Day 5: Life in the Neighborhood

Our team was split between two different places today. Dan, Mishona, Carrie, Wendy, and Hannah remained at Mr. Brown's house to finish the dry wall and painting. Chris, Evan, Kerry, Manda, Laura, Katie, and Lindsey all went to the property of Miss Pat to work in her yard. Chris and Carrie had both worked on Miss Pat's house last year, so it was an exciting day for them.

Before the team split, though, there was still too little work to go around for all of us. So Manda, Mishona, Hannah and Lindsey went for a walk around the neighborhood that morning. While we were walking, we ran across a woman who lived next door to the house Hannah and Chris had worked on 2 years ago. For about 30 minutes we just hung out on her front stoop, talking about life and hearing her story. As Manda tells it,
"A few of us went for a walk this morning. We met a lady named Emma...and her puppy, Fido. It was a great time just sitting on her porch listening to her talk about the neighborhood and Hurricane Katrina. She even offered the four of us bottles of water. I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to go on this trip. In addition to getting to know people in New Orleans, it is fun to get to know the people from Greenville better.
New Orleans is an eclectic city and I love driving around. However, the people are even better. I pray to keep meeting more people and learning from them."

We had a wonderful time with Miss Emma and her 3 month old puppy, Fido. A couple of us are going to strive to visit her again tomorrow for a few minutes. Most of her old neighbors have moved since Katrina hit, so she doesn't have many people to talk to on her block--we feel really blessed to be able to spend life with her, though.

Once the groups did split up, though, work went much smoother for both teams. The team at Mr. Willie's house had a great time and spent most of the afternoon laughing at one another. Our worksite supervisor, Kevin, also seemed to enjoy the workday better. He cracked jokes left and right and had an interesting habit of singing at odd moments in a very uncharacteristic falsetto---see, he's kind of like, 6'5". Over at Ms. Pat's house, the team did yard work. When they arrived, the yard was a mess of overgrown weeds, grass, and debris. By the time they left, it looked like a cleared garden just waiting to be planted. Better yet, everybody walked away with a little bit of a tan to take back to Illinois. (Something to flaunt about in March in Illinois!)
We also saw a lot more of Mr. Brown today. He allowed us to help carry in his groceries and fetch him some lunch.

Speaking of lunch, everybody on the team chipped in to buy some po'boy sandwhiches. If you're not familiar with this type of food, it's similar to a sub sandwhich. They come in 3 sizes...a large bun, an 18 inch, and a "loaf"...which is probably about 3 feet long. The shop was a little hole in the wall gas station which was absolutely flooded through the lunch rush, but we managed to get our sandwhiches and get out. It was a great meal for a great deal...most of us split the 18-inch ones, so we all payed about $2.50 for a hot lunch. Good things. Better yet, we were able to get a po'boy for Mr. Brown and eat on his front porch. He stayed inside yet again, but he accepted our sandwhich...and left the door open.

Things got very real early in the afternoon, though. It would be difficult to explain the details through a blog format so I won't even make an attempt, save to say we were struck deeply by a realization of what life in the neighborhood is like. It was shocking for some of us, startling for all, and stood in stark contrast to what each of us has grown up with in our own neighborhoods. But in the city, vice and desperation are a part of every day life...and some people deal with it differently than others. In this particular situation, the desperation and emotion of life in the inner city was made distinctly clear to us and though we need not fear, we realized again that we should keep our eyes open and alert; perhaps not just for safety, but for the opportunity to grasp what millions of our peers live with day in and day out.

But still there is hope. We love our time here in New Orleans and for some of us--Carrie in particular-- living and working in this context seems more and more appealing. The great thing about this city is that the great indulgence and vanity of the city is positioned right beside the great poverty and desperation it contains. The residents of New Orleans make no attempt to hide this--in one breath we have met people who thank us for doing work because it is so needed and then exhort us to go spend time indulging on Bourbon Street of in one of the many party scenes. New Orleans is definitely rough--but it also seems to be definitely and unapologetically honest.

We pray that we can learn to reflect this attitude in our own lives; to own up to all of our shortcomings and overindulgences and still remain thankful for our blessings and in touch with our own desperation and need. Even when life in the neighborhood gets a little scary and uncomfortable, we realize that it's still just that; it's life, and we're experiencing it together. As Kerry so simply put it,

"I feel so blessed to be working with each and every individual on this trip. Sometimes I will just look over at one of my team members and notice how determined and hard working they are. Everyone is eager to serve each other as well as the community. The community is also very encouraging. They see our I Love N.O. shirts and thank us. Even when some of us girls were on a run in our shirts the other day, we had so many people yell encouragement to us. A school bus of children went by and they were telling us to keep it up! What great support."

Indeed. In New Orleans, we have learned to be neighbors and others have been great neighbors to us. It has given new meaning to Jesus words' in Luke chapter 10. The one who has mercy is the one who is a neighbor. The merciful Samaritan, despised and living in an ignored section of the country, is praised. The great and educated lawyer is told that he would do well to act more like some guy from the Neighborhood.

We're learning the same lesson here. We're learning from New Orleans' neighborhoods...and as we examine ourselves, we learn where we need to take our place in our neighborhoods back home. We've received mercy here and, by grace of God, we're getting a little better at giving it.

Peace,

March '09 team