This year was again a different experience. I decided to go back because I really enjoy the spiritual part of this journey. It is really good for us mainline protestants to grapple with the question “Where Did You See God Today.” Consequently, I decided to devote most of my time to helping the mission center build a better website. You can see the results of this work at “www.wheredidyouseegodtoday.com.” We did not spend a lot of time on the design. The main focus was to create a structure that would allow participants could share their stories and create a better idea of what happens, than we could creating fixed promotional pages. Of course the mission center wanted to make sure that they could easily ensure that posts were appropriate to the subject at hand and that they did not contain profanity. You know, all those things you open yourself up to when you let the public make comments.
Nevertheless, I got to see some of the city.
The first year we went to the lower 9th, I saw the bright red roof of an older pizza hut. I thought, surely they must be open. It looks clean. When we drove by, I was sad to see that one of my favorite chains, was indeed minus location. This year that same Pizza Hut sits there, unused, and apparently uncared for. A few blocks away I could see termite damage from the street in selected buildings.
Pocked throughout the neighborhoods stretching alongside the interstate from near Slidell to the West Bank bridge are homes that that look like they could fall over at any time. They can probably stand there for 30 years, but they are still uncared for. Even on the West Bank, where the levees did not break from Katrina, there are building sitting blackened eyes instead of windows.
In comparison, the at least one Vietnamese Community was well on its way to being re-established during our first visit, 3 years ago. They had a specific rebuilding plan and moved back in stages. Each stage brought back only the people that were necessary for the task of that stage. Each stage laid a foundation on which the following stages could build. (1. Clean out enough of a place for a small group to live. 2. make that space more habitable, so that a few more can come back. 3) When a few more comeback, they can start re-building in the cleaned spaces while the original crew moves on to clean another space.
Where is the leadership for the Community of New Orleans to make this sort of re-birth possible? Obviously, the French Quarter is back. Harrah’s Casino is back. The piles of debris have been cleaned. The street signs are back in the Lower 9th. The government says the levees are repaired. How much more of the city could be fully functional, if the city had been proactive enough to layout specific rebuilding plans starting with the main arteries and then branching out to the communities? The process would be much like the way an electric company gets power pack after on after inclimate weather.
Maybe, then, instead of feeling like we are rebuilding homes for the elderly so that they can come home to die in dignity, we could sense more completely that a community was truly being reborn. Maybe the job would be much closer to done.
The faith of many of the people rebuilding in New Orleans is much greater than my faith. When you are in its precense, it is heartening to see what these individuals have accomplished with God’s help. Just don’t step back and look at what could have been or look to hard at what still needs to be done. You just have to do it.
As shown in the image to the right,