Lots of Experiences

We have had a pretty intense few beginning days. On Sunday after a wonderful worship service at St. Charles we went on a tour of New Orleans, led by two members of the St. Charles Church. The tour was to last for two hours, but they took us around for nearly four. We saw all of the various neighborhoods of the city, and saw the devastation that happened on all sorts of different levels in the city. It was an emotionally intense day. It is very sad to see so many different people devastated and hurt, so many lives just ripped apart and no way to rebuild, and in some places, such desolation.
At the end of the trip we went through the 9th Ward and the lower 9th Ward. The lower 9th is very sad to go through because there are no structures of homes left. There are a few FEMA trailers, and one of those residents came to talk to our group and to share his story. He shared that twice he tried to get his elderly mother and disabled cousin and rest of family into the Superdome, but they were turned away twice. Having nowhere else to go they returned to their home in the 9th ward. There they were flooded in, and there his mother died and his two young grand-daughters drowned. He showed us photographs and told his story to us. By the 17th street canal break our kids talked to an upper-middle class homeowner who was rebuilding his home one block from the main canal break that flooded New Orleans, in a neighborhood with little left around it and few people rebuilding. He explained he was doing that because they have a mortage on the house and he couldn’t move. Every level of society is affected here, all different types of hardships and pain.

In the evening we drove to D’Iberville where we heard the story of the town of D’Iberville and what happened here. It is another harrowing tale. Today, Monday, our kids worked on homes in D’Iberville, began talking to homeowners and starting to hear what had happened to them. I spent much of the day organizing groups and vetting out details and then trying with a group of kids to mow a lot of grass, weeds, bamboo, and plants that are higher than my head, a lot that does not have a home on it any longer, but needs to be cleared for a slab to be poured for a new one….a lot of land that still has debris on it from August 29, 2005, debris that has not yet been cleared.

Our kids are seeing, hearing, and experiencing a lot. All of the adults on our trip are so impressed with each of them, impressed with their maturity beyond their years, impressed with their faith, impressed with their caring and impressed with their energy. They are ministering to people who are in need and who feel abandoned. They are hearing how important their work is, and our kids are finding out things about themselves and others that they never expected. Here are some pictures from New Orleans and D’Iberville that we are just beginning to assemble…Shannan