Thoughts on New Orleans

The trip to do post-Katrina work in the Big Easy was everything I expected and nothing at all like I thought it would be.

As expected it was:

Hot
Humid
Lots of Work
Wonderful People
Full of Surprise both good and bad

What didn't I expect?

I didn't expect to walk out of All Souls to greet the visiting group of Episcopal Youth from a different diocese and run into my friend Eric Travis. Proof positive of how small our church can be. Add to that listing the fact that Fr. Wright knows my aunt. They got a chance to reconnect when she came to see me one day.

Out of 38,000 Lutheran youth and leaders I didn't expect to even see someone I knew. But I saw Jason Yelder leaving Cafe du Monde while I was there. It was too noisy and we were too far away for me to say hello.

I didn't expect the overwhelming and heartfelt appreciation of average New Orleanians for the work of volunteers to come and help them re-build. It wasn't a polite, quick thank you but sometimes effusive thanks. They would share their stories and emphasize how important volunteers were to the future of rebuilding the city. They would share stories with us and take some time to thank us again. And it happened all over the city, not just in the areas hit hardest.

I wasn't prepared the level of still existing destruction and disorder. This is one of America's great cities and four years later parts of it(large parts of it) are still a mess. I know it's a big project and we were never going to get it fixed overnight. Somehow it feels like we ought to have done better than this. Blame seems to be spread over the city, state and federal levels. I don't care whose fault it is, it needs to be fixed.

I didn't expect to fall back in love with the French Quarter quite as much as I have. It reminds me very much of old European cities in some ways and I desperately want to come back just as a tourist with my lady wife and stroll its streets, listen to its music and eat its food. Yes it's dirty and touristy and all the rest in many places but that's fine. The real world is a little down and dirty.

That may be the biggest reminder/lesson of all this. The world isn't this nice clean orderly place. Suburban Buffalo or life in a small village isn't really reality in some ways. We are blessed, even on our worst days. The worst blizzards I've experienced over the last 25 years didn't do the kind of damage Katrina did. Our lives are very safe and quiet and secure. We should cherish that more than I think we do.


Peace

Mission Photos

All Souls church, a former Walgreens, in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans.



Some of our youth in the French Quarter



You find these marks on houses in the flooded areas. This one has two marks because the teams had to come back to it. They are "X"s. The info on the left designates what search group checked the house, at the top is the date of the search, on the right is information about what they found and at the bottom is the number of dead bodies they found inside.

So the red one of the right says that such and such a group on Sept 16 couldn't get in the building (NE= No Entry). The white one says the next day 9/17 another group did gain entry and found no bodies. You see these on many, many houses still to this day.


One of several houses we worked on. It is nothing but bare wood and stud walls inside. This house is less than two blocks from the church and had water up over the eaves during the flood. Waters in this neighborhood were "only" 15-20 feet deep. A half mile down the road they were 20-25 feet deep.


Ever wonder what a "levee" looks like? The barge that flooded the Lower 9th hit this levee not far from where this picture shows. These are massive concrete walls that were simply not designed as promised (in many places) and failed or were broken.


One of the other leaders and I met this fellow as we were running around taking pictures. He's an elder at a small evangelistic church next door (Philippi Evangelistic no less!). This is his house which he's still trying to fix back up. The water was past the eaves and his 36 year old daughter died in that house. He keeps this sign posted hoping that New Orleans won't be forgotten.

I know I won't because I can't

New Orleans Mission Trip

Wow, what an amazing trip! Pictured above is most of the group following Sunday service at All Souls church in the Lower 9th Ward with thier vicar Linnell Wright. A small group was at St. Mark's, Harvey who opened their parish hall and kitchen to us for dinners.

25 young people and 14 adults went to New Orleans to help re-build after Hurricane Katrina. It's been almost four years now but huge sections of this city are still devastated and un-repaired. There are lots of reasons for it - bureaucracy, incompetence, confusion being only a few of the major causes. All Souls is a church plant by the Diocese of Louisiana that is fired up to be a center for calm, direction and rebuilding in this former blue collar working neighborhood. The church is being established in an old Walgreen's store and was consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury during a visit. The challenges facing them are enormous. It was great that we could help in some small ways painting a room in one house, doing lots of drywalling, helping to organize the church itself and get some technology issues resolved (yes, that's what I did!).

