Here's the reflection from our trip to New Orleans this year. It's a combination of our nightly reflections told first person to create a narrative that's easier to follow. Would you like to partner with the people of New Orleans and help rebuild with us next year?
Road to the Deep South: Rebuilding in New Orleans Year 2
Prelude
I miss the road. For those of you who are new, we drove to New Orleans last year. While I never want to be in a car for 25 hours over two days again, I’d rather be there. I’d rather be with my team, the excitement building by the mile, talking, singing, and praying our way into the frame of mind you need to do this work.
Instead I’m in a hotel looking over the Mississippi River. I can see the French Quarter, downtown, even Lake Ponchatrain in the distance. I can also see the five-four. That’s what locals call the ninth. That’s the part of town that doesn’t exist anymore. I’ve been staring at it each evening, and I wish I was staring at the road.
I’ve been talking to people all week: ministers, teachers, tourists, volunteers, bartenders, homeless men and women. People keep telling the story. They still need to tell the story. A few don’t want to talk about it: “We just need to get past it,” I heard someone say; and they are right too.
I didn’t get New Orleans last year. I didn’t understand how small it is. I ran into the woman who organizes work for the UCC at breakfast around the corner from St. Matthew’s Church where we’ll be staying. A few days later I heard about the fact that we ran into each other from Ingrid, the woman whose house we worked on last year. I’m just a visitor, but you don’t stay a stranger in New Orleans very long.
Ingrid’s house is almost ready. She’s still living in her FEMA trailer with Fred, the 15 year old rottweiler who likes to listen to jazz while eating piles of multi-color dog biscuits (they are supposed to be out June 1—when the FEMA lady came around Ingrid said, “You think I want to live in this tin can?”—and ran her out of the trailer) Fred limps these days and needs a ramp to get into the car, but when two men approached Ingrid the wrong way a few months ago, one of them ended up running down the street with no clothes.
She drove us around the Ninth. There are a few more houses, but it is mostly steps—huge weeds and cement steps. She showed us the school where she used to teach—they fired every teacher after the storm and the class action lawsuit produced $500 for every employee.
She kept pointing to empty lots that used to be her students.
I wish I was staying in the church with our team. It’s impossible not to feel bi-polar as you travel through the rich parts of town that are back to normal—maybe better than before; and then one block over the houses still have holes in the roof and the spray paint indicating they had been searched almost three years ago.
When you work with a team, you get to reflect. I can’t wait for Sunday when everyone shows up and we do this together. Sharing God’s love is not something you do alone. You can pray alone. You can come to know God more deeply alone, but you do the work together.
I am once again changed. I’ve only been doing research and building relationships and already I know that faith in God is the difference between recovering from disaster and it breaking you. I have felt broken all week. I am working on my faith.
But I have hope. In the same way a community garden is rebuilding the Goddard School neighborhood in Worcester, I see people gardening all over the city, even in neighborhoods with just a few houses rebuilt—especially in the neighborhoods with just a few houses. As partnerships between schools and churches have made the South Bronx safer, there are signs all over New Orleans for new schools registering for next fall.
The rebuilding is not happening fast enough. Ingrid is frustrated. I’m frustrated to see Ingrid frustrated. But I had one of the best days of my life with her and my wife. We ate fried catfish and talked about everything. Folks who are originally from New Orleans really know how to talk (I feel right at home). The hope is in our relationship. We are partners in rebuilding this place: homes, hope, and heaven.
I can’t wait to see our heaven building team when they arrive. I hope you will pray for us all week. We will send updates like we did last year. I wish every single one of us were down here together. If we pray together for the people of New Orleans, we are.
Day 1—Reunion
After Church, we went to Ingrid’s: Some people came off the plane, others from their Saturday nights in the French Quarter. Think about what it feels like to see your best friend after a year; now add that her house is mostly rebuilt and it’s beautiful; now imagine the hugs, and the petting of Fred the dog. Our theme this week is miracles. The first: How can we all love each other so much?
Just a year ago we invested so many hours, so much sweat, so much of our compassion and love ripping out every wall, ceiling, socket and fixture from this 112 year old house. We worked at first because it was what we had come so far to do. We worked harder because in a few short hours over conversation, fried chicken, and wheelbarrows full of debris, we realized that our real accomplishment was being that small flicker of light breaking through the darkness and bringing some hope to a woman who hadn't dared to hope in two years.
Our work was just the first small step, and we dreamed that others would follow and rebuild that house. Many did come through and contribute…painting, putting up walls, laying down new floors.
