going home

Early morning, up and packing the vans. We stop at a Cafe Du Monde shop for beignets.  A brand new treat for several of our travelers.  Then on the road, headed north.  We stopped for a snack in Mississippi and an early dinner in Memphis at Interstate BBQ.  We had to get BBQ in Memphis, right?  But bbq'd spaghetti, really? Really! And a great reunion back at the church around 8:30.  What a great trip!  More pics to come.

The closing

Sunday morning was the closing of the Gathering. Worship in the Super Dome. Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson gave the message and, of course, some great music. But there is something incredibly powerful about seeing over 33,000 people take communion.  And then, the announcement of the 2015 Gathering, Detroit. The kids were already buzzing about the next one!

We took the afternoon to go to the French Quarter.  The architecture, the atmosphere, the shops, and the street performers all gave a great taste of New Orleans. And then there was dinner at the Gumbo Shop where some were just more adventurous than others. Orders ran from crab cakes to vegetarian gumbo;
from chicken gumbo to grilled cheese.

And the street performers?  One challenged Josh to arm wrestling. Josh won, of course. And Denise Sept became part of the show.  Keep your head low, Miss Denise!

And the end of the day, we met and talked about our experience.

Tonight was the last evening at the dome.  All the kids and three of the adult leaders went out for pizza and then join the excitement this time from the upper decks.  After the speakers and other singers, they got to hear Switchfoot.  Some decided to come back to the hotel while others went out for community life.  As of tonight, they will have visited all the hotels that participated. They have ridden a mechanical bull, danced, ridden oversized tricycles, battled each other and just had a great time.

Justice

Today was our day of service.  We started out at the dome for worship. Then we boarded a bus with another larger group and went to Holt Cemetery.  Holt is a pauper's cemetery. It is in a high degree of disrepair: missing or broken grave stones, broken glass, trash, weeds, and sunken graves. We found that many people are buried in the same grave. What was once a crematory, is now filled with trash.

Now a cemetery would certainly not be the first choice of most teenagers as a place to do their service work; add in the heat and humidity of New Orleans as well as fire ants, but kids were pushing around wheel barrows filled with soil, filling in sunken graves, picking up trash and pulling weeds and in between, trying to stay hydrated.

And then, what most would find unthinkable, bones were found: parts of one skull, a separate mandible and even dentures.  As the specific grave could not be identified, we gathered around and reburied the bones. Dan prayed over them.  I do not think today is one our kids will quickly forget.

And then there was Bobbiann Lewis.  Bobbiann has dedicated herself to trying to get volunteers to maintain and improve Holt Cemetery.  Bobbiann is a licensed mortician.  When she was to bury someone in Holt, she was embarrassed at the conditions found there.  She decided to do something about it.

Holt started out as part of a plantation. When the slaves were freed, they eventually needed a place to be buried. Samuel Holt provided that land. It is a pauper's burial grounds. A Potter's field. It costs $450 to be buried there. After one year and one day after someone has been buried, the grave can be used again for someone else.  I found one grave with nine people listed.

For me, it has been a difficult day to process emotionally.