Breaking out of my comfort zone....

..One of the RUF Students needed to be picked up at the New Orleans Airport Saturday night...she asked me..... and this turned into an opportunity to visit a unique church in a very poor part of N.O. where God is definitely at work!

The students aunt lives near the airport, so after picking up the student we crashed at her Aunt's place to get a few hours of sleep before heading to Church on sunday morning. As we were getting ready we told the her aunt and uncle where we were going to church...they responded by saying that "we would never go to that part of New Orleans", "don't wear any flashy jewelry", "be sure to lock your car and park really close to the church"....these comments from native New Orleans folk only got me more excited to attend church at St. Roch!

we pulled out of the house, down I-10, and into a part of new orleans called the 8th ward...a part of N.O. that was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina...many house's are falling apart, old cars line the roads and people are trying to stay cool on their porches waiting for the day to begin and praying to find work....my hearts break for the people of this area...they were hit so hard years ago from Katrina and still are trying to get back to their old ways of life.....

....walking into St. Roch Church you can sense that GOD IS AT WORK! The people were friendly, greeting each other, loving on one another....many were local residents of the 8th ward, but there we're also a diversity of people there, old -young, black-white-asian...a picture of the gospel at work in a poor part of town.

The music was great, Gospel singing, hands clapping, lots of AMEN's were thrown out through out the service, the pastor would refer to us as "brothers and sisters"....praise requests of the people were talking about God's mercy and grace in their lives....wow, in such a poor run down (almost helpless) part of N.O. these people looked to Jesus.....wow.

after church we exchanged hugs and handshakes and headed out with another family and went to eat at an amazing poorboy sandwich place...sooo good!

if you ever are in New Orleans and you want to see a picture of the Gospel PLEASE visit St. Roch Community Church!

http://www.strochcc.org/ <---- explore