and so it begins

The day nearly defies description. We're one day in, and I'm really not sure how to even start telling you what we've already seen.

Let's start with the people, just to get you set (as my father used to say, 'Can't keep track of the players without a scorecard!'):
> from Iowa: Bob, his sons Ben and Dave, Rob, Allen, his daughter Molly, LeeAnn, and Joe
> from no. Indiana: Bob and Brynn
> the Geist crew: me, Tom, Jim, Pam
> Kerry and John, New Orleans locals, members of First Christian Metairie, and our directors/guides/coordinators for the week
There's also a young woman named Eva, who evidently works for FEMA, is from Fort Wayne, and is a Disciple so is kind of staying/officing here at the church. Something like that (we don't see her much).

So today we work in two groups:
> Bob, Rob, Bob & Brynn, Pam and I go to Lisa's house; Kerry and John were with us part of the day. They call her "Our Lady of I-10". Lisa is an attorney, and a good friend of Kerry's. They're in a local crew together (the name of which is thoroughly cajun and I won't try to spell or explain) that is a huge presence in the Mardi Gras festivities. Lisa's house for the las five years has been Float Central, and so can be seen from I-10. Hence the name.

Her house now, however, looks like this:

I took this picture standing in her utility room, looking through the bathroom, through the living room and out the front door. You shouldn't, you know, be able to see all the way through the house like that. You can see the horizontal cross bars (lath) at the top left, which had sheetrock laid over it. All of which had molded, due to a 5-foot water level inside her house. It's dry now, but rotted. We pulled out all the lath (to a height of about 5 feet) throughout the entire first floor, and anything that covered it: sheetrock, plaster, tile, the works. Bathroom, living room, dining room, kitchen, utility room, sunroom, staircase. Lisa's house is one of, if not the, oldest house in Lakeview district. The architectural detail is stunning, and when refinished is going to be absolutely splendid.

Meanwhile, a block from the levees (yes, those levees, the ones that collapsed), the rest of the gang is working here:

Inside this now-tree-house is this:

While we hammered and pried and wrenched and carried and got covered in dust and sweat and mildew ... they slipped and slid and shoveled and cleared a pathway like you wouldn't believe. Pam and I decided the least we could do is be the ones to go shopping and make dinner.

What we've seen, even in the first day, defies absolutely all description:

> A highway full of FEMA trucks. Not a FEMA team in sight in town.

> Water marks -- not the kind the city keeps on a stick at the place where it flooded years ago -- water lines, green, molded, mossy water lines on every. single. house.

> Houses completely off their foundations and essentially in the side yard of other houses.

> Boats in a marina stacked up like children's toys crammed into an already full toybox.

And THEN you see ... people that will drive, from Iowa, from Indiana, from Pennsylvania next week, from who knows where the weeks before -- to spend a week at a time doing things they couldn't imagine doing, for people they'll never see again.

After several conversations during the day about "where is everyone?" and "where's all the help that our government's money is supposed to be buying?", Pam said it best tonight (completely unprovoked, I might add): This is what Randy was talking about, when he said that giving matters. We're not just giving money to the church; we're working. This is how we're serving. We're not just handing money over. We're putting it to work, doing this.

I love my job.