Mexico Mission Trip and Twitter

Tomorrow, at the early hour of 5am, I roll out of Maryville for a week long mission trip to Mexico. Originally I was supposed to be leading a group of students to Haiti this week, but there had been much civil unrest over there and I decided against taking students in to such a dangerous situation.

And so…Mexico. 5 students and myself. And we will be meeting up with several other students from Campus Christian Fellowship from Iowa State. Eric is a campus minister there.

I hope to keep people updated throughout our trip via Twitter. Sign-up and follow me and you will be on top of all the excitement. You can find me on Twitter here.

See you when we get back!

I Need Your Help

Here is the short version of a long story:

I was scheduled to take 6 students with me to Haiti in a little more than 3 weeks. If you haven’t been paying attention to the news, Haiti is experiencing a bit of civil unrest. The State Department has encouraged all Americans not to travel INTO Haiti and for Americans already there to get OUT of Haiti. The Embassy is not fully functional. After much prayer and wisdom-seeking, I have decided not to lead our group into Haiti.

Here is the thing: I have 6 willing students (and myself) who have a week off and non-refundable plane tickets. But, we have nowhere to go! It’s an awesome problem to have!

And here is where you come in:

Do you have recommendations for us of people or organizations who could use our help on such short notice? I will consider all suggestions.

The dates of our trip would be May 9-16/17. Please, post a comment or email me at: mynameisbrandon [at] gmail.com

Thanks!

iWanna iPhone

I think I want an iPhone.

But, that’s a lot of moolah to drop on a phone. I would like to hear from those of you out there who do have one. Is it worth it? Does it work well? Would you recommend one?

In all honesty, I probably won’t buy one. I would take one if someone gave it to me, though. Still, I am exploring the option and would love to hear your thoughts.

Missouri Christian Convention

I am leaving in a few minutes for Springfield, MO and the Missouri Christian Convention. I have a exhibition booth to set up for our campus house. I’m looking forward to visiting with several of folks who I know that I am sure I will encounter.

NOLA Shots, part 2

The nursing home we helped gut.

One of the ceiling fans in the house we gutted. If you look closely at the crown of the room, you can see where the water settled. And the mold.

Caitie and I removed this wall panel.

This is me pretending to be Jack Bauer with some flashlights that I found.

Our great group!

NOLA Shots

On the road.

Smile.

Baby Gator. He tried to eat me, but I just held on tighter.

Mmmm…raw oyster.

Not so much.

Throw up on Heather.

Me on Bourbon Street.

Post Scheduler

WordPress recently updated their site…and one of their cool new features is a Post Scheduler. That way, I can write a post and schedule it to be posted whenever I want. I’ve got several in the queue already!

Twitter

I have joined the Twitter craze. If you want to follow me, click here.

Oh My NOLA

Not much writing happening here lately.

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of leading 10 of our students to New Orleans, LA for our annual Spring Break Mission Trip. What an amazing time. I feel like a schlub, because these trips are great chances to blog and share insights. However, I am simply too busy to blog whilst preparing for and executing these kinds of trips.

All in all…it was amazing. The devastation in NOLA is still massive. People there are hopeless and lost and frustrated. I talked to several folks who confessed that they just about jumped into the floodwaters in order to take their own lives. One guy didn’t do it because the water was too cold. There are great needs…and will be, for at least the next decade.

We spent much of our time in the Lower 9th Ward, made famous by Katrina. It’s still a ghost-town, but businesses are starting to pop up. We got to help gut an old nursing home that had been destroyed. In one of the most eerie moments on the trip, someone from our crew uncovered an old whiteboard. Written on that whiteboard were evacuation plans for the residents and staff of the nursing home. Perfectly preserved. It was haunting.

We also gutted an old house down in the “toe” of the state. What a cool place. We could see the Mississippi River 150 yards to our right and the Gulf of Mexico 150 yards to our left. Where we were working was under 30′ of water for a few days and all the houses were underwater for several months. The residents of the area finally got to go back to their destroyed homes about 3-4 months after the storm.

We spent one day working with The Green Project, a local recycling organization dedicated to preserving and re-selling old construction materials, primarily. Different work, but very cool.

The last day was spent going from devastated house to devastated house doing odd jobs. We stained a deck for one lady. Cleaned some debris for another.

And we saw all the sights…Bourbon Street and the entire French Quarter is a spectacle. We took a tour of the bayou and fed some alligators. We ate oysters and crawfish and alligator.

Pictures and another NOLA post to come.

Gmail’s Killer April Fool’s Joke

See it here.

Brilliant.