With the drive more than half complete we are able to post a time that is more accurate. The Team is looking at a estimated time of arrival of 3:00-3:30 am. Please keep the team in your prayers as they continue on the long trip home.

-The Oasis Mission's Team

After a long week serving in New Orleans our team is starting to make the long trip home. Please keep them in your prayers as they make the 16 + hours trip back to Boca Raton. The estimated time that they will be arriving back is 12:30-1:00 am. The times will probably change throughout the day depending on how the drive is going. We will keep the blog updated with the most up-to-date times as we go through the day.

-The Oasis Mission's Team

S.W.A.T.
(Servants.With.Agape.Touch)
There are three things that will endure-faith, hope, love- but the greatest of
these is love



Good evening everyone,
Today is our last night in New Orleans, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t really want to leave. Life has a beautiful simplicity to it while we are here. Our purpose is clear, and our objective is unchanging. I know that when we return to the “real world,” we will not be blessed with such clarity in our lives. Ryan gave an amazing devotion this morning about staying the course once we return home. He said that in many ways, in seems like God resides in New Orleans to those of us that are here. It is certainly a blessing to be surrounded by an incredible group of Christians who are like-minded and able to support me in my struggles. Tomorrow, that all changes. Once again, we will be immersed in a world that is hostile to our faith and could care less about our daily problems. But the beauty of it all is, that the friendships we have made over the last week will stay with us far beyond the New Orleans city limits. And not only will they be lasting friends, but they will be brothers and sisters in Christ with which we can share fellowship and will hold us accountable, so that the progress we have made towards studying the word and listening to God will not fade in the coming months. I guess the point to my rambling here is that our team in New Orleans has gone far beyond the walls we have demolished and houses we have gutted. The legacy this trip leaves in one of love. It is a legacy of love towards the people of New Orleans, love towards one another and above all a love of Christ himself. I hope that even one person was touched by our love in a way that is befitting of Christ’s Agape love that was the inspiration of the SWAT slogan displayed by our group. If only one person witness this love, my whole trip would be worthwhile.

In Him,
Jeff Dusek

S.W.A.T.
(Servants.With.Agape.Touch)
There are three things that will endure-faith, hope, love- but the greatest of
these is love


Hey Hey Hey…. There are no words to describe the devastating aftermath that the massive hurricane Katrina left behind 6 months ago. When before I got here I watched the news & viewed pictures on the Internet but none of that does it any justice. One simple yet sometimes powerful picture can only give a slight glimpse of this entire overwhelming catastrophe. Before arriving I expedited it to be destroyed, but when pastor Brad took us on a 2 hour tour of the city and the locations of where the levees broke the houses were in the middle of the road, but there was only sections of them left. We all were at a loss for words. Being in these people’s homes and seeing their clothes still hanging in the closet and some up in the trees from the flooding made me realize how blessed we truly are. There was a man named Rick who along with his father and mother lost everything. He was a little apprehensive when I first approached him because he doesn’t trust anyone here because he has had some personal experience with people asking him to pose for pictures and then robbing him….not only once but twice. Its kind of crazy the things you see things on tv or in the glimpse of a picture but until you see it firsthand you cannot fathom the widespread devastation. We then went and visited the Ninth Ward, which are the government funding houses. In this area houses were completely gone, some were on top of each other, cars were thrown through houses, there were stairs leading to empty cement slabs; but until we saw a families photo album it didn’t hit home. I would like to thank you all for keeping us in your prayers. Don’t spend your life investing in things, but rather in people………..So we woke up this morning at 6AM to go finish up our previous days’ houses. When we first arrived at the scene at 0800 hours we could smell the mold from the sidewalk. So we all strapped up in our chemical warfare gear a.k.a. respirators and proceeded to approach the house. Around 0810 hours we got inside…this place was awful. It was a pack-rats house with magazines and newspaper everywhere, clothes packed in the closets about 10 feet high…and then when the floods came there was water up to 5 feet in his house. This was on top of the 3 foot stilts the house sat on. The refrigerator was still filled with food from 6 months ago...the smell was so bad that you could smell the stench through the respirator. There was this hot dog in there that looked really appetizing it had a fresh green relish-like appearance, BUT here in Louisiana we like to call that mold; so I grabbed it and ate it since we were one sandwich short, it was up to Zach, Ryan and I to rock-paper-scissor off the hot dog. And as you can guess I lost and this is how I ended up in the hospital with a 115 degree fever….sorry mom I guess I forgot to mention it. Oh just kidding I never ate the hot dog. Ok so we actually spent the day ripping out drywall, plaster, and nails; which combined with the wind, made for complete dirtiness. After stepping on a 3 ½ nail that went through my boot and then through my foot we finishing up around 1700 hours, we jumped on the road and headed back to base. Where after dinner we played Frisbee and got bitten by mosquitoes large enough to carry away small children, no joke they are actually the size of a half dollar. Anyway its about midnight and we just wanted to let you all know the latest update from S.W.A.T.

