It’s All About the People
I was not living in the United States during hurricane Katrina or its immediate aftermath because I was still in the Navy and was stationed in Rota, Spain. As a result, the devastation I saw or read about from the storm was via online news sources such as CNN, MSNBC and the Times Digest. Unfortunately, the hurricane’s impact seemed distant and overdramatized. I didn’t understand the extent of the destruction and the loss, or the impact that it had on the affected people’s lives. I was wrong to gloss over the disaster and move on.
God did not want me to forget, though. He wanted me to understand through proximity and empathy. About a year and a half after Katrina, in March of this year, I was enjoying my morning prework ritual of drinking coffee while reading the newspaper at the kitchen table with my husband. I read an article about the continued hopelessness of people in neighborhoods around New Orleans that still were not rebuilt or cleared. I began to cry right there at the table. Not only did I feel sad for these people, but I became angry at the government agencies whose failures allowed this part of the country to become a forgotten land. Then I felt convicted about this situation that impacted people I’d never met in a place I’d never visited.
Wiping my eyes, I thought, “Who am I to be upset and angry when I’m not doing anything to help either?” God’s clear and certain voice entered my thoughts and said, “Well, do something instead of just feeling something.”
I made a commitment to God that I would try to take action and obey His command, and I asked Him to show me how because I didn’t have any connections or resources in New Orleans.
That morning at work, I chatted with my coworker Sherry. She told me that her husband Michael would be out of town for the week. When I asked her where he was, she told me that he was in New Orleans on a mission trip with a group from their church. They were helping to rebuild homes as part of Operation Noah Rebuild, a project in partnership with the North American Mission Board.
My jaw dropped, literally, and I just stared at her for a few seconds before I regained my composure. I was surprised by how quickly God had responded to my request. I researched Noah further via their website and their telephone point of contact, and, upon further discussion with Sherry, I found out that Michael’s group planned to do a return trip in October. I signed up.
After months of the impending trip seeming eons away, suddenly it was quickly approaching. There was never a doubt in my mind that God wanted me to go on the trip, but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t obstacles thrown in my way.
October is our busiest month at Charleston Southern University, where I work in public relations. If this trip fell on a week when one of our major annual events was scheduled, I would not be allowed to go. God took care of that and the trip was scheduled for Oct. 20 – 27. Unfortunately, I was already scheduled to have minor surgery during that time. God took care of that, too, and I was able to reschedule the surgery for November. I thought I was home free.
That is when the opposition came from my parents who didn’t want me to go to New Orleans to help these people God called me to help. They repeatedly expressed disapproval, tried to discourage me and tried several times to manipulate me into changing my plans. I had to remember I Corinthians 2:14, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”
I prayed for God to prepare me for the trip, to give me the emotional, mental, physical and spiritual strength to do His work. This was my first mission trip, as I’d previously only taken part in one-day service projects. I was going with a group of people from a different church, a group of people I’d only just met and did not know. But I knew that God was going to use this trip to teach me, to shape me, to help become more like He wants me to be. I anxiously anticipated His hands at work.
As we approached New Orleans on Interstate 10, the first thing I noticed were the dead, barren, broken stalks that used to be trees lining the highway on either side. Nature is so resilient, it shocked me to see this fatality more than two years after Katrina. What must it have looked like immediately after the storm? The second thing I noticed was that the van rode like a bouncing amusement park ride. The flooding had permanently buckled the roadways. I saw abandoned businesses, vacant homes and empty apartment buildings. Random items like upside-down boats and scrap heaps lay alongside the roads. That is the best of surroundings that I saw.
After checking into the converted church where we would be sleeping and eating our morning and evening meals, I went for a walk with the two other ladies in our group. We explored the neighborhood called Violet that is adjacent to the church. It is still difficult to wrap my mind around the living conditions and so it is difficult to describe what I saw and felt. I thought about taking photos, but a picture seen out of context could not capture the enormity and the emotion of the tragedy.
