Day 3

Since it was Sunday, and we were doing relief work with a church, it was only natural to find ourselves at church on Sunday morning. The service was enjoyable. I guess these two churches had merged before Katrina. This turned out to be a good thing. The campus that sustained the most damage is dedicated to relief operations. That's where they store food, water, clothing etc., and that's where they house the up to 400 volunteers that come each week. In essence, one church facility is dedicated to "traditional" church activities and the other church site can be used for relief work. After church we went to lunch. Not that exciting, but we had a great discussion about the difference between religions and other related issues. Then we returned to the church site. Shortly afterwards I decided to explore the neighborhood around the church. We learned that over 80% of New Orleans was underwater after Katrina, and yet I couldn't see any signs of it as we drove down the streets near the church.

Actually my plan was to go running. But before I even made it off the church grounds, I saw a "shortcut". I jumped the flimsy plastic fence and started walking down the street. It was a very surreal area. Every house in this neighborhood was two stories. They had the really nice doors and design, that shows that people have invested a lot of money into making their house look nice. And yet, there was a trailer in front of every house. I kept thinking if they are well off, how come they are not done with rebuilding their homes? As I continued to walk, I saw one family sort of chilling outside their house. They greeted me and waved me over to come talk to them. They offered me somethin to drink, and asked me to sit down with them. I explained that I was a volunteer doing relief work with the church up the street. They became even more friendly. Apparantely, the church had sent a team of volunteers to help gut their house, so they were extremely grateful. They invited me to come into the house and observe the reconstruction effort. Even though they had been working on the house, they were nowhere close to being done. Most of the rooms were still empty. About a week ago they were able to put the floors down. My host explained that their speed was limited because they kept running out of money. I mean it was clear that this was an upper middle class family. If they were struggling to rebuild how much harder would it be for those with less money and resources? Of course I was sad because I forgot to take my camera. I thought I was going running so I hadn't prepared to see homes and talk to locals. I was amazed by how friendly and hospitable the family was.

Sunday evening was rather uneventful. But I was grateful for the downtime. I had a chance to talk with the long term volunteers and hear more about how God brought them to New Orleans to work. It is always inspiring to see people leave behind the comforts of home and family, to fulfill an assignment for God.