Preface:
I started writing this blog on August 28 as all over the media were news reports and special programs about the one-year anniversary of Hurrican Katrina. I don't really know what my purpose of this was, I just felt inclined to write. It's pretty long and somewhat all over the place and maybe has spelling or grammatical errors, but feel free to read if you like.
a 'storm'It was a little over a year ago and people were just hanging out in my apartment, as usual. The TV was on in the background showing news reports of a hurricane near the gulf coast. I didn't think much of it, afterall, this time of year there are always reports of hurricanes in that area. Living in the middle of the country, these storms had never really affected me much.
Little did I know this was not just the average tropical storm. I vividly remember Justin telling me about how this one would hit New Orleans, and that because the city is a bowl, the possible flood could be disastrous. But I still didn't really get it.
Then came August 29, 2005. Hurricane Katrina hit. The next day, the city of New Orleans filled with water. The water sat there for two weeks and went down right about the time Hurricane Rita hit, causing another week-long flood.
I still didn't pay much attention. And I had no idea how much this would affect the course of my life.
Just the other night I watched a special about the first week after the Hurricane, and I was shocked at what I saw. I had heard a little about what the people in the Superdome had gone through, but I never knew it was so bad.
It gave me chills. Elderly people litterally dying in the heat, babies without diapers screaming, people just going to the bathroom in the most unsanitary conditions--or usually just going right where they stood, mad rushes of people looting stores and homes...I can't even imagine.
I never knew the extent.
That New Orleans was not the New Orleans I now know. I know a much more hopeful city. But a city that still needs a lot of work.
a stirringMy heart for the disaster was stirred a few days after it happened. I heard that the Crusade staff wanted us to go help somehow. And soon. They wanted us to take a trip down south over the weekend of September 16, which just so happened to be my birthday. At first my selfishness and ignorance kicked in as we were planning a big birthday party for me and I was disappointed it wouldn't be happening. God wised me up pretty quick though, and I was ready to go do whatever I could.
I remember Mark Brown giving a great talk at our CRU meeting that week about the tragedy that had happened. He was so real with us, and didn't just use the cop-out "everything happens for a reason." Instead, he challenged us to consider what our response should be.
And he challenged us to go.
So we went. In the first stages of the relief efforts, many people were unable to get all the way down to the city or down to the coast at all. Our group of 50 KU students traveled to the northwest city of Minden, LA. I recounted this experience in a previous entry you may want to
check out, in case you forgot how crazy that little adventure was.
The initial trip was good, but we were still not seeing what was actually going on just a few hours south of where we were.
On Fall Break I was signed up to go on the next trip, this one actually down to the coast in a city called Pass Christian, MS. Because of a lot of different circumstances, I felt like God telling me to not go on that trip, so the day before I decided back out. I understood a lot of why I needed to make that decision, but now as I look back I wonder if one of the reasons was that God wanted to keep me focused on New Orleans and not fall in love with the city of Pass Christian as everyone on that trip did.
God knew he would be sending me there. I had no idea.
At this point, I was still somewhat indifferent to what was going on in New Orleans. I continued living my simple life, which I tend to think is more dramatic than it really is, and looked forward to graduating in December. In the spring I planned to live in Lawrence still and just substitute teach for the rest of the school year.
I even remember seeing a sign-up sheet for another trip planned for the gulf coast over Christmas Break at one of our meetings, and even though I knew I didn’t really have anything to do, I didn’t have much of a desire to go.
a calling...in email formAs I am writing this now, I am realizing yet another reason God at least had me plan to go on the Fall Break trip but then not go. By registering for that trip, I was added to the database of all the people who went to do relief work for Campus Crusade. Later that group of people would receive a mass email from the director of all these relief efforts, Rick Amos.
Danielle and I had gone to Watson Library to do some homework and use the computers. While we were there, I got an email promoting more opportunities to help out with the relief efforts over the next few months. As I read down the rest of the letter, one of the very last sentences caught my eye.
If you would be interested in giving up a month or two, or even the whole semester to help with these efforts, please email me.
Something hit me. I sat there and thought, what am I doing with my life next semester? Not a whole lot. Sure, I had plans to continue being an unofficial intern with Crusade, but there was nothing I was tied down to. Not school, not a job, not a relationship, not anything.
I walked over to Danielle and told her about the email. Not really knowing if I was serious at the time, I remember telling her I thought I wanted to go.
