Church of the Western Reserve's (CWR) 
Mission Team's New Orleans Trip Journal, 2007
June 16-22


Well we're off with not quite the same fanfare as last year, but as always with the support and love of CWR.  Pastor Oomen Thomas's commission to us, to exhibit contagious enthusiasm, will be our guide.  Paul teaches that we each have a role in building up the body of Christ.  Notwithstanding our limited skills, we are determined to find our calling here among God's and  people's needs. In the process, I trust we'll help ourselves find worth and peace and purpose.

After 17 hours of travel in subzero temperatures, packed tightly in a van bursting with gear, six of us arrived in Harvey, Louisiana.  Tricia Dykers Koenig was there to greet us.  She was joining our group from the Covenant Network and will be our spiritual leader as well as another able bodied worker.

What a lift to the spirits when we entered our accommodations, the host church Faith Presbyterian.  Compared to the PDA camp last year, this was pure luxury. .  Indoor plumbing, including showers with hot water, separate rooms, a fully stocked kitchen, lots of space.  I lay down on my full-sized air mattress, travel weary, but with anticipation for the challenges of the coming week, things are definitely looking up.

Attended service at Faith Presbyterian-about 30 in attendance-a normal Sunday.  Tricia was preaching-a real treat for us.  Traditional service, yet informal.   My favorite was the clarinet player who plays each week instead of a piano or organist as they don't have one.  In fact, we learned he also plays in a band with the famous Pete Fountain who leads off the Mardi gras parade each year!

Ever since Katrina I have wanted to return to New Orleans to pitch in.  My father was born and grew up here, and this was our family's most consistent vacation destination, with my grandparents and assorted other relative in the area.  I grew up loving Audubon Park, City Park, streetcars, Spanish moss and seafood...and I've been grateful that my grandparents didn't live to see the flooding of their city (though they lived through lots of hurricanes). 

Sunday afternoon we followed the service with a tour itinerary of various flooded areas, with special stops at the house Sue's mother lived bordering Audubon Park and my grandparent's old home. Neither of them seems to have been damaged.  During the rest of the tour, however, I saw places in New Orleans I'd never been in before.  The multiple system failures evident in the extensive damage and the slow progress are a chastening lesson for our nation.  American values?  National Priorities? I feel privileged to be in this group of folks who want to make a difference.

Our work assignment is at the house of Regina Rankin of 2507 St Philip street in mid-city New Orleans. She is home while we're working on her house, and doing her own projects while we work.  It's hard to imagine how tough it would be to have your life and your space be so disrupted-and in many ways she's among the fortunate ones.

First day working at the site was hot. Air is heavy. Jobs are priming, moving out equipment before priming, dry walling and paneling. Huge thunderstorms all day.

Second day working at the site was more of the same..  Even though I felt I didn't accomplish as much as I did yesterday, I realized that I did overcome one obstacle. Yesterday,  I wondered about the dry-wall on the ceiling and how hard it must have been to put there.  Today Ed and I put drywall on the ceiling of a closet and even though it was hard, we managed to complete it

We prepped and prepped and prepped and spackled and spackled and spackled. So much preparation to get ready for our long awaited paint job.  Regina was so excited about her new room.  She had so much energy, so much excitement and was so appreciative of our work

Music at work space vastly increases the quality of life---not as tired today.  Group favorite is Afro Celts, but somehow no one likes Weeser.

Tuesday afternoon, Tricia and I took Regina shopping to pick out her new paint color.  I sensed she had never done this before - - or had not done so in ages.  What a joy - - we shopped the array of colors and goofed around in the store.  Regina just wanted to pick one and go - but we reminded her that this was a key decision so she better pick something really nice!  We picked a beautiful warm color, and I can still hear the sound of her laughter and shrieks over this.  I'm really going to miss hearing her say "Hey y'all". 

