a word from Johnny

February 26 Week of Compassion update
WOC Director Visits Hurricane Area

Dear Friends,

How interesting, perplexing, satisfying, disheartening, energizing...to have spent this week traveling across the Gulf South, visiting communities, churches, pastors, mission stations and hurricane related recovery partners - all while so many of our congregations are in the midst of their 2007 Week of Compassion observances and celebrations. What a multitude of emotions!

It is disheartening to see still so much destruction and so little recovery progress in community after community across Mississippi and Louisiana. It is maddening to see casinos and high-rise luxury condominiums well underway, even completed and occupied, while thousands upon thousands of homeowners have yet to receive their fair insurance settlements. It is perplexing to drive down I-59 from Hattiesburg to New Orleans and see acres and acres of farmland packed fencerow to fencerow with FEMA trailers and then visit with a displaced couple living in the dining room of the still-to-be-repaired home of their grandkids.

And yet, how energizing to visit, for example, First Christian Church, Slidell, LA, and their pastor, Susan Lassalle - a church we might have lost after Katrina but that now is growing, working together, reaching out to the community, hosting work groups week after week, looking to the future with hope and excitement. How encouraging to stop and chat with work groups from all across the church (this week I ran into Disciples from OK, MO, OH, IL, TX and IN) that are repairing homes, building churches, making lasting friendships, enriching the lives of work team members, and even bringing new life to their congregations back home! How deeply satisfying to visit with a director of a local long-term recovery partner, struggling to meet payroll and to pay for the ever rising costs of materials, yet vowing she won't close shop until the last unmet need is met.

Our theme this year is "Who is my neighbor?" I met a lot of our neighbors this week. Some of our neighbors, still in the ditch, needing "oil and wine." Some at "the inn," longing to go home. I met some of our neighbors who have traveled long distances and work hard from dawn to dusk to bind wounds. I met others who are working every day to make the road from Jericho to Jerusalem a little safer so folk won't keep getting knocked down and beaten up. And I keep meeting folk like you all across our church who give their denaris and dollars to Week of Compassion so we Disciples can continue to be neighbors in Mississippi and Louisiana, in Mozamibue and Nicaragua, in Darfur and Indonesia - wherever there are people, God's people, whose needs lay a claim on our compassion.

turnaround

Today, our intrepid team turns around and begins the homeward journey. It will be good to have them back, safe and sound in their own homes and beds, having spent the week working hard to see that OTHERS could be safe and sound in theirs

The report today was of some touring of the area, to note the progress ... or lack of it. Fascinating things to consider:

On our very first trip to New Orleans, 90 days after the storm, was all about demo. Tear out. Gutting. Mud and sludge and filth and mold and rip-and-tear labor. The last two days of our team's work was with the poignantly insightful Mrs. Simmons. We cleared out debris, tore out everything including appliances, and peeled the house back to its foundation and framing.

Would you like to see Mrs. Simmons house as Jim photographed it this morning -- eighteen months after the storm? Ta - da ! Look! You can see the foundation! and the framing! Unbelievable. Unbelievable ... and so. completely. wrong.

Not quite the 'turnaround' we'd hoped for, is it?! The need for help is so much bigger than we can imagine ... and so much more than we can meet on our own ... and yet we are there.

We contribute to the mission fund.

We pack our bag and get in the van and make the trip.

We provide a meal for family left here at home while another goes off to serve.

The need is great, but God is greater. And God is there through people like these -- people like YOU.

We are there working week by week, group by group, house by house ... praying and praying and working and praying some more. Praying and working for justice, for healing, and for hope.

moving right along

You know how sometimes you travel out of town, for business or vacation or whatever? And you don't take the kids along, so you call home to check on them and you're talking to one and there's one in the background talking to you at the same time and it all turns into this scrambled jumbled mess?

Well today's lunchtime chat was a little like that, except I am here and the 'kids' are gone. Exchanged quick emails with Jim today and then caught up midday to say hello by phone.

Jim: We're on to a new house today, everyone's in really great spirits. We feel like we're making an impact. It's raining today, but we have lots of work to do inside. This house is close to move-in condition ... a little paint and trim, some electrical and plumbing, the appliances are sitting here in place ... they're really close.

I asked if they'd gone across the lake last night (into Nawlin's) ... it WAS Mardi Gras after all. (Jim had said the day they left, "We may be the only group ever to go to New Orleans the week of Mardi Gras and not go FOR Mardi Gras!" Hey, what happens in Nawlin's ... ) Come to think of it, he didn't say "no" ... But he DID say that after a day of wrestling new sheds onto foundations and frames, the crew went OUT for dinner last night ... sometimes 'do it yourself' dinner, after a heavy-duty day of labor, is just more than you can face. I hear there was cheesecake involved ...

