Saturday: Practice Discipleship

Today, we gathered with 700 folks from the DE-MD Synod for our Practice Discipleship Day.  We worshiped together and learned about the seven faith practices: Serve, Prayer, Worship, Invite, Study, Give, and Encourage.  We then headed out on the streets to practice this.  Below you will see some pictures of our adventures!  We enjoyed a late lunch at Bubba Gump Fish!  See the funny pictures below!
Soon, we are headed out to get in line early to line up for (hopefully) floor seats in the Super/LutherDome to see Switchfoot. 
Thanks for your prayers and lifting us up this week with your names on our backs (literally, on our shirts!)

                                                               Ready to worship!

                                                                        Worship!

 We found a cross

                                  Cassie read the Bible to us on the street and we held hands and prayed.

                                                        My mama says I am special!

                                                            We found an invitation.

                                                                     Just for fun!

Friday: Practice Justice!

Today was our practice justice day!  We woke up very early and left the hotel at 7:00 to walk to the SuperDome, which was our launching site for our service project.  Once there, we joined in with our project group and worshipped.  We then took off on our walking tour.  Our Practice Justice experience was Cultural Literacy.  We were privileged to serve the people of New Orleans by letting them serve us.  When the gathering team was planning this event, they asked the people of New Orleans what they wanted us to do for them.  In their list, they included some experiences that they wanted us to have.  For our Cultural Literacy Project, we walked to the French Quarter to the New Orleans School of Cooking, where Chef Kevin led us in a cooking demonstration of some traditional New Orleans foods, which we then ate for lunch.  We had Crab and Corn Bisque, Jambalaya, Bread Pudding, and Pralines.  The meal was fantastic.  Chef Kevin was an incredibly gifted and funny man.  He spoke to us about the importance of food to the people of New Orleans.  He shared that it is not about what is on the table, but about who is around the table.  He also shared that it doesn't matter whether you show up in a Bentley, a Rolls Royce, a truck, or a skateboard.  What matters is that you showed up. 
Interesting fact: by lunch today, we had already walked over 3 miles!!
We then headed to a nearby hotel where we had a debriefing session to talk about what we learned from this cultural experience and had a discussion about Hunger. 
We attempted to do a little shopping and explore the French Quarter, but some crazy rain came pouring down.  We splashed through the streets, in water up to our shins in some places, to get back to the hotel.
We returned to the hotel to dry off and relax.  We then ate a delicious dinner at Drago's Seafood, which is located in our hotel.  Ryan and Jason even enjoyed the lobster.  Don and Dylan had some great gumbo. 
We then took another shopping trip to the Riverwalk and then enjoyed an evening of relaxing in our hotel and going to bed early.
It was a full day, full of wonderful and surprising New Orleans experiences!

Playing cards in the room

With Chef Kevin

Chef Kevin

Practice Justice Time!

Jambalaya

Waiting

Practice Peacemaking!

After an internet connection issue, here is our blog post!

 Wednesday was an exciting day of registration and hanging out in the interaction center.  The youth rode bumper cars, participated in a wheel chair challenge, and lots more!  We had a great New Orleans lunch at the Riverwalk.

In the evening we made an incredibly long walk to the SuperDome.  We participated in an incredible evening gathering with speakers, music, dancing, and videos.  We got held up in the SuperDome, aka LutherDome, because of a severe thunderstorm.  We had an interesting walk in the rain back to our hotel, where 10 very tired travelers went to bed! 

If you want to watch any of our evening gatherings in the LutherDome, you can find them at www.elca.org/gathering!  The will live feed at 7:00 each evening...........

 Thursday, we started off our day with Café Du Monde Beignets!  YUM!!

We then headed to the Interaction Center for our Practice Peacemaking Worship, and incredible musical worship!

 We participated in some of a Hot Spot Challenge, made our donations to the 100 Wells Challenge and the Million Books Project, and participated in lots of exhibits.  Deacon Melissa almost got her hair cut off for a hair donation, but they were full.  When we get back to town, Beth is going to cut Deacon Melissa's hair at the church and we will mail it in!  We did some shopping at the Old Lutheran Shop and got our picture taken with ELCA Bishop Hanson.  And Nancy, the brave one in the group, donated blood!

Right now, the youth and Don are shopping at the Riverwalk.  We will head out soon for dinner and another evening in the LutherDome.

Continue to keep us in your prayers!

Blessings from NOLA!

Seafood

Riverwalk

Champion's Square

Evening gathering at the LutherDome

Lights in the crowd

our youth!

Donating to million books project

Donating to 100 Wells Challenge

Hello Bishop Hanson!

Your group!

WELCOME TO NOLA!

Hello from New Orleans,

We awoke at 2:15 this morning to go to the airport.

Once making it through security Dylan dropped his coffee(starbucks) all over the place.

But they let us on the plane anyway.

After making a slight detour to Houston Texas and waiting on the plane for it to reload which took an hour to do, then we set our eyes back to New Orleans.

After a quick 47 minute flight, we arrived in New Orleans safely.

Then we checked into our hotel, now we are writing this, and now we are going to the convention center for registration, and then we are headed to the Super Dome this evening, and getting dinner at some point.

Love,

Cassie and Beth

P.S. we love how our new mommy (ms. Melissa) has been taking care of us!!

Waiting!

View from the plane

Waiting for the trip to NOLA from Houston

We're jazzed you're here!

Almost time . . .

Keep us in your prayers as we travel to New Orleans!  We will be departing from Westminster around 2:15 am and our plane leave at 6:15 am.  Thank you fo all you have done to help us make this trip!

Yesterday we met to go over lots of last minute details and we tie-dyed shirts to wer for our trip!  We will be colorful, for sure!

Time for Blessings and Crazy Hair

The Gathering is approaching quickly.  We have been having lots of fun preparing!  During Vacation Bible School, the youth shared presentations on ELCA World Hunger, the Malaria Campaign, the 100 Wells Challenge, and the Million Books Project.  We challenged the Vacation Bible School kids to raise $100 to be split amongst these four ministries at the Gathering.  If we reached our goal, the youth and adults going to the Gathering would have their hair spray painted crazy colors.  By Tuesday Night we had collected $100.  So, we upped our goal.  If we raised $200, the youth would have colorful hair on Sunday as well as crazy face paint.  And we reached that goal too!  Thanks be to God! 
On Thursday, our group met to prepare for our Cultural Literacy Practice Justice project.  We watched Slumdog Millionaire and had a discussion about how cultures interact with one another and affect our lives.  That day, we also made our banner for the Superdome and counted how much money was donated in our Giant Piggy Bank.

Lots of crazy hair

On Sunday, we shared in a Blessing of our group.  During the Litany of blessing, each participant received a Citizens with the Saints collapsible water bottle and Mapdannas.  We presented a T-shirt to shareholder Sue Johnson who made a huge contribution to our fundraising efforts by donating her pay as musician to our trip  Thank you to the congregation for your support prayers, and excitement!

More colored hair

Colored Hair

Opening the Piggy Bank

Beth

Our banner

Blessing Litany

Sue Johnson

Our group minus 1 with our piggy bank