As I contemplated this decision more, I started seeing so many reasons why this would be good for me. After a year of drama and issues and me being very inward-focused, I needed to put myself aside and start putting others first. I needed to get away from Lawrence for awhile.
I needed to go because I had no excuse not to. Well, and because God wanted me to, obviously.
At first I only wanted to go for a month. Basically I'm pretty obsessed with my friends, and having to leave them was the hardest part in this decision-making process.
In December I went to visit and try to find out what in the world I would being doing there. I also wrote a pretty long entry about that experience, which you'll find
here if you're interested.
I hated the first day of that trip. In my journal I wrote, "New Orleans is rough. I'm not exactly in love with any of it. Not the people, not the job, not the living situation, etc." My how those thoughts would change. But I had only been there a day, and I prayed that things would get better.
It got better. I realized I'm pretty decent at making friends--go figure--so the rest of the trip was bomb because I got to hang out with a group of awesome students who came down to help out. And now I was excited.
a friendship formedDuring the few days I was there, a group of students from Oregon was also there. I met some of them but we didn't really hang out much at all. They were flying out the same day I was, but left for the airport much earlier than me.
Much to my surprise, I saw a couple familiar faces when I arrived at the New Orleans airport. Two of the Oregonians hadn't left yet. One of them, it actually turned out, was on the same flight as me for the first leg of my trip.
Her name was Caitlin Murphy. If that doesn't ring a bell to you, just read on.
Caitlin and I hung out while we waited for our flight, pretty much not by choice, but we had a good conversation. We got on the flight and sat apart, and I thought I'd never see her again.
As Rick Amos and Jonathan Tilley worked to put a team of people together for the New Orleans relief effort, we began receiving emails about everyone. It turns out, three of the people going down I had met because they were from the Oregon group, and obvioulsy, one of them was Caitlin. I was excited, because I was pretty sure they were cool people.
I loved my whole team, but Caitlin was definitely my best friend out of the bunch. She's from Denver and was here for my first week and a half of living here, which was such a blessing. She's definitely become one of my best friends. I just never thought when I had that conversation with her in the airport that soon after that we would have a lasting friendship. God is good and unpredictable and loves to bless.
I feel like I'm getting slightly off-focus. But then again, I also don't think I really have a focus, so whatever.
a new way of lifeAnyway, I'll continue on. I headed down to New Orleans in January, tagging along with my KU friends who were taking another trip to Pass. You know, that one I didn't want to go on. God was laughing at me as I rode down there with them probably. I said my good-byes and headed over to New Orleans for what would turn out to be one of the most life-changing experiences I've had.
Ah, that city. Everytime I see pictures of the city or hear the name Katrina or see cajun food I miss that place. I miss driving the crazy streets. I miss the people. I miss the simplicity of life.
I miss being in a place where people don't take everything for granted.
Those people were grateful for every meal, for every night in a bed, for every family member still living, for every small remnant that could be salvaged from their completely destroyed homes.
Everything was gone. Their homes, their wal-mart, their gas stations, their hospitals. By the time I got there, some of this had been cleaned up, but life was still rough by our standards.
Yet even though I write these things as if it were the whole city, it wasn't. For the first month or so I was there, it seemed like I lived and worked in two parallel universes.
a different world
I was designated to help with the Tulane Community Service Department. I helped them mostly with some projects they had painting schools and what not. I went into an office a few days a week and hung out with people who wore nice clothes and drank expensive coffee and probably had a door on their bathroom.
When I woke up in the morning to get ready to go to Tulane, I got up from my mattress on the floor in the same room as eight other people in a dark and probably moldy warehouse, put somewhat dirty clothes onto my body which at times I hadn't showered in a few days because we didn't have a shower, washed my face with freezing cold water, ate pre-packaged muffins or occasionally some cereal for breakfast, and drove out of my abandoned, flood-damaged neighborhood to the beautiful land of Tulane.
As I would walk around the Tulane campus, I just felt like I was in a world of people completely unaware or unconcerned with the devastation which lay just a mile or so away. I'm not saying they're bad people or anything, afterall, many of those students are from all over the country and they are just working hard to get their college degree. Not everyone has to be a relief worker.
It's just like I said though: parallel universes. I went to lunch one day with a student and he was telling me about how he didn't think Tulane was ready to open back up when it did.
"I can't just go to the grocery store where I used to because it's closed, and the printers in the computer labs don't even work," he told me.
He was a good guy, but I sort-of want to be like, "Hello, can we please put things into perspective here?"
Then again I feel like I need to say those words to myself everyday. Nobody has all their priorities straight, and everybody is selfish. It's true.