The house is so different than when we saw it last. There are walls…and gleaming cherry floors…and soon, or not so soon, there will be a working kitchen to take the place of more than a year of hot plate and microwave meals in the claustrophobic trailer.
Things are so close to being done, but the last hurdles always seem the most insurmountable. Ingrid's hope is being overwhelmed by frustration at the incompetence of her contractors and the whims of the New Orleans bureaucracy. Business in New Orleans used to be done with the people you knew down at City Hall. Now a town that never followed the rules has added so many few people know how to follow them.
She has waited longer than anyone deserves to wait to be free from this burden. She was lifted up so high by all who came to help her, but she can't quite see over the top of the mountain…and we can't find a way to walk those last few steps with her. We feel that we can make this all better. We need to be able to do something that fixes this. With all of our talent and resources we should be able to move a woman and her faithful dog twenty feet across the overgrown lawn and into her small piece of heaven on earth…but we can't.
So today we cleaned her yard. Dan, Katie, Sue, Jon, Doug, and I cleaned up a pile of termite-infested wood that was in her back yard covering the foundation where her mother’s beauty salon used to be. Fred is still there, as well...cute as ever and maybe even a bit chubbier.
Later on, the rest of the gang arrived and we got Subway and ate on Ingrid's porch with her. It was great to see her again and she looked beautiful as ever. We weren’t supposed to work today—just move into the church—our home for the week. We did what all people who love each other do—we helped a friend. With her right along with us we hauled the boards and trash down the block and out to the curb, and we ate sandwiches as the sun went down, and now we wait. We wait as she waits.
The second miracle is that she has the faith to keep waiting.
Day 2--Punchlist Nightmare and the New Communion
In some ways arriving at St. Matthew’s, it feels as though I never left. The first thing I looked for in the sleeping room was my "Rachel was here" message from last year's mission trip on the bunk bed I slept in...and there it was.
In other ways, it’s like nothing has happened. New Orleans is the longest punch list in history. In a town where everything is unique, the houses are no different. Everything is custom. There is no cookie cutter New Orleans experience, and so our first day of work was an endless introduction into how life works here.
After orientation at Little Farms UCC in Jefferson Parish, we divided into three teams to work on three different houses. We’re putting in insulation, drywall, windows, doors. None of the projects went smoothly. Doug Cotanche’s team did a great job putting up all the wall boards, which they were told to do, and then told by a different supervisor that they had to do the ceiling first. So they took them down and put up the ceiling.
Dan Leist’s team was given a 34 ½ inch custom window to install. But when they had sawed out the ancient window to be replaced, the only thing they could have done to remove the rotting original because it had been encased in metal, they had a 36 inch hole.
For Steve Harlow’s team (Jon’s Father-in-law), what began as a harmless mission to back Jon's low-riding, shiny-rimmed rental car into the driveway of Miss Sophie's New Orleans abode quickly became a more interesting adventure in root removal.
Since the tree had been removed some time prior to our arrival, we decided to attack the problem head-on by lifting up the massive slab of concrete and chipping away at the underlying problem. Little did we know that this act of craftsmanship would lead us down a never-ending quest to remove the most stubborn piece of wood I have ever laid hands on. Beginning with a hammer, we started to chip away at the rotted top layer of root, and made good progress. Things were moving so quickly that I'm pretty sure (OK, I'm positive) that the words "give us another ten minutes and we'll be inside to get started," were uttered.
We Couldn't have been more wrong.
The stump turned out to be a bigger problem than we anticipated. Here's a concise breakdown of what happened after the first hour of stump-removal had ended.
1) We discovered the root had become petrified after being buried.
2) We broke a hammer in half.
3) We bent a chisel at a 90 degree angle
4) We were shown up by our 80-year-old friend Miss Sophie, who grabbed the hatchet during our water break and proceeded to remove the biggest chunk of wood of the day from our favorite root.
We did a reflection this morning on Jesus turning water into wine. Today I saw miracles everywhere I looked. Miss Sophie was a delight and hearing about her experience of Katrina and being one of 10 children made me work harder. She didn’t want to leave when the storm came. She grilled on the porch with her neighbors as the floods rose. She saw the plates they threw in the water go one way, and then when the city turned on the pumps to save the French quarter, she saw return and pass the other direction. They had to drag her out of her house in a boat and she slept on the highway that night, and then in Houston and then with family in Baton Rouge for a year. She has a beautiful garden full of plants planted by the hurricane. She’s watched water turn into a new garden as spring came to New Orleans.
