From Frank

"A Big Easy Experience"

March 2010

For the thirteen of us from John Knox who arrived in New Orleans the day after the Super Bowl, we all decided God has a great sense of humor. Each of us was pulling for our hometown Colts the day before, and with the Saints victory, we had to then “face the music” in the Crescent City. Needless to say, we did not wear much of our blue and white gear for the week we were there, but folks were very gracious to us when we hesitantly told them where we were from!

Of course, if we had planned things differently, we wouldn’t have arrived for our week-long mission trip the day after our team lost in the Super Bowl to the Saints – but, oh well, what are you going to do?! Despite that scheduling peculiarity, it was an incredible week for all of us who worked with St. Charles Avenue Presbyterian Church and their program called Rebuilding Hope In New Orleans (RHINO). When Hurricane Katrina flooded 80% of New Orleans in August 2005, the church joined with hundreds of other organizations to clean-up the incredible mess which was left. Then, in 2006, RHINO began partnering with Habitat for Humanity in building new homes in New Orleans for those affected by the flooding. Since 2007, RHINO has been building fourteen homes along a one block street called Ferry Place. Our group joined with a group from First Presbyterian Church of Royal Oak, Michigan, to work on the last two homes of this block of Ferry Place.

It was a terrific learning experience for all of us who travelled to New Orleans. We learned we could engage in simple building tasks we thought we would never do. We learned about the incredible spirit of hope which has infused the people of New Orleans, who see the positive in what we would usually see as a negative. We learned about the breadth of destruction which took place in August-September 2005, through personal tours given by church members and personal testimonies of residents. We learned how a natural disaster has given a church its clear mission to a community, and has transformed its identity as a community of faith.

But to think that after four-and-a-half years things are back to normal would be naďve, to say the least. We were rained-out one day, and most of our group visited the National World War II Museum that day. As I walked through the exhibit, I came to a picture of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in August 1945. It was stark and vivid to see the aftermath of the atomic bombs which had been dropped on each city – a flattened landscape with one or two buildings standing in a ten-block radius.

But what was more stark and vivid was realizing this was the exact same landscape I had driven through in the Lower Ninth Ward earlier in the week.

For an area which was wall-to-wall homes and businesses before August 29, 2005, it now is just empty lots and brush, with a rebuilt home sporadically dotting the landscape. Think about that: the destruction of this disaster is comparable to an atomic bomb having gone off in the 38th-largest American city. And that is four-and-a-half years later.

I hope you will be able to come and join us on Sunday, March 21, as our group will share about its experience in New Orleans. We will have dinner at 5:00 p.m., and then will share photos and stories about what we did, as well as a chance for you to ask questions. I was deeply proud to serve alongside these twelve servants from John Knox, and I hope you will come and share in their story as they served as your emissaries for one week in February – bringing hope to a city which continues to need our hope, prayers, and commitment.

Peace be with You,
Frank