it is churches that are the ones re-building now.