Thursday April 20, 2006 Well as I write this we are just about 47 hours from departure. Its amazing how quickly this trip has come about and the amount of support we've received from our families and church family. Pause for a second and think about this: there were 600,000 homes affected by the Hurricanes....That's as if every single house in Wayne County were hit....all the apartments too. Its no wonder that the area we are going to --Houma LA--has received so little attention. Now also think about this...we are a congregation of about 800. In the 8 months post Katrina/Rita we will have sent 70 people to do mission work. I realize not all are "official" members of the church...at least ....not yet....70 people represent about 9% of the congregation doing mission work for this disaster and at least that many contributing in other ways be it monetarily or with important contributions such as blankets or Spring into giving contributions. That's 140 people from a 800 member church. That's AMAZING!! To put this in perspective if instead of 18% (18 out of 100) there were 18 people per 100,000 (1/1000 of our commitment) drawing from the entire population of Wayne County were to commit to some sort of effort that would be 380 people making a difference from Wayne County which has a population of 2.1 million. 140 people from 800...and 240 from the rest of the County. I'm probably not conveying this very well but suffice it to say The Rosedale Contribution is HUGE. And the impact we'll make on the lives of those affected will be equally huge. For the 30 new people going on this trip its going to make a huge impact on you too. Think about this: we sent 19 to Biloxi...18 are going back and I don't think I'd be out of line saying that if the 19th (Cherie Lessig) could go ...she'd be there. So to you 30 first timers I say this....hold onto your hats...get ready for a life changing 9 days and I KNOW I speak for the other 18 who have already been there we SO pleased to be sharing the experience with you  ¶ 8:23 AM