hangin sheet rock (drywall) in new orleans

i have been in new orleans since last thursday and it has been tremendous. i have seen a lot of pictures over the last two years, but it way different to be walking around and meeting people who have lived through the disaster. i have met countless people who have lived for the last 19 months in trailers that were not made for long term housing. i have spent most of my week at a single mom's home. jaime lives there with a few other family members and with her son eddie. eddie is full of life and reminds you of the ability for children to overcome difficult situations much quicker than adults. he is more interested in us playing catch with him than actually having us fix his home. as you may be able to see from the pics, this home was 4 feet under water. jamie purchased the home after the storm, because her home was totally demolished and had so many different chemicals there was no hope to salvage it. so she bought this home and is living in it while trying to fix it up. our hope is to dry wall most of the house before we leave on thursday. but since, we have to move there stuff in between hanging pieces and cleaning i am not sure how far we will get.

the people are so appreciative of the numerous people that are volunteering in this community. we have people honk and wave at us all the time. i met one lady that just walked up to the church when she saw the group to ask if we could help her parents that are about 70 and were attempting to fix their home by themselves. this group has been here numerous times since the storm and said that each visit more stores are opening and more life is being visible. a few more children playing in the streets. there still is a long road home, but some are determined to make it. they will not leave and they are thankful that some people have not forgotten about what katrina did to the community. and the usual statement is that the only people that seemed to not have forgotten is the people living out the kingdom of god. i am thankful to be here and hope to return and hang out with them over the summer possibly.

late night thoughts

i have been working on uywi stuff and have had way too much coffee. so i decided to start reading some articles on-line that i have been meaning to read. i remember an article that was recently published called the "five streams of the emerging church" by scott mcnight. i had looked over it quickly, but wanted to read it more in depthly as we are beginning to start this house church experiment in alhambra. i do consider myself more aligned with those in the emerging christian conversation or a red letter christian. i think it was more ... i stumbled into the definition and saw that i was already in this category but did not really have language to define it. enough me and me trying to discover who i am and not really caring how others feel about it and back to the article.

the five streams are the following ... 1. Prophetic 2. Postmodern 3. Praxis-oriented (how the faith is lived out) 4. Post Evangelical 5. Political.

you can read the article to get details about each of the "streams" but a couple aspects jumped out to me as i was in thought about the house church network. in the third component of praxis-oriented, it hit a key strand to our ideas about the network. the house churches that are launched should/must have a missional component to the community that the house church is located. it should be striving to better understand what it means to love our neighbor and have that as high of a priority as meeting in a building or location. our spiritual act of worship should be tutoring at a school, serving at a shelter, a garden, the police station or where ever there is a need for the purpose of us being the hands and feet of Jesus. we need a theology that changes the way we act and not just worried about how we think.

i am tired, so if i write any more in will probably not make sense and i will not even understand it myself. so i will try and blog about this more later.

new orleans bound

i was hanging out with archie honrado today. he is a ywam guy that has just got back from some time in ensenada mexico. he was saying how good it feels to get out of our normal life and serve in another area. i was excited, because thursday morning myself and chris (a good friend) will be heading to new orleans to serve with a ministry called go tigers that i blogged about before in the lower 9th ward. i have seen tons of pictures of what katrina left behind and how nothing has been done to help so many families. i am truly ready for my heart to be broken. i will put up some pics and try to post from new orleans.

bona speech at the naacp awards

this was on a few of my friends pages... jeremy and john liotti, but had to post for those that do not wander over there. i was teary eyed by the end.

house church network

since we closed the gathering down, an evening service that we ran for awhile for people who were not really interested in a tradition church service, but wanted a faith community that valued the community aspect. i have been trying to figure out what to do or where to go for "church". i had been attending a small group at pablo's house every other sunday. but a new year's resolution was to find something that i can take my boys to as well. the current bible study met on the weeks that my boys were not with me. pablo, sonia and i met and were discussing the book "the forgotten ways" that i had been blogging about and were trying to determine a few things. what does a truly organic church look like that is focused on taking people deeper, being missional in your community and bringing people into the Kingdom of God. we decided that we should experiment and take the bible study to a new level and create it into a house church network.


the house church model has a lot of things that we truly wanted the gathering to be about, but got lost in trying to create a larger gathering. we value the small intimacy of smaller groups and the value of developing leaders to lead and be active in the community. so at the end of the month, the experiment will begin. so if you are reading this and have been apart of sunday nights get ready for the next experiment. haha. you know we will be a knocking.

Evan is Back in Preschool

evan was booted from preschool back in november. he has been chilling with me, his grandma's house or joya who has a home daycare. he has been needing to jump back into preschool to be around other kids and be better prepared for kindergarten. he made it through day one yesterday and i have not been called yet today. i am hoping that he will listen and not make too much trouble. he is such a great kid, but just has that temper that blows up sometimes. we will keep you informed.

Where did J-Lou go?

i have been mia from the blogging world, because i have been busy. i think i have like 2 - 3 posts that are in me, so will try to get them out throughout the next two days. my first post will be on my 2nd year as the manager of the orioles or as the kids and some parents call them... the OREOS. oh well. i have 13 great kids... 2 girls and 11 boys. we have been practicing twice a week til games begin. we had picture day this last saturday, so it was fun to see the kids in their uniforms and if you can tell from the team picture that some how evan makes his way onto the team. he is the one in the front row... and the only one with the orange jersey. the parents were cool and let him be in the picture. hope you enjoy the pics and more to follow throughout the season.