Day 366 - Retrospective by a Member of The Frozen Chosen

Locked in place - Come to the Gulf and help for you will then know of the post-Katrina syndrome.

The volunteer related her story, "We showed up and looked at the house. The house had lost its roof and there was a lot of water damage. Mr. Hargrove had the roof fixed so at least things were dry. It was chocked full of stuff. It was hard to see how the family moved around. It looked like nothing had moved since all this was placed here after Katrina. Furniture, boxes stacked around and unmoved for the last three and one-half years. We had opened the door to a small room of the kitchen and looked in. It was the laundry room. It hadn’t been opened since the roof was put back on the house. It was terrible. All sorts of critters had been using the space. There was dirt and filth all around inside it."

We asked if we could start moving things in order to work on his ceilings and Mr. Hargrove said "ok.”

Mr. Hargrove watched the crew moving his belongings for a while and then spoke up, “Let me help.”

He started in with an activity he probably hadn’t shown since 2005. Surprisingly he opened the laundry room and started dragging out stuff and throwing it out in a pile in the yard. Before we left for the day he had it emptied of all the wasted things and had cleaned off and wiped down the first shelf I n the cabinet over the washer.

Louise is a dedicated single mother. She had just adopted her two pre-school grandchildren. She had her significant other live in a house where only a living room (garage conversion), bath and one bedroom for her and her significant other live. The other parts of the house still are damaged from Katrina. The dining room and living room are full of what belongings they saved from Katrina and so full as to b unusable. Her “significant other” is handicapped; he had a stroke a while back.

We left them with a fully restored home. I dropped off a lot of Christmas gifts given to me for that purpose by from Northside Presbyterian Church.

Mrs. P, working part time in D’Iberville with three children. The house is virtually empty of furniture. The house needed repainting, roof fixed, eliminate water inflow into the rear of the house from that roof problem. We did it all, and she was our first home blessing.

Mr. and Mrs. Pearson are in a bind, their house wasn’t even 25% restored when I met them. They has lost large sums of money on disreputable contractors and had some construction problems I only had a bare idea of how to fix. We managed to get a Salvation Army grant and with the help of CARE, a Pennsylvania Mennonite relief group we rebuild that construction problem. Last week my good friends from Fountain City Presbyterian Church, on their 13th trip down and 56th house, dry walled 95% of the house. A good crew from Youngstown is finishing what remains this week. It is looking like we will get them into their house soon.

Mr. & Mrs. Seale were living in a molding, 100 yr old home in Gulfport. We successfully got funding and with some of our own resources stripped the home to studs and refinished it. It has taken six months but we should have gotten a certificate of occupancy yesterday or today. We’ve become good friends and I’ve learned lot about the dedication of a son to his parents.

Preaching at Trinity PC in Fairhope was my first foray into ministry. I still remember the lady who walked up with a check for our mission effort that I thought was for $500 but was for $5,000.

I can’t get the woman with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease out of my mind. She lives in a mobile home without central heat, spent $30,000 of her FEMA money of a new home, her children and this worthless mobile home. The man never delivered the new home - she paid cash. Her caseworker doesn’t like her so she gets no access to even the little public resource that might be available.

I remember the majestic home on thirteen foot piers that is slowly crushing the supporting girders holding the house on the piers, yet the owner, caught between insurance company fraudulent contractor and MEMA insisting on taking his cottage back insists on moving in rather than letting us fix the problem before the next major storm that may destroy the house.

There were the days on the bayou out at Jimmy’s home, eating shrimp or crawfish and talking about what we had done in Pearlington and where the future may lead.

There are the special people I’ve met as village staff, Heather, Jeremy, Leslie, Mark, Michelle, Jessi, Michael and others. There are the volunteers from Philadelphia, New York, Ohio, Minnesota, Arkansas, Davison, Virginia and North Carolina.

There is the group from Utah led by a pastor’s wife who announced, “I won’t work on that house, it is nicer than my own,” and whose youth volunteers apologized for the behavior of the adults.

There is the fellow in Pascagoula whose kitchen floor and bedroom walls we repaired who brought us po-boy shrimp and crawfish sandwiches for lunch and who wrote us checks every week for offering from his meager social security, a giving of proportion probably greater than almost any of us give. He would apologize if the check were late.

There is Larry who helped me learn more about Pearlington so I could figure out when I was helping good folks and who to watch out.

I helped as we struggled to set up our efforts for Ike relief in the Galveston area.

There has been the outpouring of support from my church, Northside, and the rock and roll effort to apply and gain admittance into seminary.

There has been for me the most profound humiliation by my pride as I watch and help people who by all rights should have given up; a humiliation of us as a people as we fail to really work to help those in need as I drive down US49 or I-10 and read the billboards advertising the next big entertainer or music group or the loosest slots in town.

There has been for me an assurance, a reaffirmation of the goodness of humankind as I see the suffering show more bravery and hope than I have mustered, as I see volunteers return as changed lives.

And finally, I heard someone in Louisville say ruefully last week as staff reductions were discussed, “You aren’t in the Presbyterian Church you were born into.” I see a glimmer of hope that this church is being changed by these volunteers and the needy they help into something more than the “church we were born into” as they live the Good News Jesus preached.

Day 318 - You've Gotta Walk that Lonesome Valley...

I've been driving back and forth between Orange Grove and Pearlington a lot lately, and also driving all over Gulfport working very hard trying to plan completion of our open cases in Gulfport/Pascagoula or arrange a smooth transition for them when we close the operations the end of April.