In 90 degrees that feels like 100, I am grateful for the miracle of Gatorade.
At Dan’s site, while he continued to wrestle with the window, the girls went upstairs and began insulating the upstairs of the house. One of the house owners came by with a staple gun and helped us with the insulation. The materials had been at his house for two months: It took us to help him start working. Is that water turning to wine?
Tonight's dinner consisted of the famous Popeye's chicken. Last year Jon ate 12 pieces (he says 13, Dan says 11, so we cut the difference) and woke up with cold sweats. He learned his lesson this year and only at four. We all ate the biscuits and drank the ice cold beverages like disciples at a certain supper. We just did it Southern style.
Then we called our friend at the snowball shop (the New Orleans snow cone) and she had been closed for 15 minutes, but when she heard it was us she kept the place open until we got there and talked with us until we were done. We left with Rainbow tongues from confection of every flavor: tangerine, blue kangeroo, tiger’s blood red, and gorgeous grape. Is that not water into wine?
Day 3--Ghosts
I just wanted to stay longer. I walked down the dirt road and into what would have been a driveway. Three years ago it was a driveway. I walked up the cement steps and onto the slab that was a house. The walls had melted. I walked around like I was in rooms. I didn’t walk through the walls.
There were still piles of clothes, a knife, and I felt like I was supposed to look for something. For a moment I felt what they felt, standing on a slab, the afternoon sun above the levee, three years after: I can’t understand New Orleans, I can’t really understand what they felt, but something happened to me in that house without walls.
Emerson writes, “To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition, to know even new life has breathed easier because you lived. This to have succeeded.”
Our miracle today is feeding the five thousand from a few loaves and fish. We’re watching the miracles this week. We’re taking our tiny efforts and trying to bring the ghosts a little peace. I hope they know we want them to come home.
I wear my stink like a badge of honor. I bring the love to people who need—both those we are working for and the volunteers and staff organizing down here. The city may be tired, but for a few days I will be their caffeinated love. I will loan them my energy and my dreams: that one day, while we know it will never be the same place, the grieving will turn back into the never ending, all-loving, improvisational, jazz you to the bone party that is this eternal Mardi Gras.
Because I saw Miss Sophie feeding the flock today. Listening to her talk about blacks and whites in a matter of fact way. Her stories of the way whites act - she was the second black person to move into the neighborhood and "you know what happens when black folks move in.” She wasn’t bitter, just telling the truth, to us—because we aren’t while people, we’re her people.
I saw the miracle of pounding piece of wood after piece of wood and then toothpick after toothpick into the screw holes for the hinges of the door. These holes were voracious dragons taking more and more wood - never satisfied. But finally with Steve and Jon's help the dragons were slain and the door now opens and closes beautifully on its new hinges. Hallelujah!
Next challenge - be able to lock and unlock it from the outside - looking forward to tomorrow.
Day 4—Building Bridges
Again, the day began with a large coffee and a car ride to a work site: Today when we arrived, stench. The sewage drain shared by the two trailers parked outside the house had overflowed. Kass, the homeowner, stood outside with a hose in one hand, a bottle of bleach in the other, and a cigarette hanging from his mouth. He didn't say a word, just went about his business like he had done with each set back over the last three years. His yard was temporarily a cesspool, and he took it in stride, drawing deeply on his ever present cigarette.
The puddles were in the way of our morning assignment: carrying 96 pieces of sheet rock into the home. Garret, the project supervisor, unloaded a handful of two-by-fours onto the wet ground and used 2 cardboard boxes to make a "Bridge over the River Poo.”
Sunburns and gallons of sweat resulted from the exodus of sheet rock into a home devastated by the hurricane. After a few custom woodworking jobs to repair termite damage and shoddy design, those panels will be the next big step towards rebuilding a livable, redesigned home for a family that has been pent up in a trailer for far too long.
After countless crossing of poo-sticks bridge—we did, indeed, make a bridge of two-by-fours, Sarah, Heather, Rachel and I rode in the back of the pickup truck over to the Hickerson house, where they've been drywalling all week. On the drive there, which was through an unfamiliar part of the city to me, I was again shocked by the devastation. Parts of the road felt like we were driving through countryside - fields with a few scattered houses. Boarded-up schools. The neighborhood we were working in has just a 5% occupancy rate - still. 3 years after Katrina.
But when you consider that there are no schools, no grocery stores, nothing but a McDonald's and a Lowe's nearby, it becomes understandable.
