Spring Break 2006 Work Day 4

Work day 4 began with breakfast and a devotional by David Geiger. Then one work crew of five folks went to finish cleaning up Robert’s house and everyone else went to work on the sanctuary of the church.

When we first arrived in New Orleans on Sunday evening, Cliff shared that he was thinking about having his Sunday service in the sanctuary on Easter Sunday, but he was undecided due to the amount of work that still needed to be done. Therefore, we determined to that we would do whatever we had to in order that the sanctuary was ready.

We divided the sanctuary work between three work crews:

One to focus on the chancel – putting down a new sub-floor, replacing the steps and cleaning the pulpit.

FPCNO Chancel gets a new sub-floor and a clean pulpit.

One to the main sanctuary to clean the floor and columns.

Cleaning the floor of the sanctuary was hard work.

One to the Narthex to restoring the wood to its natural color, some painting and cleaning the marble floors.

When we finished around 7 PM on Thursday, there was still work to be done but the sanctuary was looking much, much better and Cliff had definitely decided by then that Easter services would be held there. We had dinner Thursday evening with several members of FPCNO, who told us their Katrina stories. Robert joined us for dinner as well and he was a different person than the man we met on Monday morning. He was smiling and enjoying himself. We presented him with a FPC Marietta T-shirt and told him he didn’t have to become a Presbyterian but we that we wanted him to come to Cliff’s Easter service. After dinner, the church members wanted to see the sanctuary and were very excited about the progress we had made.

That’s when the hand of God reached out and touched the FPC mission team to let us know He was in our midst. Thursday night was Wendy Trippe’s turn to lead the Reflection and she had decided that as a closing to her Reflection, we should all go down to the freshly cleaned up sanctuary and pray as a group for God’s blessing as FPCNO opened its doors to the public on Easter Sunday.

Dr. Nunn and his wife Nieta chose to join us for our final reflection and we all walked down to the sanctuary, formed a circle, joined hands and prayed around the circle, our individual prayers of thankfulness, for Cliff, for our projects and for blessings on their sanctuary. At the conclusion of the prayer, David Griffith, our guitar man for the trip, appropriately began playing, and we began singing, “Lord prepare me to be a sanctuary”.

As we were singing, Cliff’s wife, Nieta, all of a sudden left the group and practically ran through the front door. We weren’t sure what to think, but several seconds later, she appeared in the loft over the chancel and was furiously tugging at a large piece of plastic that was covering…. an organ. As she was rapidly flipping switches, Bill Zercher astutely told Dave to play one more verse of "Sanctuary" and as soon as we finished, Nieta began playing, “Joyful, Joyful, We adore thee”. Never did it sound so good and spontaneous cheers erupted from the group on the floor.

Tears welled up in many team members’ eyes and we knew at that moment that the words Jesus said to Peter – “Upon this rock I will build my church and all the powers of hell will not conquer it” – were never more true.

We knew that Cliff would open the doors of that sanctuary on Easter Sunday morning and the light of the resurrected Christ would shine brightly into the darkened city of New Orleans.

Finally, we knew God was there with us and honoring the work we did in His name.

Spring Break 2006 Work Day 3

Wednesday, April 5th, was a little different schedule-wise. We started our day with a devotional by Susan Merrick where she shared that, just as we find God in the rebirth of Spring, we can also find God in the rebirth of New Orleans. Then we all went down to cafe Du Monde in the French Quarter for some of their world-famous beignets and coffee.

Waiting for Beignets at Cafe Du Monde

Afterward, we set out for a day committed to completing most of the projects we were working on because we had decided as a team that we wanted to devote Thursday to insuring that the sanctuary of FPCNO was in good enough shape to for Cliff to conduct his service there on Easter Sunday. So that morning we completed our work on Elaine's house, the yard at FPCNO, and Peace Presbyterian Church and all returned to FPCNO for lunch and showers since Cliff was taking us on a tour of the damage done to New Orleans that afternoon. We were all encouraged to see that Robert was starting to loosen up and become attached to us. He joined us on the tour.

Dr. Cliff Nunn provides us with an in-depth tour of what happened in New Orleans

The tour impacted all of us. The amount of damage done to New Orleans cannot be adequately told by CNN. We took a tour around the entire city of New Orleans making stops at four different Presbyterians churches - each in different states of repair and clean up, and the Ninth Ward. While many areas of town sustained significant damage, nothing else compared to the utter destruction we witnessed in the Ninth Ward. It is lowland with many houses that were already aging near where a couple of the levee breaks occurred. Virtually every structure in the area is irreparable, dozens of cars were turned over, debris is everywhere and the area is desolate. It is hard to believe that lots of people lived here less than a year ago.