So Jim passes the phone to whoever's nearby ... Janet's next.
Except I couldn't hear more than every other sentence because SOMEONE (and I have a bet) was yammering at her in the background. Apparently John and Janet have been sharing a 10x10 room, painting ... and there was something about if I'd been there I would have been able to keep them under control (yeah, DOUBT that) ...

I did manage to catch two things just before she said goodbye ... "That Dana's a hard worker! She's really goin' to town!"

And then ... check, check, is this thing on? ... "We're really having a great time. I don't know why more people don't volunteer." (Helloooo out there?!)

So John comes along and says that he's really taking one for the team this week, and that Janet apparently should be asked to sing a solo the weekend they return from the trip because she's been getting quite the practice in during their work days ... in their 10x10 room. "Jim says I get a medal."

Jim takes the phone one more time and reports, "So like I said, obviously everyone is in really high spirits." Checking on the other new kid not heard from yet, I asked after Dave ... and was told that he is apparently doing all the work and everyone else is sitting around looking good for it. So, Dave Sterling, working away in your corner ... here's to you!

we're here

Our faithful servants arrived in Covington, LA on Sunday afternoon. As you saw on the map, Covington is straight north across Lake Ponchatarain from New Orleans. To give you some idea, this means the damage in the Covington/Slidell areas were more from the storm itself, and surges out of the surrounding water, than from the ruptured levees and standing water as in New Orleans itself.

Work began in earnest on Monday morning with the Speedway Christian Church gang headed to one project, and the Geist crew working with our Northshore partners.

Jim reports:

Well, as it turns out, we're not actually working with George and Dixie {Smith, from Carmel Christian Church, who we worked with during the April '06 Beaumont trip}, but we get to see them every night. The Speedway group gets to work with them.

We got sent to the Northshore Disater Recovery group and they assigned us a project.

Our homeowner is Levette. Her mother is in her 80s with a brain tumor. Her father died the morning Katrina made landfall. Levette tried to get him to the emergency room but didn't get there in time. She came home and rode out the storm in the house with mom. Levette's out of work, her and her mom get by on a small social security check.

The house was badly damaged: rooms, walls, etc. The only saving grace is that the water was only 2 feet of storm surge and receded in a few hours. Groups before us have fixed most of the house. Dave put in some basedboards and we've got a ceiling fan, ceiling tiles, and some inside odd jobs tomorrow.

But the big kahuna job here was clearing the remains of a 12'x24' storage shed/garage. The tree that hit the house took the shed out completely. We hauled the rotted wood and contents from it most of the day to clear the concrete slab to put in 2 new smaller mini-barn style storage sheds.

Here, John and Dana are hauling stuff away early in the day.
And here, progress! John with the pile as it starts to shrink.
Sounds like they're off to a roaring start ... and see? They don't miss me at all! :-)

More to come ...

first of 7 - in '07

A little different look to the departure, THIS trip

than to the last trip.

I hope you'll keep in your prayers this week the first of our "7 in '07" Partners in Comfort mission trippers: Jim Minatel (Nov '05, Apr '06) and Janet Annest (Sept '06), trip veterans and leaders, plus three "new kids", Dana Conner, John Smitha, and Dave Sterling. They'll spend the week housed out of Grace Disciples of Christ Church in Covington, working each day with Northshore Disaster Recovery, a United Methodist mission partner, in Slidell.

It would be lying if I said I didn't miss being in the van ... and they just left 15 minutes ago! They've promised to send updates and pictures, though, so keep in touch here for all the news from the trip (well, all the news that's fit to print!).

But it would also be lying if I said that this wasn't EXACTLY what we had in mind in creating the idea and the mission of Partners in Comfort: increasing the circle of commitment and leadership into our community, and connecting our community to others.

Fifteen trips over a two year period will be a lot:
A lot of people.
A lot of money.
A lot of prayer.
And a lot of hope brought to a community STILL - more than a year later - devastated by losses of unimaginable proportions.

The commitment of this congregation, and so many like us, to spend the time ... and the money ... and the spiritual and physical energy to make a difference, is such a gift.

As we said to those who just packed up and headed out, "You are the hands and feet of Christ in the world, and it is a profound responsibility and wonderful gift … make the most of it!"