Most of the small brick homes are deserted. You can tell because the windows are broken open and all that can be seen inside is darkness. They have been gutted to remove the rot from the flood. I couldn’t tell if garbage collection had resumed in the neighborhood or not. A few homes were in various stages of reconstruction, but they were flanked by houses one has to assume will never be lived in again. The couple finished homes have families living inside of them. There are children playing, puppies barking and adults coming and going. Some families live in small trailers parked in their driveways. I wondered if I would have returned to rebuild my home on land that is below sea level, with levies that are not sufficiently repaired. I may have cut my losses and moved elsewhere to start my life anew, as more than 60 percent of the households from St. Bernard Parish have.
I learned, however, that no matter what the circumstance, it is all about the people. During our initial walk around Violet, we met a lady who appeared to be in her late 60s. She sat in her driveway on a hard-back chair, next to the trailer she’d been living in for years, her damaged house as her backdrop. Will she ever be able to move back into her house? Will the few who have rebuilt ever have neighbors or will they continue to be surrounded by flood stricken, ruined shells of homes? My heart fell heavy thinking about it, but the lady emitted resilience and endurance. She smiled as we spoke about light hearted topics. She slapped her knee, threw her head back and laughed out loud, telling us about Fatz Domino and where his house was located.
The next morning, our group of thirteen volunteers was divided into two teams and we set out for our worksite at 7 a.m. for a full day’s work, as we would each day for the rest of our time there. I was surprised to see groups of children standing on the street corners. Amid all this devastation, they waited for the school bus as if their surroundings were normal and their lives were usual. Upon arrival at the site, Michael approached a group of three teenage boys waiting at their stop and spoke with them a while. They were typical teenagers, aware of their situation, yet living through it.
My team’s assignment was to mud a house. A team that had been there the week before had hung the sheet rock and we were to tape and mud the seams, gaps and corners of all the walls and ceilings. The team that would follow us the next week would perform finishing work.
The NOAH employee who coordinates work orders taught us a bit about the family we would be helping. The couple came to America from Vietnam thirty years ago. The husband works for Mrs. Smith’s and the wife raises plants to sell. They have five children in their teenage years and up. The husband and sons work on the house in their free time when they are not at their jobs or in school. I asked the Noah representative how families are chosen to be helped by Operation Noah Rebuild and he explained that during the application process they must prove that they can come up with money to pay toward materials and Noah volunteers like ourselves provide the free labor.
I grew to know the wife, Tanya, more as the week went on, despite the language barrier. She understands English, but was uncomfortable speaking it because of her thick accent. She became more and more comfortable with us three ladies in the group as the week wore on. She kept house in the trailer and ventured out to tend to her plants and her yard, and to tend to us. I got the impression that because she had lost her worldly possessions to a disaster that was out of her control, and she was not in control of the timeline for when she could move back into her house with her family and reestablish a sense of normalcy in her life, she maintained a sense of control and appreciation of life through meticulously caring for her hundreds of plants. Her appreciation for the work we were doing at her house was tangible. Each and every day, she brought us delicious Vietnamese food for lunch. She saw us serving her and wanted to serve us back. She saw the gift of time, energy and some household items we were giving to her and she wanted to give to us. At the end of the week, she gave us plants from her collection as gifts of thanks. Her generosity was so much a part of her character that she wanted to bless us by sharing with us the only things she could, her food and her plants that were prepared and raised with love.
The last thing that our team did at the house was to prayer walk, led by Michael, our shepherd throughout the trip. We walked through each room, praying for each of the family members and their guests who would spend time in them. This act was the perfect culmination to the work that we had finished in the house that is on its way back to being a home. It really is all about the people.
I find myself recalling a verse that I saw written on a piece of paper and tacked to a wooden beam at the Noah supply warehouse. Matthew 25:40 says, “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’” We are all connected, no matter how far apart we live or how different we may seem at first glance. We need to concentrate on our similarities, not our differences. We need to show each other love and serve one another, for we are all in need of love and service from others. We served Tanya and her family and she served our team. Without the willingness of the group from Summerville Baptist Church to accept me into their traveling assembly, I would not have experienced the blessing of this reminder.
Information about volunteering with Operation Noah Rebuild can be found at www.namb.net/noah.