I know the background stress has been apparent in my recent writings to some of you readers, but candor is a good thing. (I'm working out at the gym pretty hard, and prayerfully thinking, so rest easy.) My friend Heather has an interesting, relevant reflection today.

I'm taking a long trip tomorrow, traveling to Austin to visit Austin Theological Seminary through the weekend, then next Thursday to Atlanta to visit Columbia Theological Seminary. After that it is going to be a continuous march in Orange Grove as we entertain and direct up to 110 volunteers per week. Amongst all that I have to deal with taxes and financial aid applications.

"Financial aid applications? What do you mean?"

The news came in the mail saturday before Super Bowl from Union Theological Seminary and School of Christian Education in Richmond just as I was leaving for Trinity PC in Fairhope, Alabama. I've been accepted for admission! If With my luck, I'll be accepted at Austin and Columbia and have the difficult quandary to decide.

So, it looks as if a new path opens on this journey.

Day 314 - Sheep and Goats

There is a lot of change in the air.

Thomas Paine once said "these are times that try men's souls." Here is a little more of his statement entitled "Crisis:"

"December 23, 1776

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; "

His is a comment about service to one's country but it applies more so to service to one's God.

Texas

I spent the middle of last week in Texas City, helping that village on the First Presbyterian Church's grounds get prepared for their first set of volunteers last Friday. There were a few snafu's but Mike, the work site manager and Doug the village manager are doing fine getting it going and pulled it off.

We got a quick drive around the back bay area of Galveston. There are a lot of very wealthy people on the island and it looks like those homes are already done. I got some good photographs of the remaining damage away from those nice neighborhoods. As is usual, there seems to be a lot of folks on the other side of the tracks, and in Texas City's backyard, that need help.

We will accomplish good things there.

Mississippi

One can feel the seesaw tilting. Our church headquarters announced they are closing on the end of April the eastern-most village in Mississippi, Orange Grove in Gulfport. Orange Grove has a lot of clients and client-in-waiting and is the only Village still helping people as far east as Pascagoula. We have hung in there for a while and are now pretty well organized. It is the headquarters village.

I am told the reason is that the church on whose grounds the village stands is closing and the Presbytery who holds title to the property wants to sell it. I haven't heard whether or not anyone asked the Presbytery if an alternative to closing the village is in the cards or pursued an alternative with any seriousness. In this steadily decaying economy sometimes a quick sale is a nice dream. There is also some minor issues about temporary land use permits but I am pretty sure these could be resolved quickly.

Of course you all are not volunteering like you used to either and you are the ones that make this whole mission work.

Most of the other aid agencies, Red Cross, Lutherans, Methodists and most ngo's are low or out of money and are about to close up leaving us as one of the only life lines, for a couple months. I can't get over a church turning its back on people are asking for help especially since there is a high likelihood that more funds are coming into the Mississippi area for home owners.

Now it will be up to the honest and dishonest contractors to get those. It will be embarrassing to see these funds come in and not have a presence among the wolves.

They also are closing our office in Gulfport and, I think, moving to New Orleans. One of the staff members wants to move to the New Orleans area anyway so I guess that one is elated. There is no doubt a lot of work in the New Orleans area. And besides, it is closer to the airport...

One of the wags remarked as justification of these closings that you can't help everyone, all disengagements are messy...

The first part is probably true (remember my observation on Matthew 26:6-13 on Day 290?). Planning and compassion and commitment to our covenant of stewardship obviates the last part of that wag's statement. It looks to me like we have some holding the lanterns who fear getting dirty and challenging culture.

Again, remember volunteers to make our relief effort successful.

Mary's Burden

At the same time such things as these transpire, good things happen that show that there are still fine sheep in the world whose willingness to help is an example for all of us.

Two great fellows from the Arkansas Presbytery visited today. They want to establish a continuous start-to-finish relationship with homeowners in order to facilitate a faster completion and to have themselves a sense of closure of their efforts.

We spent the day driving to home owners from Saucier to Pearlington. They finally settled on a woman's home in Waveland. Hers is challenging enough, her need is great, and the technical demands for repair meets the skill level of the anticipated volunteers.

The client is Mary. She's a single working mother who owns the property free and clear with four children, teenagers from 14 to 17 and little boys from 3 to 5. She has a common story, her home was pretty much soaked by Katrina's surge in Waveland. She got lump sum FEMA money but spent it unwisely and now is in a bind. She was nine months pregnant when Katrina hit and gave birth to her youngest a week after the hurricane. Her children can't live with her until her house is repaired.

She's living in a MEMA (Mississippi Emergency Management Agency) cottage that is supposed to be repossessed the middle of this month. Waveland will not let people place modular homes on residential property even though the state has ruled such is legal as long as the foundation requirement is met. (City governments can be so compassionate.) Her only alternative is to move up to the Kiln, five or ten miles north up in the back county, or into a subsidized rent apartment.

We will make a difference for her.

Arkansas hopes to have her home done by the end of this year. This client will be one of our last homeowners in Mississippi helped by us if things go the way they seem to be heading.

Pogo, an opossum created by Walt Kelly, a famous cartoonist in the mid-1900's, once opined, "We have met the enemy and he is us." He also said "Even the whitest doves have have feet of clay. " Both phrases remind us of how close we walk to folly.

Please pray for a few more groups like this one from Arkansas, courage in our church leaders, ourselves, and Heaven's proper price to fight the Tyranny of Hell, lest we all take Grace too lightly.


Grace and Peace