I spent the afternoon dry walling - not that I was much help. I didn't find my measuring and cutting capabilities until the end of the afternoon, I'm miserable with a screw gun, and I'm apparentely too small to hoist up pieces of drywall with the foot pedal. But it was nice to get back to doing work that felt productive again. The progress we made on that house today is simply astonishing. And everyone was pitching in (and Joe was a drywall superhero). It was the kind of day that reminds me why I've come on five of these mission trips, now twice to New Orleans.
It's about how good it feels to wash that drywall down the shower drain, how deliciously tired you are after sweating and getting dirty all day, the connection you feel with the people you're working for and the people you're working with, and how much it lifts up your heart to know that you can, even with your own small talents, make this world a better place for someone.
That's why I keep coming back for more.
I got to meet Miss Sophie, a very talkative 80-year-old woman who will start talking about her life story at the drop of a hat. We got to talking for about 5 minutes and even that was enough to make a connection. That's one thing I've noticed about the people here - they are, for the most part, so willing to talk about everything they've been through. I don't know if I could open up so easily to a stranger after enduring all the crap they have, but they do, and that's even more inspiring.
My group is all returners to New Orleans - me, Dad, Sarah, Lauren and Rachel. It still amazes me/angers me how cruddy their living conditions are, and how uninterested FEMA is in helping them. Ingrid's been served with an eviction notice from her trailer, and these guys have a toilet that you have to manually flush with a long fork. And FEMA won't even come and fix it. After everything they've endured, after all the crap the government is putting them through, they can't even bother to give them a flushing toilet?
I think the best part of it all was that, for the first time, a homeowner worked with us on a project. Cass was quiet, but he came up with his own (working) staple gun and plodded along beside us. At the reflection meeting, we talked about motivation - how our presence, the knowledge that we were there, eager to help, caring for this couple, was all that Cass needed to start working on rebuilding his life. That's a gift that will hopefully extend long after we leave.
I think what is really going to set this trip apart from the rest of the mission trips I've been on - we've been here before. The exploring is done, some connections have already been made. We're in a familiar community. We can see that our work has meaning. And I think that is what will give us fresh inspiration this time around. The situation in New Orleans still sucks, but slowly, surely, with help from folks like us, they're getting their city, their hope, their lives back.
Wednesday was clearly not going to be a miracle day. But by the end of the day, Will and I had one of those New Orleans miracle moments. As we tried and failed for the second time to install a window next to the front door – felled by the utter lack of perpendicularity in all Louisiana architecture, a band of neighborhood kids walked right into the house and started talking to us to figure out who these strange people were and why we were working so hard on such a hot day. We talked about the Red Sox and the New Orleans Zephyrs, the Patriots and the Saints, and how one of them could come back that night if he wanted to and push out the window we had precariously wedged into the opening. Our new found friends shouted him down…miracles do happen.
Day 5—Miracles Are Real
Thursday we had our work cut out for us. It was our hardest wake-up day by far. I did not become my usual alarm-clock self: "wake up! wake up! Time to wake up!" instead I woke up to the sounds around me, to glance at the clock and and realize that it was 7.05, time for me to head upstairs and make breakfast and lunch.
We headed out to our sites and sadly realized that Santa had not come this morning, and neither had the elves. Half the work was not done overnight, and we had to finish the rooms ourselves. We finished our rooms, the 1st room got done, and then the ceiling in the the 3rd room was done...meaning that all 6 of us were working in the 3rd room to put up the walls. Katie and I finally got the hang of the electric power drills. It took Katie and I a long time to get the hang of the power drills, but we still made progress.
We were able to leave the Hickerson site at 3 pm and feel like we had gotten enough accomplished today. We headed to Miss Sophie's after that to meet her and hear another story about Katrina. Then, maybe the best part of the day, we all went over to Ingrid's house and had a picnic on her front porch. We left Miss Sophie's and headed over to North Tonti Street to visit the famed Ingrid and Fred, where we enjoyed fried chicken, collard greens, jambalaya, macaroni & cheese, cornbread, biscuits, and spicy sausage po'boys.
Our time with Ingrid was necessary. Time to talk to her, listen to her tell us about her experience since we left her last June. Then, we went to get our nightly Snoballs, and Norma did not let us pay for any of them...True New Orleans spirit.
During reflection tonight there was a special point that I shared with our group: when we take a break over at McDonald's, I feel such a sense of pride walking through that place knowing that I am working on a house that was demolished by Katrina, that I am helping to rebuild the city, and no matter how small a change it may be, it is still progress.
