Pastor Rich's Blog
Friday, November 2, 2007
We finished today. That is, we almost finished the goal we set for ouselves at the beginning of the week, and non-team members kept walking through the house saying, "I can't believe how much you all have gotten done this week!" The goal was to have the whole house wall-boarded, mudded, sanded and ready for painting. As I said, we almost finished. Ready or not, the tools went back to the Storm Recovery Center at 4 pm and our flights leave for LAX tomorrow.
Verna's daughter Gwen treated us to lunch on our final day, and we presented quilted "prayer squares" to Gwen, Verna and her neighbor Ingrid. We said goodbye several times, promising to come back again and see the house when it is really finished, and inviting Gwen and her husband to visit us when they come to see her sister in San Diego.
Later in the evening we reflected humorously about our new found construction expertise and more seriously about how we had seen Jesus this week, and what new thing we are taking with us from this experience. This was an exceptional work team. We did in fact make great progress on the house. We got along wonderfully, going out of our way to serve one another as well as Verna and her family. And we were touched by New Orleans. We want to come back again. We want others to see what we have seen. We want to tell the story in such a way that the ongoing, decade-or-more-long recovery of New Orleans remains a priority for all of us.
We came. We worked. We worked harder. We learned. We are tired. We are thankful. We are full. We finished our week, but we are not finished.
- Pastor Rich
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Today we learned more. Progress on the house seemed a little slower, as we got down to the detail of filling in all the holes and getting the remaining knooks, corners and closets covered with wall board. We are still ambitious that tomorrow, our last work day, we will have all the walls covered, mudded, sanded and ready for painting by whoever follows us.
Ingrid, a neighbor across the street whose house is being rehabbed by a Connecticut United Church of Christ volunteer team, came over to visit with Gwen and a few others on the porch. The two of them shared the vivid and nightmarish memories of Katrina's aftermath. They followed advice to evacuate, taking with them about three day's worth of clothes. Then they were truly shocked to see news reports of their homes under water. They lost their teaching jobs, all their possessions, and by the time they were able to think about coming back they had used all of their savings, gone through everything set aside for retirement, and had no health coverage. Many of the folks from this neighborhood and neighborhoods all over New Orleans, are resourceful middle class and professional families like any of us in Culver City and Santa Monica. A tsunami or an earthquake would put us in the same situation.
We stopped a little early to drive through the Lower 9th Ward. Previous team members noted that what we now see, two years later, as vacant foundations in fields, they saw one year ago as a jumble of houses, cars and boats piled on top of one another. We returned to Rayne Memorial, get cleaned up, and then had our one touristy evening - dinner in the French Quarter. Bourbon street was lively and loud. Dinner was delicious.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
We worked better today. We wish we had known Monday what we know now, especially in terms of the know-how of wall-board prep and hanging. I have been working with Jim and Paul (both of Santa Monica FUMC) as one wall-board hanging team. Fred and Richard O. are a second wall-board hanging team. Larry has been adding 2x4's to the framing at strategic points to insure that we have good places to anchor the wall board. Anson has been overseeing us all and doing lots of one-person fix-it jobs throughout the house. Disa, Margaret, Judy L. Judy M. (from Westchester UMC), Leslie and Yvonne have been taping seams and applying mud to cover the gaps and screw heads. We are close to having all the wall-board hung, with the exception of the second bathroom that Fred and Richard will tackle tomorrow. Dr. Kendra and Charlie, sometimes accompanied by Margaret and Judy M. have been canvassing neighborhoods to share information about the upcoming medical clinics for the whole community sponsed by United Methodists.
Trick-or-Treaters, children and parents together, were out and about as we returned to Rayne Memorial this evening. At our Vesper service following dinner, Paul D. read from Philippians, "Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice!" We rejoiced together about many things.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
We worked harder today. We were all a little more tired, which could be the cumalitive effect of two consecutive days on the job, or it could because we started earlier and made an effort to get more done ... no doubt both reasons are true.
Lots of people are working hard in New Orleans. I write this sitting in the parlor of Rayne Memorial UMC and listening to their fine choir rehearsing the Faure Requiem with string orchestra. There is vitality in the churches of this city, and the pulse of that vitality is magnified because of what they have been through and how they continue to respond.
Four members of our team have been connecting with the medical outreach that both Bethany UMC and Rayne Memorial UMC are undertaking. Partnering with resources in the community, free clinics are being set up with nurses and doctors on site. Today two of our medical team members attended a neighborhood meeting in the Lower 9th Ward, that part of the city that was the poorest and the most devastated by the storm. At our team vesper service this evening Dr. Kendra shared the strength exuded by the leaders in that community. They have organized in order to have a voice in their future, which they do not envision as the restoration of their community, but the renewal of their community into something better than it was.
Back here at Rayne Memorial it feels a little like Culver-Palms, in that there is something going on all the time. There are community meetings and church meetings, people coming and going to the pre-school, and us volunteers hanging out in the halls as if we lived here ... which of course we do for the week (and there will probably another group moving in next week). The janitor's closet has been outfitted with a shower, as has a restroom in the pre-school part of the building, with a sign that says it is only to be used after 4 pm (when school is over). The men are camped-out in the choir room, which means that the choir members walked around our suitcases and sleeping bags in order to get their music on the way to rehearse in the sanctuary. It is a nice building, but the folks are very hospitable to strangers such as ourselves hanging out in their sacred spaces. For such hospitality we are very thankful.