Jorden Ross



P.S HI MOM SORRY MY PHONE BROKE SO I WILL CALL YOU LATER

P.S.S HEY BRITT AND YOU TOO MRS. WAGNER THANKS FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND DAILY LOOKERUPERS OF THE BLOG

P.P.S.S HEY HARFORD

S.W.A.T.
(Servants.With.Agape.Touch)
There are three things that will endure-faith, hope, love- but the greatest of
these is love




What another beautiful day the Lord has blessed us with! Today was Day 3 of house-gutting, mold-throwing-awaying, and sharing of our Lord’s amazing love. We had a shortened workday, from about 9am-ish ‘til 330pm. Team 1 aka the best team, began demolition on our 3rd house of the trip and Team 2 on their second. Contrary to custom, we did NOT get lost today…. Oh wait, we did. Team 1 spent about 30 so minutes looking for house number 4116. You would think it would be situated between 4118 and 4114, maybe? No. That wasn’t the case. There was no 4116. Friendly neighbor at 4120 had no idea where our house was, and neither did Pastor Brad. Thanks to the quick thinking of ANDREW, we realized it was a typo, and our house was in fact, number 4416. Amazing how God works, huh? We ended the workday with minimal injuries (scrapes, bruises, karate chop-falls) and many sore bodies. We are indeed getting a nice workout! Anywho, we feasted at Gator-Shop and had a variety of shrimp/catfish/etc Po’ Boys New Orleans Style! For those of you who don’t know what that is (because I sure didn’t) it’s a sub with fried shrimp/catfish/etc. Pretty tasty! To wrap up the day, tonight’s praise and worship consisted of Andrew on guitar and Aaron on Djimbe (that’s the drum-thing) and a touching testimony from Mr. Will the Golfer. It was beautiful, by the way. But now it’s off to bed—FYI Brianna is the best driver of all. Let me rephrase that—the one female driver has the best sense of direction compared to the other 3 male drivers. She NEVER was responsible for any of our “detours” although that concept has been frequently altered. We are all having a great time, growing closer to Jesus and becoming better friends. We all pray for all of you back at home in God’s holy and awesome name, Amen.

-Melissa

Hola mi Floridians! This first half of our week has been an incredible adventure towards understanding, love, sympathy, and selflessness. The growth within our group is amazing to watch as well, both spiritually and teamwork wise. I have learned a lot of things about my new friends, some of which I probably didn’t want to know, and everyday gets better. In other news, the fight for survival of the hair is being kept alive, mostly by paranoia. And I’d like to thank you all for your prayers. Night!

-Aaron

S.W.A.T.
(Servants.With.Agape.Touch)
There are three things that will endure-faith, hope, love- but the greatest of
these is love

Showers started this morning at 6:00 a.m. Being the first ones in the shower (Ryan and myself), we enjoyed hot showers, a luxury that was not duplicated this evening. We then breakfasted, and left for Fellowship Christian Center at 8:00 a.m. Before arriving, Brianna decided to take us for a detour to see the East side of New Orleans (she missed the exit, and we followed her lead). She tried to blame our missing the exit on Ryan’s vehicle starting a ‘Name That Tune’ competition that caused us to bypass our exit. But both Ryan and myself were looking in our rearview mirrors to see whether she was going to get off, and she didn’t, therefore neither did we. We finally arrived at the job site and proceeded finish gutting an entire house. Ryan’s group wasn’t as fortunate (they got lost again, are we beginning to see a trend here?), and they’ll have to finish up tomorrow. The girls made a wonderful dinner, followed by taboo. Matt Lewis gave his testimony tonight. Well, time for some much needed sleep.


