nonstop action!!

well, if you're still keeping track of my movements then you hopefully figured out that i made it back to new orleans safely on friday afternoon. it was smooth sailing the whole time, no traffic problems. thanks again to all who sent their well wishes and thoughts and prayers and encouragement while i was in evacuation mode. while we tried to lighten the mood, there were many many tense moments. i'm sending out my love in thanks all over!!!

as soon as i got back i got to packing up all my stuff to move over to the new apartment, which i had intended to do last weekend. i am really amazed at how quickly it all happened!! needless to say i couldnt have done it all without some amazing help from my church family--they really did all the big heavy stuff, i sort of meandered around trying to give instructions =) my stuff is slowly making its way out of bags, boxes, and piles into some sort of order in the new apartment, but it will be a slow process i'm afraid.

all this and we're also keeping an eye on hurricane ike!!!! i really hope it stays away from us. i've been thinking a lot about haiti, with all these recent storms. we think here that we are somehow immune from a second storm after we've been hit by one but there's no reason why we're out of harm's way. haiti has been hit by gustav, hanna, AND ike. i think it probably got hit by fay last month too! anyway, i recently finished reading "mountains beyond mountains" which tells some of paul farmer's story of starting several health clinics in rural haiti and his philosophy of preferential treatment for the poor. this is not intended to be a book report, though i highly recommend it, but rather a backdrop for my thoughts on the country. we talk about how katrina revealed poverty and brokenness in new orleans but as i was reminded by reading the partners in health website, haiti never had any levees to hold water back. while its bad when the levees fail, imagine if we never had any kind of structure to keep the waters away. and talk about a foundation of poverty and no infrastructure--while new orleans seems like third world sometimes, it is still a part of the world's richest country. haiti is probably a lot farther down on the list...