A week in the life

Life here is now measured in pre-Katrina and post-Katrina terms so I thought you might like to catch a glimpse of my post-Katrina life down here in New Orleans. Here is a rough sketch of what this past week was like for me.

I get to work around 8:30ish am with Emily, one of my teammates and we have a brief check-in time with our supervisors, Ben and Pastor Willis. We're reading through Bob Lupton's book "And You Call Yourself a Christian" together and talking about what it really means and looks like to love our neighbors. It's not as easy as it might seem, especially in the complexities of today's urban communities. I really appreciate this opportunity to spend non-logistical/administrative/"work" time with Ben and Pastor Willis since they have different perspectives from which I can learn a lot. Plus, it shows that they are really committed to helping us grow into our work here, instead of it just being a long list of things-to-do. As for what we else we do during the work day: meetings, making contact with groups who want to volunteer, helping Ben and Pastor Willis stay organized, and furthering the vision of helping to make the Upper Ninth Ward a desirable place to live.

On Monday and Tuesday afternoon, we went with Ben up to Baton Rouge to visit Desire Street Academy in its new home. The school was started in 2002 by Desire Street Ministries after the staff realized that after-school tutoring within the current public school system would still leave the students lacking in necessary skills and education to succeed beyond high school. So this school was formed. It had been housed in a large multi-purpose ministry building right in the neighborhood, but the storm changed all that. Last year the school held classes and boarded students at a camp in Florida. This year, it has more permanently relocated to Baton Rouge. It will probably stay here for a while, though there are hopes to bring it back to New Orleans eventually. Since the DSA sports teams are still technically part of the New Orleans sports league, all the home games must be played in New Orleans. So we get to watch the high school basketball games this winter!

On Wednesday night, we were invited to a bar-be-que with a year-long relief team from Campus Crusade for Christ. I have been surprised to meet so many other young people who have committed a year to helping New Orleans rebuild. It is so encouraging to us to see how the efforts to rebuild this city have really been driven by volunteers. And, it’s encouraging to know we'll have another group of young people we could hang out with this year who might be able to understand some of the struggles and frustrations we will face. We hope to spend more time with these friends throughout the year.

Thursday night we got a real sampling of New Orleans cuisine. Leroy Barber, president of Mission Year, was in town for some meetings and wanted to hang out with my team. We found a great restaurant/grocery that served authentic Creole cuisine. On the table for dinner were po-boy sandwiches, etouffe, red beans and rice, and of course jambalaya. (Every time I say that word it still reminds me of George on Seinfeld when he wants his "jam-ba-layyaaaa") That was deeeelicious. Then, to top it off, we had dessert at Creole Creamery. They have some crazy ice cream flavors like sassafras-chicory, lavender-honey, cucumber-dill, Creole-cream cheese. They also have some more normal flavors and I presume this will be a spot that is frequented by my team this year.

We knew we would be hosting our first volunteer team this coming Monday, so on Friday we checked out a house that still needed to be gutted. This house belonged to a family in the Desire Area that had just moved back into the city from Houston the previous week. We ran into them when we were driving around, mapping out the status of the neighborhood. Being in their house was CRAZY! They had just gotten their FEMA trailer (over a year since the storm) and nothing has been done in the house. As we walked in, stepping over carpet and mattresses and TVs still caked in a thin layer of dry mud, I wondered about this family. I wondered about the people who lived here, who called this place home. The woman we met that day driving through the neighborhood, she owns this place. I wondered what those moments during the storm were like for them. I wondered if they had scrambled up to the attic when the water began to flow into their street, their block, their house. The freezer and fridge still sit in the living room where they had undoubtedly floated. I saw a kid’s bike covered in mud and dirt in a back room and wondered about the little person who used to ride it. The water line was still visible on the wall, I even wiped a little of the dirt off the wall with my finger. And now, everything needs to go. The walls, the carpet, the furniture, the TVs, the computer, the fridge. Everything. This house, that used to be a symbol of rest and place to come back to—going to be wiped out down to the framing. It just made me wonder about the memories and moments and lives those walls had seen.

