Reflections

Finally I have had a chance to sit down, relax and contemplate the experience of last week.

I arrived back in LAX after my fellow LA crew as I was booked on a later flight. This meant that I had a chance to spend a day in New Orleans and to catch up with some old friends at The Southern Rep Theatre. A theatre now presenting a play on pre and post Katrina. When agreeing to go on this mission it never occured to me that we would be near New Orleans. A town in which I had stayed and worked in on numerous occasions in 2005...just six months before Katrina hit.

It was a relief to see New Orleans as I remembered it and business I was told is up.

What haunted me more than the devastation of where we were was the 50-100 mile stretch of empty towns and villages from Waveland to New Orleans. Houses still standing but desolate. No electricity, no cars, just the shells of empty houses still with water damaged furniture and family possessions left behind. Where are those people? Apparently many people left and have just not returned and all that is left are miles and miles of ghost towns.

It has taken me a long time to gather my feelings into some sort of comprehensive form. I did not have the immediate contact with many of the people we were helping as I was with a small group of people called the 'sparkies'. There were just the five of us. Rick from HUMC, myself, and three from San Diego and we travelled from house to house sometimes just in pairs linking up the wiring. Climbing attics to find which wire was which. We installed new light fittings, one chandalier, smoke alarms, plug sockets, three way switches and all that fun stuff for those who know anything about electrics. What was exciting was that after we left most houses the only thing to follow would be an inspection and then the family were ready to move into their new homes. And they were beautiful houses. We really did get to see the final product. Unfortunately, as we were working on numerous houses we often did not get the chance to develop a close tie with the family waiting to move in and in some cases never even met them.

However, Rick and I were both honoured to meet The Parnell Family. Possibly moving into their new home this week after waiting twenty months. Ray was in his 80's and was one of the kindest people you could ever wish to meet. At 83 he had laid the linoleum in the kitchen on his own and yet he walks with a stick and has benign cancer. His wife had had a stroke the week before. He lived in a small FEMA trailer with his daugher and two grandchildren...4 and 6 years old. His daughter had lost her third child after Katrina as it had to be aborted at seven months as the heart had stopped. Her husband had left his kids and wife and is now out of the State with an ex-girlfriend.

That family have a special place (and I know I can speak for Rick here) in both our hearts. And it was a joy to know that soon they will be moving in. They have a house however, but very little furniture. And this is something I wish to point out. Although these people have houses to move into most have little or no furniture. One family from Idaho had driven for two days to Mississippi, dropped off a truck load of furniture and then headed straight back to Idaho. There is a need for people to do this!!!Many people in Mississippi own nothing.

One wall in Ray's laundry room was unpainted and there imprinted on the wall were the handprints of over fifty people from all over the States who had at some time been there to help in the construction of the house. Each was dated with a message of love. Ray's eyes would fill with tears every time he showed us this. It was his pride and joy. His greatest possession. A wall with the handprints of those who had helped in the rebuilding of his home. Rick and I had the honor to leave our handprints there.

It was a strange week for me. I have worked on other missions around the world and have seen so much extreme poverty from war torn countries that I felt uneasy about the easiness of my work here in Mississippi as we drove our comfortable truck from house to house. I felt ashamed of the luxury in which we lived, the extravagence of our own lives as we ate well and went shopping and also for the amount of happiness exuding from everyone including myself. Added to the beauty of the area it sometimes verged onto the edge of becoming a vacation.

I have thought deeply on the above and prayed for understanding. To which, finally I have some answers.

Maybe it is worse to know possessions and wealth and lose everything than to never have owned anything.

With extreme poverty each little gift of food and water is so precious. Every day is a battle for survival.

But to know a certain level of comfort and by that I mean to have a roof over your head, food, electricity....or in the case of Ray and his family to have known reasonable wealth and then to lose EVERYTHING....how does a person deal with that? To assume if your house is damaged you have insurance....to assume that if there was a tragedy in your country you are part of one of the richest countries in the world and that you will be taken care of...to assume that you have all you need to live a healthy life and then find that one unexpected tragedy leaves you with nothing...and things that you assumed would happen never came through.

So many of these people are dealing with the above and how they cope from day to day is a miracle. The anger, the loss, for some the realisation that they were deceived by the insurance companies...it is this that must surely break the spirit. And yet this is where I saw God's power at work. As the government agencies pull out their support and funding in June this year the church groups continue to come in and help. Why, when the other agencies are pulling out?

I have two answers. First is the obvious reason that there is still much to be done and help is still needed. But secondly it is a tragedy such as this that bonds people both rich and poor alike and gives meaning to our existence beyond the quest for materialistic gain. What joy there was in Waveland. Both at the Missionary camp and also with the people of Mississippi. It was a joy created from the need to be loved and to give love. And it was the people who gave most love who received most back. Now life had a meaning. Community, friendship, people united by a common goal.

I spent my evenings at Waveland talking and getting to know the San Diego group. Why were they here? What had called them to give up a week to join the LA group? And I heard the same story over and over again. These people too had hurt and pain that they were running from or were trying to heal. As the days went by there were more and more smiling faces. We talked about our faith, we tried to understand the tragedy of Katrina and how it related to our understanding of God and his power, we talked of our fears, lives and our Christian journey. We questioned and we prayed. Someone said that each night as he lay in bed he felt honoured that he got to listen to two or three sermons as the ministers he shared a room with discussed their faith and where they saw the future of the church.

It was here that I was most moved. There was tragedy all around us in Mississippi but there was tragedy in each individual who came to help. There were so many broken souls and hurting hearts that I could not help wondering who was healing who. What does our modern life styles do to us? We rush around all day, keeping busy so as not to face the demons within us. And yet when we stop and look around we not only start to understand our own pain but also the pain in others. When we then reach out to those people the healing process can begin for both parties. We start to unite with others in our search for meaning, strength and love. This then surely becomes God's work...if only we could live like that day to day...but life in the modern city does not encourage us to do so.

For anyone who is looking for meaning to life helping others who are bereft will help you. But if you choose to wallow in your own misery you will never release the love that you have that is so powerful to others in it's healing and will be returned to you magnified.

Our last night together was special. Each person relayed to the group their feelings and experiences:- some spoke coherantly others were almost unable to speak as the emotion was too great. After communion the leader likened the experience to the moment when the disciples gathered after Jesus' ressurrection. They understood one another and the profound experience they had gone through. Something that would bond them together as they moved back into the world. This was true Christianity. No religious dogma, no exclusions, no antagonism. This was love. Love with it's true purpose to heal and to bring one another together in the Holy Spirit.

It is a shame that it sometimes takes a tragedy for us to understand the deeper meanings of life: To discover our strength, our power to heal, to give and receive, and to be unified in the common purpose of loving our neighbor as ourself in the name of Jesus Christ.