the widow's mite

Today our group (total) started our fifth and sixth houses for the week. Hard to imagine that if, in three days, an all-volunteer crew of 14 can entirely gut 4 houses, things aren’t moving along any faster than they are. Then again, we found ourselves several times simply standing in a room – already cleared of ruined furniture, drapes, belongings – just looking around, shell-shocked, wondering where in the world to start. It feels so huge – and it is – so you just pick up a hammer and a pry bar and start ripping away at it.

Yesterday and today, a dilemma crept into our thoughts and conversations … one of the common struggles of mission work: the desire to be of service vs. the instinct to be selective. This is not a condemnation, nor should it be read as one. It’s an absolutely natural part of being on mission trips: the point where you say, “Why the heck are we spending all this time doing this when it is (or they are) just going to _____?”

~ still have to wait on insurance, FEMA, good fortune

~ have so much left to do

~ need more help than we can give this week

~ probably bulldoze this thing anyway

And that discourages us … to think that the work we’ve done – done gladly and faithfully and with more energy and stamina than we knew we possessed – might turn out to be ‘for nothing’.

Thing is, though, it’s never ‘for nothing’.

~ We met eight people from Albia and two from Winnemac, for whom our lives (and stories!) are much richer.

~ Six houses have been gutted. While it may be debatable that bared uprights and stripped floors ‘look better’ than did the walls once sodden and blackened with mold … the houses are now prepared for the next step: inspection, decision, rebuilding, recovery. Six isn’t much in the face of the total, but it’s six more than before we got there.

~ The call went out to come and do what could be done. The call was answered: by us, and many more like us, who simply did what was asked, wherever we were able, and we have to put the dilemma to rest perhaps the only way we can for the moment: Just as the widow whom Jesus praises, we have done what we could, and more, what we know we can.

Tonight included what every trip to New Orleans usually does at least once: a night in the French Quarter. Renowned for its wildlife (the two-legged kind!), the vistas and plumage on this particular tour were only a watered-down version of their previous existence.

Some shops and restaurants have reopened. Many more have signs tacked to quickly-boarded windows, promising to‘re-open in ____’ December, January, spring. The terrific apartments and hotels with second- and third-floor balconies are darkened, appliances sitting on already-narrow sidewalks. The iron scrollwork that gives each building its European character and individual signature is marred, rusted, broken, bent.

But New Orleans being New Orleans, every ‘krewe’ is making its plans for the Mardi Gras parades … Angeli’s on Decatur still serves up good hot food and great live jazz …

Pat O’Brien’s still serves the kind of hurricane people WANT in the Quarter … every street has at least one place to get your your voodoo fix AND a new tattoo (no, Mom, don’t worry) … and Molly’s at the Market still has enough seats to accommodate all your friends for hours of ridiculous chatter and great, deep, heartfelt laughter.

Tomorrow’s our last day of work, then begins the long trek home. More to come, more stories and reflections, a picture here and there, and hopefully a link to a photo album soon.

Thanks for keeping up with us … we feel you with us … thinking about packing your work clothes and tool belt yet?