Wednesday 1 p.m.- Right now, I'm in the van on my way to New Orleans to watch the handing over of the keys. We already worked at the distribution center where supplies are handed out. For the most part, I unloaded flatbed trucks and stuffed carboard boxes with supplies like zip bags and pasta. But some of these boxes of supplies had been sitting in the sun for several weeks and maggots were getting to some of them. So we had to sift through this stuff to check if it was still usable. Jim told me something I didn't know. A lot of times when people donate items, there's no methods of distribution. So this stuff sits out in the sun and over time, it rots.
A few thoughts right now.
When I get home, how can I still have these types of experiences? I'm talking about interactions with people, meaningful work, feeling like you're making a difference in the world, and feeling like I'm really following God? It's so easy to revert back to old habits when you return home to the life you're used to.
How do neighbors react to seeing groups like ours revive and refurbish one house down the street (maybe even their next door neighbor's) yet their house gets left alone. If you were that neighbor, would you feel happy there's a sign of revival? Would you be jealous? Maybe a little bit of both?
Wednesday night 8 p.m. There must have been 75 people in this little garbage covered two way street in Violet Louisiana to greet the family as they returned to their "new" home. And I would say 50 or 60 had cameras or videocameras going. It was a mom dad and three or four year old daughter. We had them stop their car a few houses down and we put paper bags over their heads and walked them to right down in front. There was still a huge moving truck parked in front. So we did the whole HGTV Extreme Makeover thing where we all shouted "Move the truck!" The family nearly fainted. I soon followed inside and though I had been working there not 48 hours ago, I seriously could not believe it was the same house. Dust, loose tools, bare wires, and empty floors were replaced by floors, carpet, beds, appliances, and furniture. Flat screen TV's, custom kitchen cabinets, a new playground in the backyard, lawn furniture, and on and on. It's good to know we played even a small role in completing that project.
Thursday night 10 p.m.- Today was our final full work day. It started off slow as I worked at the campsite. I worked with Ellen, Bob, Mary R, Madeline, and Susan. We started off taking out nails from wooden planks and then we built a bridge. We designed it for this seven or eight foot gap from the camp's property to the post office property. We took the plywood and designed side railings, diagonal frontpieces, and some cross rails underneath the top rail. The bridge took about 3 hours and it's still sitting on the grass as of Friday morning. We had one more house to work on, so we left.
Miss Louise is one of the singers in the Little Zion church choir. She has lived in her house for 36 years and it was wiped clean from the hurricane as it is only 8 or 9 blocks from the Gulf. Ellen, Bob, Mary, Susan, and I went to her house to assist a group from our team that had been prepping priming and painting for a day and a half already. We got a couple of rooms painted including the living room and two bedrooms. Meanwhile, Debbie was playing her Ipod with 60's and 70's songs on it. Yes, I knew all the words to practically every song.
Speaking of which, after dinner and our final team meeting, a bunch of us walked over to a local bar. On the way, we passed a dead armadillo that nearly made me gag the smell was so putrid. Putrid as in Chris Reitsma's pitching ability. Anyway, there was a country rock band playing and this was a southern redneck bar. Pool tables, bikers, fussball, the whole nine yards. Fortunately, it was hard to notice much cigarette smoke because they had a couple of fans blowing full speed to keep the place cool but I liked it more that I couldn't smell smoke.
We all ordered beers except Ellen, who got a Coke. When we all toasted it was funny seeing this one styrofoam cup rise against 11 glass bottles. But the waitress kind of kept finding her way to my part of the table more times than not. She was cute, her name was Alicia, but there's just something about a pierced tongue that doesn't sit well with me. Anyway, the band played and I knew every song from Amarillo by Morning to Neon Moon to Wonderful Tonight to If Bubba Can Dance I Can Too. If you can name who sang the last song without looking it up, I'll be impressed.
And you should have seen these girls line dance. Four or five of them were up on most of the songs and they made dancing look like a stroll in the park on a Sunday afternoon. Man here's my thing. Mom likes black culture. She identifies with it well. When I was born, couldn't she have handed me a hint of dancing ability? There was also a lady walking around with a basket of flowers. They were 2 for 5 bucks. Evan brought one for Mary and one for me to give out. Now see I had 2 options. I could have given it to someone in the group and risk doing it in front of the group and create a very awkward situation. Ellen was next to me for the record. Or I could have given it to a girl in the bar. But knowing me I would have given it to a girl whose boyfriend was nearby and he would have hurled me through the window. So I didn't give it out. And the best part of the night? As I walked in, ESPN was on the TV. They were showing highlights of the Mets' 9-3 triumph in Philly!
No comments:
Post a Comment