Monday, October 29, 2007
We worked today. We first went to the Uptown Storm Recovery Center of the Lousiana Conference of the United Methodist Church for orientation, assignment and all the tools we would need. Again I was gratified and impressed that the Church is efficient, dedicated, alive, faithful, faith-centered and crucial to the ongoing recovery effort. I learned again what I already knew, that when we speak of UMCOR as United Methodists, we are speaking about ourselves. UMCOR is about 5 fulltime staff persons in partnership with the rest of us, and when a disaster happens in Louisiana, the United Methodists in Louisiana become UMCOR, put their own significant resources together with the significant resources the rest of us contribute through UMCOR, take cues, directions and suggestions from the UMCOR leadership and then run with it. Disaster Recovery has become the major mission of the Louisiana Conference and they are doing it well.
Then we went to Verna's house in the 7th Ward, on the way driving through blocks and blocks of devastated neighborhoods, wondering as we drove how many times over again the 40,000 United Methodist volunteers (in the last 2 years) and all the other volunteers will need to come back to New Orleans before the city will be restored. The first work team came to Verna's house last week. They were United Methodists from Salinas and Concord, so they are getting familiar with Californians. We were greeted by Verna, age 80, and her daughter Gwen. This persistent family is putting together all the resources they can muster to restore the shotgun duplex that has been in the family for generations. A contractor just finished replacing all the windows while we were there today. They have had less success with other contractors, who have so many job offers that they often start a job and then go on to the next one without ever finishing what they started. The families that United Methodists are helping have made use of insurance, FEMA emergency assistance and loans, and still have a gap to arrive at some kind of recovery, which, for Verna, means being able to live in her home again. She is now in a FEMA trailer sandwiched in the small space between her house and the neighbor. She sat on the front step and told us stories of her family on this particular block of New Orleans, her present fears, and her hope that more families and perhaps a grocery store will return.
We are amateurs, but we have some skilled and resourceful leaders who are helping us all do a quality job. It was a good kind of tired that we felt at the end of our first day. We expect to pick up speed as we get into the routine of measuring, cutting, hanging, fastening, taping and finishing the drywall.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
We did "church" today. We did church and then we did church some more. The Chapel at Rayne Memorial was full with about 75 people at the early 8:45 am communion service. The music was familiar and well done, the children's sermon engaging and creative, the sermon by the Director of the Wesley Foundation at Tulane University (down the block and across the street) was insightful and used memorable images. We did not rush through the communion service, but somehow all was completed in 60 minutes.
Then we took a 20 minute drive to Bethany UMC and arrived early for their 11 am service in celebration of Bethany's 50th anniversary. The service started promptly at 11 am and concluded right on time at 2:50 pm. We were fed so well spiritually that we did not miss lunch. Our presence and past contribution as work teams from Santa Monica and Culver-Palms were graciously recognized, even though there were many recognitions to be made ... Louisiana UMC Bishop Hutchinson, the Conference Provost, the former District Superintendent, work team members from Paradise Valley UMC in Arizona, and a large contingent from Swope UMC in Kansas City, whose choir and lay leaders came with their pastor who was the inspired preacher of the morning. Jim Krause presented the Altar Bible that had been so lovingly restored by Santa Monica FUMC. After the service we connected with Elvetta Dickerson, who is overseeing the "socks, undies & jammies" children's mission project, who gratefully received the suitcases full of in kind offerings from Culver-Palms along with the gift cards our children made.
In preparation for this 50th celebration, leaders challenged the members of the church to each make a special $1000 anniversary gift, with a goal of $100,000 over and above the regular tithes and offerings. At the close of the service the finance team announced gifts totaling $129,477.70.
Driving to and from Bethany, we saw vacant and boarded homes next to others that looked recently refurbished, manicured and occupied. There are more vacant ones that occupied ones, but past work team members were gratified to see the noticeable difference - slowly the community is returning. One cannot escape the conclusion that New Orleans is still a severely wounded city. We are all wounded, and we must still all participate in the healing. The people of Bethany UMC are leading the way, grateful for our partnership.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
The joint Culver-Palms/Santa Monica UMC Gulf Coast Work team arrived at the Louis Armstrong Memorial Airport in New Orleans on Saturday, October 27, in the afternoon. via various flights. Jim Krause, Anson Nordby and Leslie Nordby arrived the day before to, among other things, buy groceries to feed the 14 member team for a week and to arrange our transportation. They met our flights and took us to Rayne Memorial United Methodist Church in the St. Charles district of New Orleans.
Rayne Memorial has hosted scores of volunteer teams in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. The hallway between the kitchen and fellowship hall features the map to the right (click on the picture for a larger image), pinpointing all the places from which volunteers have come, and listing all the teams by name to the left of the map. We inflated air mattresses for the men in the choir room and the women in the youth lounge. Jim Krause started cooking the vegetable soup and Richard Osby (pictured) and I cut up onions, peppers, tomatoes and potatoes.
After dinner Anson handed us 70-pages of photocopied instructions for hanging, taping and finishing drywall. We will go to our United Methodist Storm Recovery Center on Monday to receive an orientation and receive an assignment to help rebuild a home.
We will attend the early worship service in the Chapel here at Rayne Memorial and then go to the 11 a.m. service at Bethany UMC, where we will join their 50th anniversary celebration.
