It's the end of another great day. We started with our normal morning devotionals, and then ate a delicious breakfast of pancakes, sausage, bacon, fruit, and cereal. (Did I mention that we have awesome cooks!) After breakfast, we unloaded 13 heavy palm trees from the semi, and then our groups went to their respective job sites. John and Beth took a couple of teens to work on the punch list, and enjoyed meeting the different parishioners. (Today they installed kitchen cabinets and doorknobs.) Erich and I took the "Rockstars" back to Horace and Yvonne's house to finish installing the insulation, and Julie, Leslie, Kristi, Kevin, and Mike stayed at St. Gabe's with Team Ramrod and TGTLADWTSAMTAD to finish preparing the grounds for the trees and flowers.

It was really an honor to be invited into these parishioners homes, and their parish, to work. The people have continued to be very welcoming. The Rockstars finished their job by lunchtime and spent the second half of the day at the rectory preparing Fr. Doug's yard for a new garden. They had just finished laying tile inside of his home, and it was looking great. (Another example of how generous Fr. Doug and Sr. Kathleen are: they have over 100 families in their parish that they have helped get back into their homes, and yet they aren't back into theirs!)

The work is very tedious and labor extensive, but not one of the teens complained. (Maybe it had something to do with the fact that we had a giant water fight. And yes, the bucked of ice water over my head did feel good. It scared me half to death, but it felt good.)

We finished for the day, cleaned our tools, and brought the palm trees inside for safe keeping. Unfortunately, theft is prevalent and we can't keep anything outside over night. (Even 17 foot palm trees!) On the bright side, it was neat to have dinner under the trees~inside!

We received a great treat tonight! The E.O. Moss Grand Assembly #4, fourth degree Knights of Peter Claver made us a traditional New Orleans dinner. We had homemade red beans and rice, sausage, salad, and bread pudding. (They brought honeybaked ham also, but the teens were more excited about the N'awlins cuisine.) We were happy to introduce 2 of our own Knights (of Columbus) from St. Michael. (We got a cute picture of all of them together, and it made me smile.)

The teens showed their gratitude by going for 2nds and 3rds. :) The gentlemen Knights even stayed and served us! The were great and made us feel very welcome. They told us that this was a traditional "Monday" meal and we were just getting it a day late. When we asked them why families eat this particular meal every Monday, they explained that long ago, Monday was a chore day, and it was an easy meal to make while washing laundry, etc. They shared there stories and were a lot of fun to be with.

After dinner and free time, we enjoyed our nightly Club Time. We talked about the "Monsters teens have to face, like feeling excluded, social injustices, etc. We then talked about the consequences these "monsters" have on our lives, and what we, as individuals with God's help, can do about them.

Finally, we had snack time, went to our beds so that the teens could get comfortable, and ended our day with a guided meditation. (Some of the teens fell asleep, but as a good friend of mine once taught me, "It's like falling asleep in the hands of God." Good night to you, friends. And May God hold you in the palm of his hands until we meet back home.

P.S. On kind of a funny note, when Team Rockstar was finishing the insulation, the song "Party Like a Rockstar" came on the radio. We thought it was very appropriate, and promptly made it our theme song. It again came on, when we were finishing the flower beds. A coincidence? Maybe, Maybe not. :)