Tulane did have a pretty huge Community Service Deparment with a lot of students involved. But sometimes I felt like their priorities were very mixed up. They sent out volunteers to paint school buildings when thousands of houses around the city needed to be gutted.
For example, one of the paiting jobs was in a school in the Projects called Booker T. Washington. The project was to paint some rooms on the third floor. However, parts of the basement still had standing water in them and were in dire need of being cleaned out and gutted. It was sick. Plus, the public school system is so messed up, so that school may not even open again. So what were these people doing multiple Saturdays paiting rooms? Doesn't make sense.
While I may not agree completely with all their decisions, the Tulane people are great people. I am so glad I got to chance to work with them and get to know them and learn from them and partner with them in the relief efforts. It was sweet.
a look backIt's now been about a month since I last wrote in this blog entry, and I guess I figured it was about time to wrap things up. Otherwise, I just wrote a lot for not much of a reason. But I guess my own reflection is a pretty good reason.
NOLA. What an experience. Even today, six months after I left that city, it blows my mind everything that went on there. It was an experience I never would have asked for, and now would never take back. But I already wrote an
extensive entry about my whole experience there, so I won't go into all of that now.
A lot of times I get prideful and pretend I know everything about what was and is really going on down in that city. But you know what? Even living there for a couple months, I still don't have any idea. Not compared to the family who lost everything. Or the woman who lost her husband. Or the people who will continue to suffer for the rest of their lives because of one humanly uncontrollable storm. Who am I to talk?
I sat in the office of a city government representative one day who encouraged us to send our thousands of student volunteers around the city to clean up trash in the neighborhoods. He was just lost on what to do. Everyone was lost on what to do. It seems like everyone blames everyone about the situation, but the vast majority of those people don't understand. They don't know what to do.
One thing looking back that I really appreciated about our time in New Orleans is that we stayed as much away from the politics at possible. When you're in the city, actually doing something, you don't sit there and think about what should have happened the day the hurricane hit. You think about the people and what you can do to help them now. The politics almost never came up in discussion among our team; there were greater issues to address. So we just did what we were there to do: We found people (or later on, they found us) who needed help, and we sent a team to gut out their house. That's it.
And the people were so grateful. That was the best part.
New Orleans is still a mess though, I know that much. My Danielle friend is down there picking up where we left off in April, and the relief efforts continue. Praise the Lord.
When I got back from New Orleans, I felt done. I felt like there was nothing left for me to do in life that would be nearly as worthwhile as what I had just done. Fortunately, I eventually realized that was not true. But still, at least once a week, usually more, I wish I was there still. It's hard to believe that God would want me somewhere else, but I guess we can't all be in New Orleans. His work elsewhere is just as important, something I'm still learning.
All I can do is thank God for this experience, which is a weird thing to say. Ultimately I wish this tragedy had never occurred, but God definitely used the bad to affect my life greatly.
I was in a foreign place, I saw a lot of suffering, I lived in unpleasant conditions, I was stressed out to tears on multiple occassions, I had the weight of thousands of people on my shoulders, I had conflict, I missed my friends and family, I could possibly have some future health problems.
But looking back six months later,
because God is so good,
for me, NOLA was paradise.
I can only pray that the people there that have lost so much can experience the hope and presence and power and comfort of God.
Afterall, the hope of Christ itself should be enough for all of us, no matter the circumstances.
Yeah that's pretty. So my week-long intense trampoline adventure ended with a good faceplant. But that's okay. Someday maybe I'll nail that back flip.
They've become two of my best friends here in Colorado. I met them because they were both Junior High volunteers this year and also Andy's best friends. We started hanging out a lot about a month after I moved here.
It was so sweet to see all of them again. Let me just tell you, I don't have enough boos here. I have Alicia, and some sweet middle school kids, but that's it. No one to be weird with like this...
(notice the big scab on my nose in all pictures.)
Or be awesome and drink coffee out of big mugs like this...
But let's be honest, how can I replace my Jen, Emjo, Melissa, Danielle, Katie, Linsie, Maggie? I can't. That's just why I will constantly look forward to Kansas visits. Fortunately for me another one is coming up in a week. HOLLER!!
This is my favorite. Bethany Gager. She's awesome, and pretty much a little Tate. People think we're sisters. But yeah, don't tell any of my other kids, but Bethany, well, she's a delight. And for sure my favorite. I would hang out with her all the time, but you know, her parents would probably think I was weird.
