2006 New Orleans Mission

Friday January 13, 2006

The day began with Tom and me picking up the rental van from Enterprise . We then headed for the church where 4 others met us (Cliff, Sara, Bob and Bill). We then hit the road (Jack!), headed for New Orleans . When we crossed the Alabama state line we gave a shout out for ‘ Sweet Home Alabama ’ and listened to some Skynnard. After crossing into ‘Bama we hit a rough patch of weather. That band of weather is the same one that produced a tornado in Evergreen before we drove through it. As we drove down I-65 we could see the damage. The downed trees were surreal as we were headed to a place where the damage was hundreds of times worse.

As we drove through Mississippi , we slowly began to see hurricane damage. Gradually we began to see more and more trees down, then blue roofs, then homes with X’s spray-painted with dates and a number of how many people were found dead in the homes. It was a good sight to see a lot of zeroes meaning no one was found dead. However, it was profound to see numbers other than zero. I wondered how these families were feeling because they weren’t only dealing with loss of property, but also a loved one.

When we drove by the Superdome before exiting the interstate I remember thinking how strange it felt to be that close to the place where so much terror and distress occurred for so many people. Months ago, that place became hell on earth for thousands.

We met the senior pastor, Callie Winn Crawford, when we arrived at Rayne Memorial UMC, our home for the next few days. Callie and her staff are such gracious hosts in the midst of their hardship and grief. They continued to thank us for coming, telling us we give them hope. Their thanks is a very humbling experience.

After a tour of the church, John and Carol Winn took us to supper at a great local place called Deannie’s. John is a retired UM preacher who is very influential in the Louisiana Conference. Carol was the first female District Superintendent in the Louisiana Conference and now works for Louisiana UMC helping people discern their call to ministry.

Following a great seafood feast at Deannie’s, John and Carol showed us one of the levee’s that was breached. We couldn’t see it well at night, nor we could we walk on it (trust me, I tried but the authorities flashed their lights at me to get off as soon as I set one foot past the barricades). Just the thought, however, that we were standing on solid ground that was once flooded was a very powerful experience.

Next we headed to a local eatery called Morning Call where we enjoyed beignets and hot chocolate or coffee, depending on your taste. It was definitely a neat place with a lot of history despite the fact that it appeared to be a hole in the wall – way better than Café DuMonde!

John and Carol were awesome tour guides as well as an excellent source for information about the current political, ecclesial, and emotional state of New Orleans .

We closed our evening with a time of reflection and sharing on the day’s major events as well as a prayer read at a recent Town Hall Meeting focused on renewal and re-growth.

Let us pray

for all those who are in great difficulty

for those who have lost their faith in humanity and love, their faith in God,

for those who seek truth but cannot find it.

Let us pray

for all who have loved one another

but who have drifted apart from each other

and for all those who have broken down under the strain of their tasks.

Lord God,

You are the comfort of the sorrowful and the strength of the tortured.

Hear the prayers of all people in distress and all who appeal to Your mercy,

so that they may recognize with joy that You have helped them in every ordeal…

Let us pray

for the city in which we live and work,

for all the people in it who are lonely,

for all those whose voices are never heard

and those who have no friends.

Let us pray

for the homeless and those without shelter

and for all those who are disheartened and feel they have been betrayed.

Open our eyes to each other.

Make us humble enough to help other people and to comfort them,

so that a little of Your love may be seen in this city through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

~~Malinda Jowers

 

 

Saturday, January 14, 2006

 

Today was a busy day. Everyone is tired and ready for bed. The day started early at 6:42am . No wait, it started at 6:30am when Bob woke us up thinking it was 7:30am . He is the morning person of the group.

After breakfast and lunch prep, we met briefly with Callie before heading to First Street UMC for our safety orientation. It was a cold, breezy morning in New Orleans . As we traveled to the church, I thought about the inspiring words of Sara and Henri Nouwen. I wondered about the family we were to serve, what they would be like after this tragedy they experienced. The youngest of the family met us with Krispy Kreme donuts and coffee. He was very glad to see us. The house was horrible to say the least. The break in the levee had submerged the house completely for over 2 weeks. Not much could be salvaged. After covering ourselves with the hazmat suits, we entered the house to find all the furniture destroyed, everything covered in mold and a ghastly stench. We spent the day removing all the furniture and proceeded to gut the entire house.