Saturday was the District 7 planning meeting, hosted by ACORN. (Now just for some background about the planning process in New Orleans…Over 80% of the city was flooded during the storm. That's a lot, but it's not every neighborhood. Initially, individual neighborhoods were making recovery and rebuilding plans, hoping to make their section of the city better than before the storm. Then the city decided that instead of just updating the neighborhoods that had been flooded, they wanted a plan for the entire city. Hence, the Unified New Orleans Plan (www.unifiedneworleansplan.org) In the Unified plan, each neighborhood is represented by some planning group. District 7, which includes the upper ninth ward, is being represented by ACORN (www.acorn.org)) So, this was actually the FIRST District 7 UNOP meeting. Yes, that's right, over a year post-Katrina and they're having the first meeting. As I sat in the back of the meeting, I thought about what I had written previously about the spirit of the people in New Orleans. Yes there’s a spirit of wanting to rebuild but its stemming from a frustration and exhaustion from having no answers, getting the run-around, still not having their houses fixed—no place to sleep! People are sick and tired of not being given answers, not given help, not given hope. This is a planning meeting (which is far from the implementation phase), and they were showing boards and notes from all sort of community planning that had been done pre-Katrina. And we’re trying to do all this with neighborhoods that maybe didn’t even talk to each other before the storm. Now they’re supposed to suddenly be united? People want their liiiiiives back. we’re at this planning “vision” meeting and the facilitator is asking them to imagine what they could have in their community by 2010—2010?!?! Some of the people here don’t know where they’ll be sleeping TONIGHT! And years and years and years of crooked New Orleans politics have taught residents not to trust anything that comes from the government. So there’s so many complex layers upon layers. And to be honest, the work that’s been done for the most part is because these people were fed up of waiting for someone ELSE to help them and they just decided to help themselves. They found someone to gut their houses, they harassed the energy company, they stayed all day, everyday on the phone with FEMA. They’re tired of waiting.

But my new friend Paulette reminded me, as we sat in the back listening to the meeting, "I know where my help comes from." Our hope and our help will ultimately not come from the government or politicians. There is a limited amount of resources and the interests of running a city are unfortunately not always dictated by the interests of its most vulnerable citizens. I have been encouraged to remember that God stands by with a heart that breaks for the oppressed and mistreated. God provides a hope that doesn't promise immediate results, but does promise a sovereign force in control. When we have no one else to look to for help, we can still go to the One who has created us all and holds us in the palm of His hands.

After the meeting, we drove around the neighborhood to continue in our mapping efforts and someone stopped us. We were driving slowly and taking notes, really not making any attempts to blend in. The man came over to see what we were doing and when we explained that we were with Desire Street and Pastor Willis, he immediately gave us the scoop on the neighborhood. I realized this was the husband of a woman in the meeting who had shared her own story of trying to get back to the neighborhood. The energy company refused to turn on her power since there were no other customers. But she kept bothering them to turn it on and finally they did. And then, the neighbors returned. This man pointed out to us each of the houses and the status of the residents. This was a real true community before the storm, and it is making steps towards regaining that form. He invited us into their home and showed off the handiwork of a house completely remodeled. It was remodeled by necessity and he had done such a nice job with it. The visit with this man was a taste of that light and hope amidst so much frustration and despair.

There is so much yet to do and I am excited to see how the upcoming weeks and months pan out. Desire Street and CURE are taking on some big projects to fulfill a vision for the neighborhood that had been home to so many. I am reminded of a visit to San Francisco earlier this year, around the time of the 100 year anniversary of the great San Francisco earthquake. The image that came to mind was a phoenix, rising from the ash. And I hope and I pray that that will be said of New Orleans in the months and years to come.