Hey, everyone. I’m writing this at the airport in Atlanta. I don’t know who designs flight patterns or schedules for different airlines, but someone had this genius idea that going to Georgia on the way to Louisiana was somehow efficient. After gathering at SeaTac Airport a little past 8:00 and departed from gate S5 (side note: sweet, we got to take the tram!) at 9:50 for a four hour flight to, yeah, Georgia.
I wish I could say that we had this great witnessing opportunity on the plane, but everyone who could was sleeping. So it’s 6:21 AM (3:21 back home) and I’m sitting in Atlanta with no exciting stories to tell. I wish I could sleep, but Hartfield-Jackson plays CNN over their PA system as loud as possible. It’s already light outside. We have another 2 hours before our flight starts boarding. Everyone else is lying down because they were smart and packed their pillows in their carry-on bags. More to come later in the day, I’m sure, but I’m all about the details, so you get the boring bit, too.
It is now 9:29 PM in our home-for-the-week, and I’m typing again. I can’t get a lock on the Internet connection over Wi-Fi, though there is one according to both our host, YWAM director Bronwen Niles, and the computer. I hope to be able to upload this tomorrow.
The arrival in New Orleans was smooth. Finally got off the plane, collected our baggage and hopped a shuttle to the car rental agency. Not too much detail here, though we did have something akin to breakfast in the form of free Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. Our minivan is surprisingly comfortable when filled with 5 hot, tired twenty-year-olds and two adults going on their 29th birthdays (again).
The drive into the city proper was a study in contradictions. Between the billboards advertising strip clubs and the billboards advertising churches, I wasn’t sure if we were on our way into Heaven or Hell. This isn’t to impugn New Orleans; the city itself is rather beautiful with its mix of Spanish and French architecture, schools, narrow streets, cable cars and air conditioning (!) is breathtaking. After gathering supplies for the week, we headed into the city to see what there was to see.
The devastation remains untold. We have pictures, but they cannot tell the story. The Ninth Ward has one house for every four lots. Some houses were so thoroughly destroyed that it’s like Greek ruins—stairs to nowhere, foundation pillars that stand devoid of walls or floors, grass reclaiming the concrete of driveways. An old VW van was twisted and mangled, its entire rear half missing. But the city as if an entity itself believes in its own renaissance. Churches in disrepair still proclaim the truths of God’s power, from the scripture of Ezekiel’s Valley of the Dry Bones to simple declarations of hope.
We stopped by a YWAM work site, where a house is near completion in the gutting phase. The family of the lady who lived there thanked us, talked to us, welcomed us, embraced us—literally—and we had not yet set to work. Going into a cemetery shortly up the street, a couple exiting thanked us without prompt and without introduction. They saw our shirts and simply said thank you, saying that they appreciate our coming and our work. These people are not exceptions, either: at Wal-Mart, where we purchased our food for the week, a gentleman at the McDonald’s observed our shirts and also thanked us. This city embraces its help, knows its own mortality. We still have not set to work—we start tomorrow—and I have been overwhelmed with simple statements of thanks.
The French Quarter is an amazing section of town. We didn’t stop at the Café du Monde, but the St. Louis Cathedral is truly awesome, not in the trite sense of the word, but it actually inspires awe and reverence for anyone who enters. The wall behind the Sanctuary reads in Latin I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. Psalms says the Heavens declare the glory of God, and the ceiling reflects this. Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus; Dominus Deus Sabaoth—Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty. The roots of Catholicism in New Orleans may not run incredibly thick, but they are deep, and the city has not forgotten the hope of God.
At Pastor Vic’s retirement (noted to the non-St. Luke’s readers: our senior pastor retired in April), we sang “God of This City.” The chorus declares what I believe of New Orleans: Greater things have yet to come / Greater things are still to be done / in this city! The devastation is mind-boggling. The base nature of strip clubs juxtaposed with upstanding morality is confusing. But it is all under God’s vision, and we are not the only volunteers at work here.