We met four of the children of the woman who lived there. I can’t imagine what it must be like to see all of your possessions to be destroyed and carried out onto the street corner. The piles of rubble, four of them, were five feet tall. The men cooked a local meal for us at lunch time. They were very nice. As I carried water logged albums to the street, I asked Kim, the youngest, whose they were. He said his parents collected these old albums. I’ll never forget that he said he would try and make new memories now. I could tell he was putting on a good front for me.

By the end of the day we were tired. The shower back at the Church felt great. We went down the street for a great meal and a drink around the Quarter.

~~Cliff Richards

 

 

 

Sunday, January 15, 2006

 

I know that Charles Dickens coined the phrase “A Tale of Two Cities”; but today that is the best description one can give to New Orleans .

The day began with two church services with one unifying feeling of hope. We worshipped with Rayne Memorial UMC at 8:30am , joining them on their 130 th Anniversary. Many important members of the Louisiana Conference were there – including the Bishop, the District Superintendent and two former pastors of Rayne Memorial. Callie’s words during the service were thoughtful and profound – every phrase gracefully selected. Callie introduced our group to the congregation, thanking us for all of our work and the immense amount of hope that we bring to the community. During the passing of the peace, one church member echoed these words to me, as she gently stroked my hand and looked in my eyes and thanked me. It was as if she wanted to make sure that I was real – to feel the hope not only in her heart but also in a concrete way.

Bishop Hutchinson’s sermon touched my heart as he brought words from various sources dealing with pain, suffering and the faith that constantly remains in that. He recalled a banner in Baton Rouge that said, “We can’t replace the hopes and dreams of people; but we can build new ones.” A poem by Etta Oldman, “Just Blue,” brought tears to my eyes as the ending read: “I may not have hope but I won’t lose faith.”

At the 11:00 hour, our group worshipped with First Street UMC, a historical African American Congregation that is also the host site for UMCOR. The differences yet similarities between the services were striking. First Street also dealt with the pain of the hurricane but in a way that spoke of determination and hope. Words from Martin Luther King, Jr. were remembered as the congregation took those passages and applied them to their current situation in New Orleans . Rev. Lance Eden, a recent graduate of ITC Seminary in Atlanta , spoke about keeping watch, about communities taking care of one another, and about rebuilding. Phrases struck me as they were sung with fervor and compassion:

• When things are going bad can you say, “Jesus not my will but your will.”
• Oh Freedom, Freedom, Freedom come and set me free. And before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave. Oh Freedom come and set me free.
  
• We are all part of God’s body.
• God can do impossible things with ordinary people.
• What are you gonna do with your watch?

The Church service was a lot shorter than usual since the congregation was going to go and see Last Holiday , a movie that was filmed in their church in May.

Before going on our tour of New Orleans , the group ate a delicious meal in the French Quarter, right off of St. Charles plaza. This was my first time in the historic part of New Orleans and it was beautiful! Flowers decorated balconies. Street vendors lined up with their vibrant paintings. People milled about, going in and out of shops and sipping on afternoon drinks. This was definitely a part of New Orleans that was coming back, ready to serve tourists and show the country that they did survive.

However, the rest of the day told a different story. Mark, our group leader from Rayne Memorial, took us to the different areas of New Orleans that were devastated by the levee breaches, including Lakeview, East New Orleans , and the Lower Ninth Ward. As we drove around I wondered how this city would have fared had it only been a hurricane and not the devastation of flooding: Would the Superdome have been such a hellish place to be still? Would month 6 after the hurricane have been pretty close to complete recovery? At this point, it is hard to determine exactly what damage was caused by the hurricane and what was part of the breaches. During our tour, we were also faced with the drastic realities of social and economic inequalities, amidst the non-discriminatory flood. Lakeview is a middle- to upper-class working neighborhood that was on the broken side of the 17 th Street Canal levee breach. Compare that to the East New Orleans area and the Lower Ninth Ward and you receive two different portrayals of areas devastated by flooding. In general (obviously there will be many personal cases that will differ) the Lakeview neighborhood’s homes were very well built and able to stand up to the flood waters. Mark told us that people in this neighborhood were already starting to rebuild.

