Final Thoughts on New Orleans

What did I learn on this trip?
I learned that nothing is guaranteed. The only thing that is guaranteed in this life is that we are born with nothing, and when we die we take nothing with us. So why not put my trust in Someone who is eternal?
I learned that in the midst of what should be total hopelessness, there can be hope. Where there is no one to help God sends his people to be his hands, to bring food, to be his heart where people have been abandoned.
I learned the pure joy of giving, without expecting a thing in return. And seeing how he provides surprises all along the way. I received so much from the people of New Orleans. I received love, I saw courage, I saw faith. And it was an example to me of how to appreciate life.
There's still so much that needs to be done. If you've been inspired and want to know how you can help, visit the Samaritan's Purse website. You'll find lots of information there on how to join a group that working in the area, or you can go as an individual. Their website will start you on your way. Our church is also planning another trip in October/November, if you're in the NYC area and are interested in joining us, email me at nancita_maria@yahoo.com (write KATRINA as the subject of your email) and I'll get you in touch with the team.
And if you want to know more about what gives my life joy, what gives me excitement and purpose every day of my life, click here.


Thanks for sharing this journey with me.
Peace and be blessed,
Nancy

Got 'Er Done!

We finished our first full house today (the 2nd we worked on). Woohoo! It was a relief and great feeling of...VICTORY! Okay, maybe I'm being a little melodramatic but I'm only sharing what we were feeling.
Our homeowner was happy. It was one step closer to his family making a home again.

In the end this is all the materials we took out of the house. It was quite a big pile.

After wishing our homeowner all the best and praying with him, we also presented him with a gift Bible that we'd all signed. It was a way to remember that it was God who provided all this.

Our next stop was our final home which belonged to an senior lady and her family. This house was different in structure because it was brick and had very small windows. Because of the design the air couldn't circulate very well.

If you take a closer look at the photo, that dark line on the wall shows you how high the water was.


The heat and mold smell inside was overwhelming. (I didn't work on this house. Instead, I kept the homeowner company as she sat outside the house.)

She was a nice lady. We talked for hours. Speaking with the homeowners you got a true sense of the community of this place. These are families that have been here for long time, some for generations. Our homeowner had lived in this house for over 40 years, had raised her children and now her daughter's family was living there with her as well. Three generations.
One of the things she expressed a loss over was the sense of community. Many families had no other financial choice than to leave New Orleans for places like Texas or further south to the Carolinas. Passing house after house you felt the missing people. There should've been kids laughing in the streets, folks having a cold drink on their porches. But there is little of that now.

Working Together

This was our second day on the house. At this point we were stripping nails from the studs. All those little details had to get done so the house would pass inspection from the parish, which is their local government.

The last of the ceilings had to come down. The linoleum tiles were giving us a hard time. To me, that was the hardest thing to strip.

Honestly, I was really bad at it and I have great admiration and respect for the "young pups" who were able to put their full backs and attack them at just the right angle to rip them off the floor. It's hard work, but again, I'll keep saying, it's worth it. Whenever I feel like giving up I imagine if it were my home. Would I want the person working on it to give up? No way! At one point, when I felt I just couldn't lift that hammer one more time, I remembered that old Sunday School song "The joy of the Lord is my strength". I just started singing that and felt the energy start flooding back into my arms. Praise the Lord!
Raul, the owner, has been pitching in as well, even though we've been telling him to be careful cause of the mold in the air. But who can blame a person for wanting to lay their hands on their house, right?

We worked from 8am to 4pm and when we got back we ate dinner and had a time of spiritual refreshment.

I shared a message from the book of Exodus, chapter 17, when the Hebrews were fighting the Amalekites. When Moses held his staff up, they were winning, but when his arms got tired and he lowered them, the warriors started to lose. So his two helpers, Aaron and Hur, got a rock for him to sit on and they held his arms up. Until the battle was won. And that's how we were living here in New Orleans as we worked together. We held each other up. We had each other's backs. The goal is to get the job done. That scripture spoke to all of us.


Afterwards we had some time to relax before bed. Dominoes and board games were favorites.
Sleep was sweet that night.



I have a gift for my readers. A photo of a beautiful Louisiana evening. Feeling free to download it and use it for your desktop wallpaper. (It's not for sale or to be sold so be nice!)

God bless you!

A Fireman's Feast

We've been working on Raul the fireman's house. There was a lot of damage to his belongings and a lot of the work has been to remove basically everything that's in the house.