We also got the chance to do a little tourist stuff. A trip to the French Quarter including a visit to Cafe du Monde for beignets. Beignets are the ultimate form of fried dough absolutely buried in powdered sugar. They were wonderful! Took a long stroll down Bourbon Street and thought how wonderful it would be for me and my lady wife to spend some time there. Maybe someday.

Some photos coming soon! And some more thoughts about the trip as I process them.

Peace

Resource Reviews - My Faith, My Life and EMX

Well somehow I've managed to end up behind on these! So to catch up I'll be doing two this week.
A great book that I can't believe I haven't reviewed for you already and a great website that I can't believe I haven't reviewed for you already as well! Both are Episco-centric but that's OK.


My Faith My Life - A Teen's Guide to the Episcopal Church By: Jenifer Gamber 194 pages $14.00 Published by Morehouse Publishing

OVERALL - A book written for teens that answers the questions they have and provides them with the background they need as they grow up in and into the Episcopal Church.

WHAT'S IT ABOUT? I've reviewed several books recently on being Episcopalian and said very good things about them. I suddenly realized that I had overlooked what I believe is simply the BEST book on the subject for youth ministry. Jenifer (yes I spelled it right) Gamber is among other things the confirmation leader at the Cathedral Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem PA. She's taken her experience and created a fabulous resource. The book walks you through the process of giving your youth a solid background in what it means to be an Episcopalian. Baptism and Confirmation, The bible, Knowing Our History, What Do We Believe, Worship, the Sacraments, Spirituality, Navigating the Church and What is God Calling You to Do? It provides the necessary information in straight forward easy to read style but also offers activities to help imprint the information more deeply. It's everything I'd hope for in a book like this.

RESERVATIONS Um, give me a few more months and maybe I can think of one but I doubt it.

RECOMMENDATION Yes this book is in my "Must Have" library for youth ministries in the Episcopal Church. It's a solid basic foundation element that will help us walk with our youth deeper into their faith. I'm convinced that most Episcopalians DON'T know a lot of this stuff, youth and adult. This book can be the turning point in our life together. Jenifer has also created a great web site resource as an adjunct to the book here

*************

Episcopal Mission Exchange
OVERALL - EMX is an Episcopal program designed to match parishes and dioceses with trusted mission opportunities and provide groups with tools to organize a trip and prepare a team. A simple plan to help anyone put together an amazing mission trip. Even if no one in your group has ever done one before!

WHAT'S IT ABOUT?Always wanted to do a mission trip? Intimidated by the details and planning? Here is the help you need. This is a partnership between the Episcopal church and a company called Passport, Inc. Passport is a Christian group that does mission trips and camp programs. They've created a mission program with a Episcopal flavor that has been an amazing addition. When you start the process with EMX you'll discover that all their years of expertise are yours, for FREE! All groups who participate in EMX are required to read the workbook, complete the training sessions, attend a pre-project visit, covenant together as a team, and complete a post-trip evaluation. These requirements assure our mission partners that we will be sending groups who are prepared in all ways possible. For your group, it means that your participants will engage more deeply in the experience, and get more out of it. We also hope the training before and after the exchange will contribute to your group’s sense of community. You still have to cover the usual expenses but they even provide a time line to help you plan out your fundraising process based on their past experience.

Sure you could do it all by yourself but why when you can have the support of a great group of people to help you anticipate and avoid the bumps? They offer experiences that are Easy, Medium and X(tra) Challenging based on your level of experience at locations all over the United States plus a couple outside the country.

RESERVATIONS Again I just can't come up with any. You'll still face the challenges of fundraising for the trip but you start off way ahead by choosing the option of partnering with a great organization with lots of memorable opportunities.

RECOMMENDATION This is such a great way to get started with mission work. This kind of hands on expression of faith has an impressive effect on our young people (and the adults too). We need to show our youth that faith has real effects on the world as well.

From the sublime to the ridiculous

This is from Lark News:

Inner-city ministry trip confirms youths’ worst impressions

CHESTERFIELD — A youth group from a suburban mega-church traveled to inner-city St. Louis for a ministry trip which confirmed their preconceptions about urban poverty.

Full Story

Before anyone has a coronary Lark News is a parody news site.

And don't miss THIS:

Episcopal Church named official denomination of Major League Baseball

Here's some exciting news that's breaking this first day in April:
baseball

(by email)

As a part of opening week festivities, Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig and Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori announced today that the Episcopal Church has been designated the Official Denomination of Major League Baseball. The move was announced today in a teleconference with reporters.

Full Story from Episcopal Cafe

What day is it again?