Drive twenty more minutes and you will find yourself in the Lower Ninth Ward, where tsunami-ish effects have destroyed the neighborhood. We stopped at a house that was moved onto a neighbor’s front yard, leaving the foundation and the back steps as a reminder of where it used to be. Homes were ripped open, moved many yards, squished to a pile of rubble. Trees hold doormats, small trinkets, mailboxes, water coolers. Cars pile on top of one another.

I have seen many areas before that were in need of major repair, but nothing like this. I thought back to the sermons from that morning, trying to find the hope within the scene that I saw before my eyes: where was God within this? Then Malinda noticed how she could hear bird’s chirping. Life…life still decided to remain here even in the great turmoil and piles of debris. It is very similar to the verses in Ecclesiastes 3:1-13:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven; a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance…

Even in the destruction, the turmoil, and the grief, God resides to restore peace and hope. It’s just like in the sunbeams that came into the house that I like to call God beams – God’s always there, somewhere, someplace, somehow.

~~Sara Pugh

 

Monday, January 16, 2006

It is Martin Luther King, Jr. day and we are doing what many Americans are beginning to do on this day – make it a ‘day on’ with service rather than a ‘day off’. Our work today is going to include dropping the ceiling in the house and getting the rest of the home ready for the machines to come in and clean the studs. After the home is gutted and cleaned, a re-inspection is done to determine if the home can be rebuilt.

Don met us today at his home and worked with us. By lunchtime, we had the majority of the back house done and had begun dropping the ceilings in the front rooms. Wendell made some wonderful gumbo for our group for lunch and Don added some fried catfish to it. Man, the food in New Orleans has been FANTASTIC! A lot of the work today is tedious, with pulling out nails, cleaning up debris from the ceiling, and getting all of the odds and ends figured out. The day was also very hot and the hazmat suits added no ventilation. New suits were brought in that kept the same protection but were breathable and therefore easier to work in.

We completed the work around 4pm and met some folks working in the area. A construction crew came by that was removing the piles that we had made in the front yard. One of the men was from Augusta , GA while the other was from the Lower Ninth Ward. You could just tell the difference between these two men – the young man from the Lower Ninth Ward looked so tired and sad and lonely. He was living on the cruise ship on the Mississippi that they put in for temporary housing. I will never understand what he feels like or even what goes through his mind every day.

Don also took us down to the London Avenue Canal Breech where we were able to stand beside the old levee and see how they are rebuilding a temporary one before hurricane season hits again. One of the most amazing elements was viewing the damage from the side of the levee that had been breached compared to the side that stayed intact – a story of wind damage versus flood waters. Cliff made an interesting observation talking about how ironic it is that water is such a necessary part of life and is a huge part of our body but is also the cause of such destruction.

When we got back to the house, we had a surprise waiting for us! The woman who owns the home hadn’t been able to be with us at all this weekend because of respiratory problems. So her sons worked with us all the time, helping remove debris from the home that they built, while telling us hilarious stories from their past. Well, the mom ended up coming down on our last day so that she could be there to see us and the end of the work. She sat on the back of a pick up truck with her five sons as the remaining part of her life was placed in a dumpster truck. She did not cry, but instead rejoiced in the fact that she was here with her five sons and they were together at this moment. Her strength and faith were a true example for our group – I’m not so sure mine would have been as strong in similar situations!

Our weekend in New Orleans ended with a home-cooked meal in the church of traditional rice and red beans. We invited Mark and his wife over to join us in the meal as a thank you. The weekend brought to life so many things and will always leave a print on my heart.

~~Sara Pugh