-Zach Escalante

Hey Loved ones,
Thanks for writing me. Ryan read your responses out loud. It was funny everyone gave me a weird look when Uncle Mark said I was ‘hot stuff’ and they thought it was very sweet and wonderful Kara and Tess are praying for us. Thanks girls! We needed prayer today, we didn’t have any serious injuries, but Jordan and Adam have matching blood spots on their heads from falling plaster, we have a couple scrapes and bruises, and I think I am loosing my voice, but we are having a total blast in the mean time. We met the lady whose house we were demolishing and she was very sweet and grateful for our help. She had been in her house for 25 years. We drove around on Sunday and saw one of the areas that was hit buy the hurricane. It was really sad. I am glad to be here to help. The food is great, the cots are comfy, the people are fantastic, and God is the best. Love and miss you all take a look at the pictures, they’re fun. Talk to ya soon.
-CJ aka Cassandra ☺

S.W.A.T.
(Servants.With.Agape.Touch)
There are three things that will endure-faith, hope, love- but the greatest of
these is love


Greetings from Tim Talor and Al Borlin. This session of Tool Time started at 7A.M. with some great outside showers. It was about 55 degrees, and the state birds were at full swarm. (Mosquitoes) Our Mission today was to get debriefed on all our affairs for the week. Following the service we traveled to the East side of New Orleans. We were shown all of the heavily damaged areas. I can speak for all of us when I say that words can’t explain the damage we saw. We have taken plenty of pictures so we will let them do the talking. We were debriefed by 5P.M. and then were invited to our first Potluck Dinner New Orleans style. A couple of us were a little late. I know it is hard to fathom, but yes Zach and myself took a little detour. Brianna didn’t have the same adventuresome spirit. She’s telling everyone we got lost, but we tried telling her we wanted to drive a little farther under the sun set. But any ways that’s our story and we are sticking to it. That is about it for this session but tomorrow we start at 6A.M. with our first workday, we will split into two teams and tear into some dry wall. Thank you for praying for us and please continue praying as we are just getting into our week.

Words from the team-


It was such a humbling experience getting to see some of the area that were totally destroyed by Katrina. I can honestly say that the pictures that we have all seen are nothing compared to seeing them in person. These people need a lot of prayer and compassion, and we plan on giving them a lot of that. Keep praying for all of us.
- “Mom” Cathy

Hola Boca Ratones!
We have been in Shock by the Orleans people and their dilapidated houses. Today, I saw a car that had been crushed by a house. Reminds me of the Wizard Oz Movie. So over 250,000 New Orleans people left so anyone interested buying any land over here??? It will cost less than land in Boca! ;-) We had a interesting tour of New Orleans for over 2 hours and tomorrow starts the Big day!!!
- Silvia Rotela.

Today as we joined Fellowship Bible Church for their Sunday morning worship service, I met a middle-aged man named David. He has been working very hard commuting for two hours each day, restoring his house, and working full-time. He is concerned that he is so busy that he is at risk of losing his focus on Christ. I did what I could to encourage him in his situation, and I arranged to meet up with him again before the week was over. He will appreciate our prayers as he strives to be a good example to his two daughters as they develop in their faith.
- Matt van Voorthuijsen

Hi Momma, Daddy, Chris (if your out of your cave) and everyone else, I love you guys and miss you muchly. Today was insane. The tree we lost in our front yard is nothing to say the least. Entire communities flattened, demolished, houses picked up dropped in the middle of streets, everywhere you look shattered china scattered, a teddy bear, a tonka truck, so sad so broken…. And 6 months after the darn hurricane came through. I can’t wait to pick up the pieces, try and put them back together for someone whos lost all hope. We start working tomorrow. Can’t wait to get a sledge hammer in my hand and a moldy wall in front of me. Hope you guys are doing awesome. I have pictures and lost to tell although I don’t think either will convey what all today has been.
Love Lulu.

Hi Mom, Dad, Christina, and family. I won a hot sauce challenge and received a fire hat from Firehouse Subs, Yeah!!! Church service was wonderful. I am really excited to start demolition work. I made a lot of wonderful friends. I miss you a lot, love Cassandra.

It was an incredible day--full of unexpected findings that captured my heart. I hope that throughout the week, God will use us in a way that will bless us and the people that we will help here. God bless you all, miss you.
- Karen.

Good news... our mission's team has arrived safe and sound tonight in Louisiana :) Please continue to pray as they begin serving the Lord!

We will keep you posted daily through this blog on the exciting things that are happening with our team!

-The Oasis Mission's Team

On Saturday March 4th, 20 of the college students from Boca Raton Community Church will leave at 5:30 am to head off to Louisiana. The trip will be a long 16 hours. Please remember to keep us in your prayers for traveling mercies on our trip up there.

Serving Him,

Oasis Mission's Team