Eye Heart NOLA

Rebuilding New Orleans, Still.
Is that powdered sugar  from a biegnet on your chin or drywall dust?  My husband and I decided to do a Matt Deed (in honor of his recently deceased brother). A Matt Deed is an act of kindness that stretches you in ways that yoga poses cannot. But that’s how we ended up going to New Orleans and working on Katrina rebuilding projects.
We joined work crews from Urban Impact at Castlerock Church in Center City.
Anyway, when we told many of our Windy City friends about our plans,  many had the same response, “They haven’t cleaned that city up yet?”
Ya see, in Chicago, we’re too busy complaining about potholes and the Cubs to think about anyone else.
So for a week, we joined crews with Castlerock Church and Urban Impact.
While the biegnets in the French Quarter were as tasty as ever, some parts of New Orleans looked like time has sat still since the fall of 2005. These aren’t the pictures you peep at a tourism website. The spray painted “search circles” were still on the front of homes in the 7th Ward, along with rusty water lines from where the flood waters settled. While rehab efforts were happening, they would be as sporadic as a four leaf clover amongst the weeds: one freshly painted rehabbed house would be nestled between an abandoned home and a recently bull-dozed apartment complex. So many neighborhoods were struggling for identities—should we be rebuilding or re-locating?
Our week-long project was  rebuilding a small church, The Rock Of Ages, in the 7th Ward. For the most part, it was a “feel-good, warm-and-fuzzy” experience, the stuff that makes up McDonald’s commercials and political speeches. We met FEMA trailer survivors, people who were rescued from their attics, families who lost everything but their hope. One man said to us, “It’s easier for the poor to survive than the rich. We already know how to make it on nothin’. The rich do not.”
But working on Katrina Rebuilding also brought up questions that you’re afraid to have. Ones about social injustice, government flub ups, and just how many germs lurk in a port-potty?
But my biggest question dealt with noticing an able body man who sat across the church every day, just watching us and nursing his forty ounce.
I wanted to scream out, “Hey—why aren’t you helping?  This is YOUR neighborhood—and only MY vacation! Shouldn’t I be the one sipping an umbrella drink watching YOU?”
That’s when it hit me that while we can rehab a neighborhood, only God can rehab the heart, my heart included.
All in all, it was an eye-opening experience. But now I’m back in Chicago, where the extent of my problems consist of rush hour delays and over starched shirts from the cleaners. But I refuse to let New Orleans leave our minds and hearts.
If you have the chance to help with the Katrina Rebuilding project, by all means do it. Send a team or send a few bucks.  Peep our project director’s blog here. Or put a word in to the Big Guy for those helping out.

Comments

[Amy]

Ginger, I'm really psyched you had a chance to change the world for a week. Thanks for sharing your story. "American Idol" made sure that everyone knew what was up in New Orleans during "Idol Gives Back".

But I would much rather hear it from you than overpaid celebrities. :)