Third day morning.  We are tired (I am tired!). but now into a good pattern of effort.  We're working in two main projects.  Alex and I are dry walling a bedroom, hallway, and two huge walk in closets.  Leslie, Sue Tricia and Justin are painting a bedroom.  Mark is the all-around fixer-paneling parts of a bedroom and insulating an attic.  Our work is good.  Our fellowship is better.  Each meal we take together in conjunction with working together side by side brings us closer.  Not for nothing did the disciples become comrades.  Not for nothing are we a community of faith

I am struck by how low key my emotions have been this trip.  Missing is the rollercoaster ride of emotions experienced last year--a fluctuation between exhilaration, shock, sorrow, horror, hope...I wonder "what is wrong with me?" Have I become immune to the devastation around me? But I realize I have moved on to the next phase of the healing process, just as the survivors of Hurricane Katrina have.  The people that have stayed behind to rebuild don't have a "woe is me" attitude, they don't look back, but move forward.  They are the ones that pitch in and make things happen, not just for themselves but for those around them also  Regina is a perfect example to the heart present in the Katerina survivors.  Her passion, resilience and determination are a lesson and inspiration to us all.

The hospitality of Faith Church was extended to us beyond its four walls.  We were invited to a member's home on the bayou Wednesday evening for an authentic southern shrimp boil.  One youth described it as follows:  "lots of shrimp with heads still on". We were intrigued by the environmentally friendly "garbage disposal" function provided by the bayou when we were told to dump all of our food remains into the water,  and shortly thereafter it was gone - - consumed by the crabs, fish, and perhaps alligators - - who knows.  Overall, the food was fantastic, and it was great having an opportunity to meet with and get to know better the members of Faith Presbyterian...they are very welcoming congregation.   We presented Church of the Western Reserve's financial gift of $1,000 to Faith Presbyterian, which will be used to continue Faith's hospitality mission to people like us who travel to New Orleans to rebuild the city.   Hospitality is one of Faith's ministries, and they have housed over 18 work groups and 250 people from the US and Canada since Hurricane Katrina.   

New Orleans accent-quite distinct from Mississippi/Alabama accent (more pleasing to the ear). "To enact a story is to live as to make the story a reality.  A culture is a people enacting a story" It has taken (or will take) four days to paint one room.  What story are we enacting?

I simply cannot imagine having everything taken away form me unexpectedly and never being able to get it back.  I cannot imaging living with relatives in another city, as Regina did, for 1 ½ years without anything, including money or a job. Where do you start when you begin to rebuild? How do you get beyond the anger and the pain? Of course, I know prayer always helps, but in such a desperate situation, I think I can understand how it might not be of immediate solace to the people of New Orleans.  So I really wonder how Regina got her positive spirit, outlook and approach to pulling herself out of this mess and rebuilding her life. She told us she's volunteered (informally) to help others in the neighborhood and wherever she's seen a need---but what makes her so positive? She makes me feel awfully silly about the many things that weigh heavily on my mind all day.  Yes they are important, some hugely important, but in comparison, hard to compare. Part of this is what calls me to this mission-to help those in greater need than I.

Thursday evening. Completed work with plans in tact for Friday. We knew we had to complete our rooms and we wanted them to be finished.  Excellent progress was made, What an amazing transformation! I was really proud of our work.  We did it right-we repaired, mended and then fixed it up.  Thursday night we went to the French Quarter for dinner and after searching for a suitable place, ended up exactly where we want last year with our group. The French Quarter was full of tourists. The food was good and it was fun to walk around

Friday.  We are leaving today with much of the city still in shambles and disrepair, but there are signs of life coming back, a transformation of homes and lives.  

I felt sad this morning - happy to know we were leaving - but sad for Regina because she didn't want us to leave, and because I really enjoyed helping her - in more ways than in home repair.  We all signed our names and well wishes on a CWR mission hat that we presented to Regina.  She loved it.  She said she'd keep it in a big plastic bag to keep it safe and clean forever.

Regina seemed sad losing the company and help but Tricia can stay for another week

What did you do in New Orleans?  I was one of God's disciples, striving to spread God's love and compassion in some small way towards a greater purpose! Amen.

I was struck by the nature of work that's under way here.  David's a captain in a kind of war that's being waged here in New Orleans-and elsewhere in the world where tremendous human needs exist.  Together with David, we are soldiers.  Taking care of something-anything really-is what happens in battle.  A need arises.  Troops are dispatched.  The luxury of taking care in the dispatching, of finding the most capable personnel, briefing them on every detail and nuance of the assignment-isn't an option.  Just take care of it with the resources at hand. 

That's what we were (available resources) in New Orleans this week.  David learned from us what we could do (or at least what we thought we could do), and he dispatched us to Regina Rankin's house.  And so we went and did what we were asked to do, just like solders do.  "Onward," the great hymn of the world says of us, "marching as to war."

