New Orleans Mission Trip

For a week in July the past 2 years, Liz and I have traveled with Brook Hills to South America on a mission trip. In 2007, we went to Venezuela with the worship team to a lead a conference. In 2008, we went to Ecuador to do a similar event, but combined with the conference a sort of vacation Bible school for the local children.

This year was a little more domestic; we traveled to New Orleans. This time we didn't lead a worship conference or do anything musical. Instead we helped rebuild homes that were damaged by Katrina. The trip was advertised as being for the worship ministry, but it turned out about half of the 80 people going were not associated with the worship ministry at all. This allowed members of the faith family who don't normally interact to get to know one another. Since we have more than 4,000 members, I cherish these opportunities.

We worked through an organization called Operation Noah. They took care of a lot of the details for us. For starters they gave us room and board. The rooms were in a church that was nearly destroyed by the hurricane. You can see where the rushing water dented the side of the church! There was a team of from a church in Mississippi that cooked both breakfast and lunch for us everyday we were there, as well as setting out the ingredients for a brown bag lunch. The meals were very good and included red beans and rice and pancakes that rivaled Liz's dad's.

Operation Noah also had a warehouse with equipment and supplies along with a list of projects that we were to work on. We divided everyone into teams of 5, each led by a skilled craftsmen from ages 18 to 50+. All told we worked on more than a dozen homes, each team working alone or with one other. This allowed the small teams to really bond with each other.

Liz and I were the runners for the week and didn't work on any particular job. This was both good and bad. We got to see all of the projects every day of the week. It was amazing to see them progress so far in such a short time. It also gave us the chance to get to know everyone a little bit, as the cost of getting to know a few people well. We also got to see a lot of the city. On the flip side, we did feel like we cheated a little by not getting as dirty as everyone else. We stayed extemely busy running around among the projects, the warehouse, and hardware stores, so we knew we were needed.

The project we wide ranging and included:

• installing siding, both vinyl and wood
• painting
• installing and finishing drywall
• replacing a subfloor
• finishing cabinets

I was impressed at our collective skill and hard work to get a lot of quality work done in just four days. We clearly made a physical impact on the home owners. But the impact was also spiritual. One home owner told us the storm made her lose faith in God, not because of the disaster itself, but the actions of people as a result of it. She said we were restoring her faith in people, and subsequently God. I'm overwhelmed we could have such a profound impact.

But all work and no play make Chris a dull boy. So I brought games. I didn't realize we'd have so much free time. On our past 2 trips, our entire day was planned out. This time, we worked really hard for 8 hours, but then were free to do what we wanted. So while some hit the town, many of us played games.

I was asked to bring some of my collection, but Liz encouraged me to bring more involved games than just Time's Up!, such as Settlers of Catan and Bohnanza. Boy, was that the right decision. A game of Settlers was played with 6 players every night. Bohnanza is still getting played almost daily as some of the gang borrowed my copy. Of course, Time's Up! did make it's usual big splash.

In addition to being plain fun, the games gave us a chance to get to know some of the high school and college kids a lot better. I was super-impressed by all of them. I know I didn't have my head on my shoulders that well when I was their age.

Liz and I stayed through the weeked to celebrate our 3rd anniversary a little early. This included dinner at the Palace Cafe and August, a ride on a swamp boat, lunch at Mother's, and a day in the French Quarter. Oh yeah, and lots of sleep.

What a great trip. Every year I think I'm going to really sacrifice for God's glory and the hearts of those we're ministering to, but we always seem to be the ones most impacted.

Be sure to check out our pictures on Picasa. I wonder where we'll go next year...

Trip to Fall Creek Falls

Holy moly, I'm getting this out more than a month later than I intended. Better late than never I always say (as most procrastinators do!).

Thanks to Greg Schloesser to organizing a weekend trip to the Fall Creek Falls state park in Tennessee back in January. Eleven of us descended on this beautiful park for hiking, gaming, and eating.

I've to been Gatlinburg, TN many times, often hiking, so I thought I knew what to expect at Fall Creek. I had no idea there would be such gorgeous gorges (heh). The park is on top of a plateau and has all kinds of rifts in it that drop straight down creating beautiful waterfalls. I forgot how many falls there are, but the ones we saw were all great. It helped that the sun wasn't able to reach the river, leaving much of it frozen.

All told, we went on about 5 separate hikes. Some crossed the river with rope bridges that bounced all over the place as you walked on them. Some we slightly averse to walking across them, but we didn't lose anyone on the trip, so they were safe enough. Half of us went on a cable trail - a trail that was easily steeper than 45 degrees where we needed a cable to get down. It was well worth the effort to get down to the base of the waterfall.

