at home in broadmoor

first, it started with the trucks. these big, huge trucks parked right in front of my house. i knew this was a bad sign. you see, i've seen the trucks before...just not in front of my house. i see the trucks all the time, in fact, since living in new orleans right now includes demolition and construction as facts of life. but there they were, right in front of our house. now logic told me that they would be focused on the house next door to mine, which has not yet been gutted. on my block, there are about seven or eight houses. i think there are four on my side of the street. besides our house and the house to the right (occupied by construction workers) the other houses are all empty. directly across from us is a house with a FEMA trailer directly in front. it took me a while to realize but there is no one living in that trailer, or that house. next to that house is a double shotgun that appears to have been gutted, but no one living inside. two houses down from us, we saw some people about a month ago loading up a storage container in front of the house. oooh, action! we tried to meet these people but they were very intent on continuing the process. the house immediately to our left was never gutted. i could stand on our back porch and see the house's back door open with things sort of tumbled out (a stove, clothes, a big wicker basket, etc). we didnt know what was happening with the house. and then, there were the trucks.

i wanted to ask the demolition-ish looking men which house was gonna go, but i saw another guy come over and so i asked him. he confirmed my suspicions, that it would indeed be the house to our left. the owner of the house has a medical condition and she was too concerned about the mold to just go through and gut it. so she's having it torn down and will re-build. she's living now in kenner (a suburb about 10 miles west of here) and i guess she plans to come back.

so just like that, emily and i watched the house come down. it shook our house and prevented me from taking a nap. it's taking up most of the block with the trucks and crane/claw machine. and where there was once a house, there's a house no more. the years and sweat and money and love that went into turning that house into a home--gone. crazy to think about. i ask that you would pray with me for a greater sense of thankfulness for the homes which i have been blessed to be a part of and also for the homeowners in this city who have had to go through the emotionally draining experience of having to re-start a life.

for more information on my neighborhood, check out this link.
this experience is different because the neighborhood where i work is not the neighborhood where i live. the two neighborhoods are facing some of the same issues since all of new orleans is in storm-recovery mode. but there are some stark differences. more than 60% of the pre-Katrina population of broadmoor is back, while less than 1% of the people from the Desire area are living there now. in my section of the neighborhood, there are mostly construction workers living around us. but the dynamics change from block to block. as one family comes back and rebuilds, it motivates their friends and neighbors to come back and do the same. there are some blocks that look completely rebuilt and then there are some like mine, half abandoned, buildings being torn down. please pray with me that i would learn what it looks like to love my neighbors when they are scattered all over the place.