Most of his stuff was unrecoverable but it's amazing what gets saved. Some personal pics, some albums, chotchkes. An ironing board! We saw some nice critters. Huge roaches, a mom and baby mouse. A small frog. Plenty of spiders. Nature just tries to take over. And it's been almost a year.
One of us, well, maybe it was me :), mentioned in passing about how before we left we had to go to town and try some famous crawfish. Then, around lunchtime, out of nowhere, Raul showed up with 20 lbs of boiled crawfish, kielbasa, potatoes and spicy shrimp. Ohhh, they must have these in heaven!

They were soooo good. They have a motto here that explains how to eat them. You pinch the tail and suck the head. Pinch the head off from the body and you suck the juices out. Mmmm, my mouth waters just remembering. They taste a lot like shrimp.


My co-workers said they tasted like lobster but I've never had lobster so maybe they're right.

This potato didn't stand a chance. It was all good. After this feast, we were hard at work again and got most of the walls, floors and panelling out.
It was backbreaking work, lots of sweat, scratches and bruises. But worth everyone bit!


What a blessing! God provides when you don't expect it.

You see, the thing that was always in front of our eyes was that this is for our neighbor and it is for the Lord.

More on Day 2 - Rebuilding the Levees

Later we decided to do the tourist thing. On our way to the city proper we passed by where the Army Corps of Engineers were busy with the levee reconstruction. I was wondering what they were doing standing so close to the levee wall. I thought of the story of the little Dutch boy plugging his finger into a hole in a dike to keep the water from flooding Holland. I couldn't help imagining thousands of engineers running around the Mississippi levees plugging their fingers into holes during the hurricane. Hey, maybe next time.....


Here's another view from over the river.

Tomorrow we start getting our hands dirty.

Day 2 - The 9th Quarter

On the 2nd day, we drove around to get a closer look at the damage and talk to some locals. The devastation left one speechless. Block after block of damaged homes, many of them unliveable or totally destroyed. I was struck by the silence, the absence of human voices. Many of the residents left after the flooding and many have yet to return. Before Katrina, New Orleans had almost 480,000 residents. Now it's estimated to have maybe 155,000. According to a 2006 RAND report around 108,000 homes suffered severe flood damage. Severe flood damage is defined in the report as having been in 4 feet or more of water and having some kind of structural damage.

The house on the left was dragged off its foundations. You can see the front steps several feet away from the house.

The people we met that day were mostly friendly. They were surprised that we'd come all the way from New York to help with the cleanup. And the gratitude they expressed was heartfelt.

We talked with a gentleman who told us how, when the floodwaters were rising, rescuers had come by to take him and his family out of danger. But he told them to take his disabled, elderly neighbors instead. Why? Because he had a 2-story house and he could go up to the roof as the waters rose. Eventually he was picked up and taken to safety.

Another fellow, Joe, told us how the waters had risen so high he was able to pilot a boat over the chain link fence in front of his house. He showed us a broken front window, easily10 feet above the ground. At the height of the flood, a boat propeller had bumped against the glass and had smashed the glass.

When I asked him how he was doing he said, "Well, you just go on." We asked if we could say a prayer for him and he said, "Sure." One of our guys, Eddie, led the prayer for Joe's protection and for the Lord to provide for him and give him strength. As we left, Joe thanked us. We were happy just to be able to spend a few minutes with him and hear his story.


Further down we came across a damaged church. The mold smell was so bad we couldn't even peek inside the doorway without covering our noses. The brown marks on the back wall looks like some kind of water stain so you can see the flooding was pretty high.

Benches are covered with an inch thick layer of dried mud. Someone appears to have gone in and cleaned up a picture of the last supper of Jesus Christ and the disciples. Kinda poignant.















(Below is a panorama pic of a huge lot with damaged houses.)

Day 1 - New York to Chalmette, New Orleans

We flew into New Orleans International Airport around 1PM. The weather is steaming. As the jet did the landing approach we got a glimpse of the winding Mississippi River.

If you take a closer look, you can see some houses with the blue roofs. The blue is plastic tarp to cover the damaged roofs.









The Superdome. About 10,000 people took shelter here at the height of hurricane Katrina. With so many people there were reports of crime and violence within. How bad it was depends on who you ask. To get a sense of the scale of the structure, click on the third pic.

AudioBlogging is Da Bomb!

This is my first audioblog in preparation for the New Orleans trip.

(Note: Audioblogger is no longer in service.)

A Good Cause

This Saturday I'm off to New Orleans with a group of folks from my church. We're helping out the cleanup effort sponsored by Samaritan's Purse, a ministry of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. A year later and the devastation is still extensive. The area we're going to is so destroyed that all that can be done is to demolish the houses so people can begin to rebuild. I'll post some pics when I get back. But during the time there, I'm trying out audioblogging so you get to hear my melodious voice (joking).
The pic above is the view on my way home from work on a clear day with a gorgeous sunset. That's the Verrazano Bridge.
Be blessed in Christ.