Well, I can honestly say that I don't feel like the newbie. This has been my first experience on a mission trip. I didn't grow up in a religious family and was nervous about coming on this trip, but I couldn't have felt more welcome.
This has truly been a week of miracles. I vaguely knew the Bible miracles we've talked about, and can see how much they really relate to our everyday lives and especially down here in "n'awlins." This week has been a tiring one, but the aches and pains are worth it knowing we have diminished, even if slightly, the folks emotional aches and pains that they've been experiencing for almost the past 3 years now.
I've never drilled or hammered more than a couple pieces of scraps of wood together before, and this week, we assembled whole rooms. Instead of just imagining where a table might be placed, or a picture might be hanging, the room is now there for the dining table, and the walls are waiting. It was unfortunate that we were unable to meet Vera our home owner, but I know that it doesn't go unappreciated. I have heard more thank yous this week from complete strangers then I ever thought possible.
Day 6—Resurrection
Our story today, the resurrection of Jesus from John 20, is not just for Easter anymore. This week could have ended painfully. Some of our projects were in danger of not finishing, the hot weather had us all tired, and in a city of seemingly infinite need, our small efforts can feel unimportant.
Then at Ms. Sophie’s, Michelle decided to put in a garden; but she didn’t do it by herself. What had been arid ground and plants left by the flood became freshly tilled ground with azaleas, petunias, and stones for our 80 year old friend to walk through her flowers—created by Michelle and John. Not our Rev. Jon, but the assistant of a man doing some work on the house. He saw the garden going on, worked for a few minutes as his boss was finishing up, then got in their truck and left. A few minutes later the truck came around the block again, and John got out. He stayed past lunch and the garden wouldn’t have been resurrected without him. As said prayers before we left, Ms. Sophie said, “The think about it is, you all have blessed me.”
Postlude—Paradox
New Orleans is a city of jazz and food, the friendliest people and the greatest parties; but it is also the most dangerous city in America and home to countless neighborhoods of empty, ruined houses, and too many broken lives. New Orleans would be upset if we did not come to her shores on the Mississippi and savor every taste and smell and sound; but it is impossible not to feel the ache of a place broken in two, divided by class (those who can afford to rebuild and those who can’t even afford to come home), by a legacy of political quagmire, and by the struggle to reestablish its identity.
We’re just visitors, but we love it.
This week we have been reflecting upon the Miracles we have been seeing each day, whether it's at the work site or during our nightly adventures. The biggest miracle of not only this year’s trip but also last year’s is the connections we have made with three individuals.
First, of course, is Ingrid whose house we gutted last summer. This year we were able to revisit her home, which is almost completed; walls are up and painted, doors hung, and beautiful wooden floors. I was taken away when I walked in the door on Sunday as well as when we went over to have dinner. It is easy to tell that she is ready and excited to finally move into her house. Once her closet was finished, she hung up some of her clothes and is ready to put her bath towels in her linen closet that was just painted. She told us that once she moves in "she is never leaving". I don't blame her.
she's been living in a cramped trailer for over a year! Ingrid is no longer the lady whose house we gutted, but a friend we intend to continue to stay connected with and visit each year.
Another connection we made in New Orleans is with a women named Norma, "The Queen of the Ball." She owns the snowball shop only a block down the road from St. Matthew's, the church where we are staying. We have been to visit and enjoy her delicious snowballs almost every night this week. She is a wonderful lady with creative ideas that have people coming back again and again. Her wonderfully decorated shop is a great place to end the day in high spirits and full stomachs ready to take on another day full of hard work and HEAT!
The last connection we have made that is new this year is with a lady named
Ms. Sophie. A group is working on the lower part of her house that she will be moving to when it is all finished. Today all of us who haven't been working at her home got a chance to visit with her. Ms. Sophie is a miracle at 80 years old (which I can not believe), and she spent the entire week scrapping the five layers of paint from her French doors in 110 degree heat. I would have given up a long time ago. In almost perfect health (minus some teeth she told us she had just gotten pulled) she hasn't been to the doctor since she had her daughter almost 40 years ago! It was amazing to hear all her stories and I hope that we are able to keep in contact with her like we have with both Ingrid and Norma.
I couldn't be more thankful for being allowed to come on this trip. We have had visible miracles and self miracles and hopefully many more to come. I would love to be able to come back in the following years, to see the progression of our miracles.
To be continued…