The extent of the devastation in the 9th Ward was unbelievable

Once we completed this very sobering tour, we returned to the church. Immediately after eating our pizza dinner Wednesday evening, we started working on preparing the FPCNO sanctuary for Easter Sunday service.

Realizing the extent of the damage to this great city, many of us wondered how the little bit that our group would accomplish in one week could make any difference at all. However, our evening ended with David Griffith leading our reflection by singing a number of songs that reminded us that God is greater than all the devastation we had seen and that He uses all of our work in His name - however little it might be - to serve His purposes.

Sunday - Homeward Bound

We made it through the night just fine. We are very grateful that the storm either missed us or wasn't as bad as forecast. We went back to the PDA camp for a quick breakfast and discovered that the storm had moved one of the pods that they had not been able to secure before the storm.



The drive home was uneventful and we got back about 5:30 pm to discover that the City of Marietta had thrown a welcome home party for us. (the annual 'Taste of Marietta' ). Well, it seemed that way to us anyway.

Our prayer is that we have demonstrated God's love throughout this trip. We encourage each of you to find a way to serve wherever you can. You will be rewarded in ways beyond your imagination. Praise God!

Saturday - Pearlington

Our final work day of this mission trip.
Many of the groups that were in camp when we got here on Thursday night left yesterday or today,so we were the only group out working today. We went back to the same house that we started yesterday and continued hanging sheetrock. We made more progess today than yesterday and by the end of the day we had finished the kitchen, the pantry, a small closet, one low wall in the entry hallway and one wall in the great room. All in all we think we did a pretty good job. It certainly looks different than when we started on Friday morning.



We got Pat and Jamie to tell us their story of the hurricane. When the water started rising and coming in the house, they thought it might only get a couple of feet deep. As the water continued to rise, they moved to the upper level. They have a beautiful german shepherd named Zeke who was about one year old at the time.



As the water rose, he was sitting on the sofa as it started to float around the living room. Since he had never been taught to climb the stairs, they had to carry him upstairs. As the water continued to rise, they made their way onto the roof over the garage and from there to the second story roof. They were on the roof for about an hour, when a neighbor who had a boat picked them up and carried them to a house in the neighborhood that is on stilts. It is also on a slight rise, so it was higher than their house.The house had been for sale for four years and was vacant so they broke a window to get in. About 35 people, 15 dogs and 1 cat spent the next three days in the house before the National Guard brought them meals ready to eat (MRE) and
drinking water. (The flood waters had receded in about eight hours.) When the police showed up in five days, they told them that there was food,water and ice in Waveland which is about 15 miles from Pearlington. The survivors explained to the police that no one had a working vehicle. The police took their two cars to Waveland and loaded them to the top with food, water, and ice and brought it back to the residents. Makes our day to day problems seem kind of insignificant.

Pat and Jamie have been 'recovering' for the last eight months. Jamie admitted that it was often discouraging to see the slow pace of recovery, but that the only way to make things better is to just keep working and to not feel sorry for yourself. They were very appreciative of the work that we did for them and even offered us the use of their trailer to take showers or to sleep if we were uncomfortable at the PDA camp.

When we got back to camp, a group of eight ladies from New York city had arrived to work for a week, so we had company for dinner (hamburgers on the grill). As this is being written (about 8:45 pm local time), we are under a severe thunderstorm/tornado watch and may have to evacuate to the local elementary school which is about three miles away. It appears that the storm may be going north of us, but we will just have to wait and see. Most of us are sitting in the main food tent waiting for storm updates. We have already had one short but very intense rain storm.

Now at 9:30 pm we are told we are being evacuated to the school so we pack up all our stuff and drive to the school. It was converted to a relief center after the storm and is still functioning as that today.



We are sleeping in the auditorium on cots and it is actually pretty comfortable. The gym was converted into a distribution center for free food and clothing and other supplies. They named it 'Pearl Mart'. One of the signs in Pearl Mart said 'We will not be undersold'.



You just never know what adventures await you on a mission trip!

Check out tomorrow's posting to see how we did.

Good night from Pearlington!

Friday - Pearlington

Up at 6:30 for breakfast. The funny thing about breakfast was that they had breakfast burritos. We thought were back in Mexico!. They have a well stocked pantry that is open 24/7 if you get hungry.

