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