Relief Mission
to New Orleans
January, 2006
Members of the FPC Hurricane Katrina Relief Team in front of the sponsoring church, St. Charles Ave. Presbyterian of New Orleans
Mission Trip Summary
by Helen LaVere top >
Out of the Rubble
I stood in the doorway
of what had once been
someone’s home;
Preparing to take
the useless remains
of the lives lived there
and stack them at the curb.
No single thing
worth salvaging;
Nothing spared
by the ravaging wind and rain.
And as the rubble rose
higher than my head
I wondered,
If this were my life,
would I be faithful enough
to discern God’s light
shining through the dust?
Words will never convey the
level of need and devastation left in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The need for prayer for so many things will continue far into the future. There will also be the need of many more who, like us, wish to be God’s hands and feet. I flew in with great anticipation, excited and called to help in any way I could, looking forward to being a RHINO (Rebuilding Hope In New Orleans) volunteer.
Flying into the New Orleans airport on a beautiful, sunny afternoon in mid-January, we could see clearly the bright blue of tarps on the roofs of many of the houses below. It appeared that approximately every third house was covered by one. Under each of those tarps, a house needed repair.
After we landed, we caught a shuttle to the Land House at St. Charles Avenue Presbyterian Church. Our driver, Jim, spoke of the havoc wreaked by the storm –- the widespread devastation, the huge number of people who had fled the city. All these months later the stoplights are still not working. Most of the major intersections of the city are now four-way stops. It is amazing how well this system seems to work. Jim, a volunteer who spends three to four days a week taking the RHINO volunteers out to work sites while his wife, Bonnie, prepares the food to sustain them in their efforts, said that in a way, the lack of stoplights has helped make the people who live there more civil, as they have to make eye contact with one another when they’re taking turns.
As we continued toward our home for the week, it became clear that very little in the city has returned to “normal”. Open gas stations, fast food, stores, restaurants, churches, etc. are few and far between. Entire neighborhoods have been affected, and I don’t believe I saw even one that had not been touched by the wind and rain.
Wayne and Peggy Campbell and others of our group who had driven down met us at the Land House. They helped us settle in and served a wonderful meal. We then gathered together with the RHINO leaders and met a group of Oberlin College students who had driven down from Ohio and would be working and staying with us through the week.
Each morning before starting to work, we met as a group for an inspiring time of devotions led by Betty Ann, Laurie, Peggy, and Beth. Every devotional was unique and filled with inspiration and love. The nourishment we received and gave one another there cannot be described. We grew together in our faith throughout the week, thanks in large part to these morning gatherings.
Work began in earnest Monday morning. We breakfasted, packed our lunches, and traveled to the home of a New Orleans dentist. The entire neighborhood was abandoned. We were met by Elyssa, the homeowner, who spoke of her frustration with agencies and the enormity of the damage Katrina had caused. She was very grateful we had come. We spent the morning cutting down trees, removing debris from the yard, and cleaning out a storage shed. Very little was salvageable, and the stack at the curb grew wider and taller very quickly. They do not know yet if they will stay or sell. She showed us the levee that had been breached, which is visible from the street in front of her house. As we left, Elyssa told us that it looked like her home for the first time since the storm.
As we drove to the next work site, we drove alongside I-10, much of which is elevated. Beneath the freeway, for miles and miles, stored vehicles wait to be hauled away and destroyed. There are thousands of them. On every street corner are signs for business services running the gamut from those offering to help tear down to those providing skilled services for rebuilding. For miles and miles, we saw litter and debris blowing, stores and homes boarded up. Most buildings had some sort of code marked on them to indicate armies of volunteers had checked them in the days after the storm. Some noted pets that had been found there.
We began work on two homes in the Upper Ninth Ward. One was the home of the mother-in-law of Arnold, a New Orleans police officer. The small brick house with boarded-up windows looked intact from the outside. It was not until we opened the door that the true mark of Katrina could be seen.
The sofa barred the door, lifted and then dropped crossways in what had been the living room. Everything inside had been (and was still) saturated. When the contents of the room had been removed, we could see through the living room into the kitchen, where the refrigerator stood guard in nearly the same position the sofa had taken. All afternoon we hauled items to the curb, the pile growing higher than our heads. The degree of loss was overwhelming. Solid wooden furniture crumbled when touched. Nothing had been left untouched – nor was anything in that house worth saving. With a small army of 30 volunteers, it took two and a half days to complete our tasks. Huge trucks drove into the area, and small bobcats scooped up the mounds we had created at the end of the day.
On the corner of the same street, Gerald and his stepson Wilson were working on their home. It had just been renovated prior to the storm. They had come down from Houston to work for the week. The day we worked on that street, they had become so discouraged by the state of their home that they had decided to stop work and return home early to regroup. They had then spoken with the RHINO folks, who decided to engage our crew to assist them. With the complement of skills and strength that the combined FPC and Oberlin College group brought, much was accomplished. Wilson called us angels and Gerald said we had been a gift from God. We truly felt privileged to have been in the right place at the right time –- and awed that we could recognize the hand of God in our presence.
Though I did not go to the Lower Ninth Ward myself, I spoke to an Oberlin College student who had been there. Chris described the devastation in this way: “It was like the brick house [we worked on yesterday], except what had been lifted and dropped by the water was houses and cars, not furniture.”
The ministry of St. Charles Avenue Presbyterian and other area churches to provide a home base for those who are called to come and help is invaluable. To feel so sustained and loved throughout the week as we tore up and threw out is a tremendous blessing. We were also extremely blessed by the presence of the college students, with whom we shared fellowship as well as work. Several of these students treated us to a piano concert and dance interpretation of Amazing Grace and joined us in singing hymns one evening. The need for assistance from people like us is great and will continue for years to come.
We do not know the plans for the properties we worked on. The owners don’t yet know what they will do. But I do not believe the knowing is as important as the doing. I was also blessed to be in a group that met with the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in New Orleans. His church is now meeting on the second floor, as their sanctuary was greatly affected by Katrina. He steered our group away from helping them to what he considers the more important ministry. His perspective shows his level of faith, as he can see God’s light shining through the dust: “Hope is a pile of rubble, because it means someone is working on their home.”