Danielle Sutherland’s Blog

So I have a great relationship with all the ladies I work with. They all respect me for my faith and often times ask me to pray for them. I love this stuff, and I pray for them constantly and I can’t wait to see God rock their lives. But tonight was such a sweet night. I walked into work and our bartender Summer said she had a present for me. Summer and I have one of the oddest relationships. She’s in her late 20’s grew up in New Mexico, she’s very superstitious and all around crazy, in a good way. She’ll holds nothing back and tells you like it is. But somehow we have this special bond. She calls me her favorite Christian and I really hope she is seeing Christ’s love through me. Well I was really excited about my present because I could only imagine what crazy thing she was going to come up with. Before she presented the gift to me she told me that she had “wandered” into a Christian bookstore and had a look around before she found something that reminded her of me. And boy was it sweet, she got me this wooden cross that says “Jesus said, I am the Way”. I teared up immediately. She could see how much it touched me, but I don’t think she’ll ever understand how much that meant to me. She then insisted that I showed it to everyone else working, and I PROUDLY ran around the restaurant displaying my cross for anyone who would look, including customers. It’s really not the wooden cross that was the gift

Or just by the demand of my sister  Nicole and Shelley Jones, but either way I’m back with a few new blogs. This season of my life has been slightly hectic and I’ve found myself putting blogging at the bottom of my “to-do” list. But my sister Nicole insists that I continue blogging since she lives in Chicago, I’m in Denver and its the only way she knows what’s going on in my life. So Nicole this is all for you, love you!

Ok so lets take a step back! A few weeks ago I made a trip back to California to visit my family. Being out in Denver I’ve realized what an amazing family I have and this was the longest I have ever been away from them all (5 months that is). My favorite part of the whole trip is walking through the door to see my 4 year old nephew Keegan. He was a bit hesitant at first to come see me but he soon warmed up me and I was giving him a piggy back ride around the house. We ran into the kitchen and with Keegan laughing hysterically he asked my sister Lauren (his mom), “Mom can we keep Auntie Danielle”. YES, YES you can keep me Keegan! Anyways I’ll tell the rest of the trip highlights with some pictures!

**Me and my little love, Keegan**

**Luke and I were swimming laps until all the babies got in and crowded the pool**

**Apparently craziness and cool eyes run in my family**

**Mercedes**

**Bentley**

**My mother made homemade Red Lobster biscuits, she knows the way to my heart**

**Luke and I spent my last night seeing who could take the most ridiculous picture…he won**

**Riding the BART to the airport, wearing my sweet Jesus shoes**

So obviously I’ve been a little preoccupied with the intern missions trip to New Orleans and haven’t posted anything in a while, so I figured its about time for an update. I’m going to be honest, when I heard we were going to New Orleans instead of Vegas I was slightly disappointed. I knew tons of people who had gone to N.O. years ago***(thought stars)how could there possibly be anything worthwhile to do out there, I mean I’m sure everything is pretty much done. They are probably back on their feet and forgetting all about the disaster.*** But as we were getting off the plane the woman behind me stopped me and said that she was a N.O. resident and just wanted to thank us for coming out and doing what we were doing. That was definitely a morale booster. Then as we drove through the residential area to where we would be staying it was obvious that they were not back on their feet. My heart broke as we passed house after house that had been boarded up and spray painted “DO NOT TEAR DOWN”. That night when we got to where we were staying, which was absolutely amazing, we talked to one of the men who worked there and boy did he tell us some stories. He said you could go outside and just see babies floating on top of the water because of their diapers Then once the flooding stopped they would find 6 or 7 dead babies on the curb in front of their house. I cannot even imagine!!! Then on our first work day we drove through the neighborhood we would be working in, it seemed like for every house that was rebuilt there was another ten that were condemned. Some of the these people’s living conditions I really think the people in Uganda would have felt sorry for them. But we worked hard for 4 days. Our group was always the last one to leave for the day, and sometimes the first ones there. But after our hard work was done we have two floors to two different houses to show for it. But needless to say there is still soooooo much work to be done. I am seriously considering making another trip down there, if anyone would like to join me. Well anyways the last 2 days were fun days we got to hang out around N.O. and lets just say its an interesting place. We got about ten steps down Bourbon St. and had to turn around because it was just so nasty. Then there were plenty of street side bands who were actually really really good. So I think thats enough writing for now. I let the pictures do the rest of the talking!

*The group downtown New Orleans on our first night*

*The first thing we saw when driving into the neighborhood we would be working in*

*The house right next to the house we were rebuilding*

*Screwballs from the Ice Cream truck, I know the Sutherland children know what I am talking about!*

*Mmmm crawfish!*

*A little rain (or a lot) didn’t stop us from getting that floor done*

*The girls out on the town*

*The church we stayed at had all their guests sign a shirt…we took it a step farther*

*This is what I would look like if my mother was Carmen San Diego*

This picture needs no caption