The Bergs introduced us to the wonder of geocaching. Basically this is treasure hunting with GPS devices. We were 2 for 4 in our hunt. 1 of the locations eluded us only because the river was too high to cross. That didn't stop us from trying. The other location we missed probably had its target covered by leaves. It was totally work the search as we found a big cave behind a waterfall way off the beaten path. Liz and I have since purchased a GPS unit as a gift for each other to continue geocaching - thanks for the introduction Craig and Kim!

We also gamed of course. The 11 of us know each other primarily through board gaming circles, so when the sun went down, the games came out. The highlight to me was Greg teach me Le Havre. I have since played it 3 times, and it's quickly becoming one of my all-time favorites.

Last but not least was the food. Sheldon made Chili that I had at least 3 separate times over the weekend. Liz made her soon-to-be-famous corn dip. The Bergs liked it so much, they made it for the Super Bowl. Now if only we could find the wheat chips we used to use - they're not at Target or Publix any more! Mike Adams skipped the cable trail so that he could make his homemade spaghetti sauce. That was a good call - it was unbelievable. Finally, the Bergs made pulled pork sandwiches. The pork melted in your mouth before you could chew it.

That's all I can remember as it's been more than a month now. We're already making plans to do it again next year. I can't wait.

Struggle of Empires

Since there were seven of us, we sat down to play Struggle of Empires. I was the first time for some, and a long time for the rest of us. The rules explanation took 30 minutes and the game clocked in around 5 hours. The general consensus was it was a good game, but not worth the investment. I'm sure we could trim it down to 3 hours, but I'm not sure everyone is willing to give it another go. The round-by-round scores are below.

Player	Empire	Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Final
Holt	Russia	18	41	62	62
Richard	Spain	19	38	60	60
Foster	Britain	14	30	55	51
Pete	France	14	28	50	50
Christian	Austria	22	38	52	48
Tell	Prussia	17	39	51	47
Chris	United Provinces	23	35	45	38

Gaming so far this year

All-Day Civ

I heard through the grapevine that a local group was trying to get a game of Civilization organized for the first Saturday in January. I was able to horn in on the game as the seventh player.

I had played before on the PC, but the few times I have played in person, we were only able to get a few turns into the game before having to abort. This time we blocked out 8 hours, so we were able to get much further into the game that I had before. Daniel had everything set up when I arrived, but we decided to play Advanced Civilization instead.

There were a few who hadn't played the game before and weren't "gamers," but we were able to explain the rules as we went - they caught on just fine. I was a little worried that a game of this magnitude, length, and conflict would lead to problems, but everyone handled themselves great.

I was able to score Babylon, supposedly one of the easier civs to play with. I had 7 sites to build cities and plenty of farmland. I was greedy at first, grabbing for extra city sites along the Mediterranean. This forced Asia to head into Asia Minor and tangle with Crete, while Egypt (who had migrated to grab the sites just south of me) and I were able to get a noticeable lead.

I realized that I had to do something to catch up to Egypt, but it took several turns of maneuvering to get my army in place to attack. We had just entered the Late Iron Age as I poised for an attack... then time ran out. We played the turn to an end and I was able to pick up 5 civilization cards with my best hand of trade cards all day. We didn't count up victory points - since we were playing to completion they wouldn't reflect a true winner. Italy didn't have many points at the time, but was primed to close out strongly.

My impression of the game only improved with this playing. The 8 hours flew by. The calamities are somewhat random and devastating, but did seem to keep the leaders in check more than anything else. One exception was Joe (Thrace) who got hit with Civil War, leaving him a small civ along the map border, then barbarians who ravaged his remaining tokens. He never could recover from that.

Trading proved to be a major factor. Tim (Egypt) was able to form valuable sets early and avoid all calamities. I'll have to remember that next time. I can't wait until then.

Other Games

I got to finally try Ys. You are primarly blind bidding, so there is a bit of guesswork as to what your opponents are doing, but the range of numbers you can bid is narrow enough to make the guesswork less of a crap shoot. There proved to be a lot more control than I expected. Thumbs up.

I played probably my quickest game of Saint Petersburg. We ran through the first two decks really fast, making my 5 aristocrats the top group. I was enough for me to win. This continues to be a 9/10 for me.

I forgot how great of a game Intrige can be. It's so fun to hear all of the false promises made and broken. The last round took 30 minutes which is way too long.

Settlers of Catan saw the table after a long hiatus. We played with the 5-6 Player expansion. Richard said he didn't like having both starting settlements on a 5 while not being on either a 6 or 8. Well, 5 came up a ton, especially early, allowing Richard to win without too much competition. It didn't hurt that an 11 gave him 5 brick and 3 ore while sitting on a brick port. We all agreed that we will use a dice deck and play with the food stamp variant next time.