After breakfast, we got our work assignment for the day, which was hanging sheetrock. We got this job because we are 'skilled' laborers. At least that is what we told the camp director. Anyway, this is a much better job than 'mucking out' a house which is the process of removing all the moldy, smelly sheetrock or other wall covering and insulation and in general cleaning up. It is hard to believe (unless you have been here) that 8 months after the storm there are still homes that need to have this done. Although many houses have been done and reconstruction has started on some, there are still those where almost nothing has been done. Of course, some of the houses are so badly damaged that they cannot be salvaged and are just waiting to be demolished.

We are working for a family that lives about two miles from the camp. Wheb the storm hit, they had just celebrated their one year anniversary of owning their home.



They have FEMA trailer to live in while the house is being repaired and while the trailer is nice enough, it is pretty cramped for long term living.

We started hanging sheetrock in the kitchen. From this picture you can see that the water level got to the second level of their home (notice where the sheetrock has been removed on the upper wall).



They have done a lot to repair their home so far, but like many people here they have limited resources. We are the first outside help that they have had. Fortunately, between our tools, those of the PDA camp and the homeowner and their neighbors, we had everything we needed for sheetrock work. They even had borrowed a device to lift and hold up the sheetrock. Makes it much easier to do the ceiling!

We knocked off at 11:30 for lunch at the First Missionary Baptist Church.



This is their pastor, Reverend Rawls and Brian.



These fine Christian brothers and sisters are feeding lunch to 100-300 people Monday through Friday using voluntary contributions of food, money and cooking.



Here are the two ladies who prepare the food.



What a wonderful example of Christian service! And when we say lunch, we are not talking about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a glass of milk. Here is a picture of one of our plates.



They had fruit salad, potato salad, biscuits, fried catfish, boiled crawfish, red beans and rice, pork and beans and peach cobbler. Talk about Southern hospitality.

Here is a picture of the inside of their church.



As you can see, it needs a lot of work. They are raising money to rebuild, but it is not a large congregation. If you can, please send them a contribution to help with rebuilding their church. First Missionary Baptist Church, Pearlington, MS 39572 should be enough address (Pearlington is not very big).

After lunch, we continued hanging sheetrock and made good progress. We will go back on Saturday and should be able to complete a significant portion of the downstairs.

Before dinner, we rode over to Waveland, MS. Along the beach, there was complete destruction. Check out the October entries in this blog to see some pictures. Just like in Pearlington, not much has changed since October. Some houses are being rebuilt, but most are not. Christ Episcopal church now has a quonset hut type structure to worship in.

Here is the link to another blog about the work in Pearlington

http://www.pearlington.blogspot.com

Tomorrow (Saturday) is our last day here at Pearlington, and then we will be headed home.

Thursday - On the road again

Having finished our work in Monterrey, we headed for home early Thursday morning leaving the hotel at 4:30 am. We dropped off two of the team at the Monterrey airport and then headed for the border which is about a 2 hour drive. There is always some anxiety about the trip out of Mexico, since we have to pass 'Check point Charlie' just as we did on the way in. This is the interior border and is about 12 miles from the actual border. Here they often check us out and look in the trailer for who knows what. Fortunately, this year we got the green light and drove through. Next stop is the vehicle registration bureau where we turn in our vehicle permit. One more toll bridge and then the entry into the US where we also sometimes get searched. This year they looked in the trailer but did not make us take anything out.

We were back in the good ole USA by about 8:30 am so we celebrated by going to McDonalds for juice and coffee. (Of course we could have gone to McDonalds in Monterrey because they have plenty of them). Our first real stop in Texas is our favorite barbeque restaurant, Cowpokes in Pearsall for an early lunch. Then on to the San Antonio airport where we dropped off two more members of the team. The remaining five of us then headed east to try and get through Houston before rush hour. There seems to be a continuous work project on I-10 in downtown Houston and maybe they will actually finish it one of these years. Anyway, we made pretty good time and arrived in Lake Charles, LA for our favorite seafood restaurant, Steamboat Bill's. Great fried shrimp and boiled crawfish. If it is true that an army travels on its stomach, then so does a mission team! Then back in the van to try to make it to Pearlington, MS.
Before we left home, we had arranged to stop in Pearlington at the Presbyterian
Disaster Assistance (PDA) Katrina work camp and work on Friday and Saturday. We arrived right on time at 10:30 pm after riding in the van for 18 hours. This is one of the newer PDA camps having only been setup in January. Pealington is right on the Mississippi Louisiana border and was 'wiped off the map' according to the news folks. Well, it is still there, but there is plenty of devastation and plenty of work to be done in helping these people get their lives back to some sense of normal. The camp director was up waiting for us and promptly got us settled in our pods (shelters) for some much needed rest.