An altogether different take runs through our work this week; namely, that we are mere mites in the work of the world.  We come from our respective homes and lives of relative luxury and ease-and we participate in this enormous recovery effort.  Seven of us working c.7 hours/day x 5 days = c.250 man hours of labor.  That's what it took to drywall/panel/paint 2-3 rooms, 2 walk-in closets, a stairwell, and a hall in a home having many rooms; on a street with dozens of homes in various states of disrepair (to put it mildly); in a city with literally thousands of buildings in dire need of similar labor; in a world of enormous want and deprivation.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but we are here in New Orleans, no less than in the world itself, to do our part in building up the body of Christ.  It's a very large job.

So, we are at once soldiers and mites who are playing our parts.  Many came before us.  Many more will come after.  Here, as in life in general, we are only lifetime incumbents.  Our duty is to work in efforts like this and otherwise seeking, not completion, but advancement of it.  In this respect, I feel sure we succeeded. .

Looking back at our experience working in a Mid-City New Orleans neighborhood house, one is struck by how the street on which Regina lives provides a remarkable contrast in housing conditions.  The house directly to the south of hers sports bright yellow siding, new windows, new outside lighting fixtures and in all other ways looks fully repaired.  The house directly to the north on the other hand, while also yellow in color is now more of a pale muddy yellow with paint peeling off all over.  The pieces of plywood nailed over the windows before the storm were too small to cover the entire window area, so many of the windows have glass broken out of the uncovered sections.  The roof is crumbling, and the house itself looks like a torpedo hit it amid ships during the storm as it is broken open in the middle exposing what now appear to be crooked rotting beams.  This house is clearly uninhabited. 

The remaining houses up and down the street are generally in a range between these two extremes.  Most of the houses are closer to the state of disrepair of the crumbling pale yellow house than to that of the newly sided bright yellow house, but dotted throughout the neighborhood are houses that look rejuvenated.  This contrast resembles images one sees after a tornado has touched down in a neighborhood, and with seeming capriciousness, has completely destroyed nearly a full block of houses but has left one house within the block untouched.  However, the capricious distribution of destruction in this neighborhood wasn't driven by a force of nature.  Katrina's 10 feet of flood water after all spared no houses, schools or businesses for tens of streets in either direction 2507 Saint Phillips Ave.  Rather, this capriciousness is driven by a far more powerful current, one that did not retreat when the flood waters did, but remains coursing through this neighborhood as treacherous and unrelenting today as it was two years ago.  This current consists of economic forces that followed the flood waters sweeping away anyone who did not have or have access to necessary economic resources. Many of the residents of Mid-City New Orleans had no flood insurance.  For those that did, many such as Regina, were forced to use insurance money to pay off mortgages, since the banks insisted on getting  their money while they could, leaving Regina and others without available funds to complete repairs on her house.  Many residents not only had their homes devastated, but also are now unemployed.  On Regina's street, among the buildings that look to be in dead water are several small businesses... businesses that have never reopened thus cutting off business owners and employees from needed cash flow. Regina herself has been laid off from her warehousing job.  She is also widowed.

In spite of her economic predicament, one's first most immediate impression of Regina is that of determination, of an individual who is steadfastly focused on not letting these powerful, swift moving economic currents carry her into the shoals. Her enthusiasm and determination are admirable. However, the currents in which she swims are far too strong and unrelenting for any single individual who is without a boat or life preserver to resist, no matter how strong a swimmer that individual is. In the miraculous way in which God works,  Presbyterian Disaster Assistance has become involved here at 2507 St Phillips, to line up scores of volunteers such as ourselves who in conjunction with neighbors and friends in the area fashion a lifeline that will support Regina's fight against that current.  It's truly fulfilling to have an opportunity to be part, albeit a small part, of that lifeline. We also emerge from this experience changed, having witnessed how the spirits moves and having seen from individuals such as Regina what true perseverance looks like.

"Lord, when was it we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And the King will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you just as you did it to the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me."  This is the story of  our faith.  It is this story that is rebuilding New Orleans one piece of drywall, one room, one house, one street and one neighborhood at a time.  It's a story that will long endure after all else has faded away.  All Glory be to God.