Katrina relief

So it's been a while since I've written. It's been a while on purpose. I've needed time away from things and "the world" to gain perspective on my life and future. I've started my interview with ICY and I'm really excited about how the prospect of me leaving for England/Wales is coming together. It's starting to really materialize in my head and heart that I'll most likely be leaving the country for 3 years. If I only knew exactly where I was going....

So for Spring break I went to the Gulf Coast to help with Hurricane Katrina relief. There are no words for the experience of the last week. The fact that I was in another country during the bulk of the Katrina disaster only enhanced the emotions of the week. I was in charge of a team that cleaned out an 89 year old man's water rotted possessions. I'll try to describe the amount of stuff this guy had and how "nasty" it was, but I'm not sure if I can. I took a crew of 11 people working from 8:30am-4:30 ish for 3 days, plus 24 people working on Thursday from 8-5 to haul off all of his junk. If you add it up that's 489 man hours of work on this man's house. Believe me, it took every one of those hours for us to complete the task. I don't know if I've ever worked so hard in my life. Plus the stench of the stuff decomposing was HORRIBLE. There was a jar of pickle juice that was at least 20 years old. It was the worst smelling stuff ever to grace my nostrils. To see someone so overwhelmed that people would give up their time and drive 400 miles just to help him was amazing. He was the sweetest man and you could tell he was happy to be relieved of this burden. I guess the emotion of the week hit me on Wednesday. After dinner I read through a book of pictures of the Katrina disaster. The local newspaper put together a series of these books that were just amazing. The damage was on the scale of war torn areas that I had on;y seen on the news. Katrina didn't discriminate when she tore through the Gulf Coast. Black, white, rich or poor, the damage hit everyone. The pages that effected me the most were the ones about the volunteers that gave up MONTHS of their lives to help other people. One picture was forever burned into my mind. It was of two men crying and embracing each other. The caption said that they were NYC Firefighters that had given up a month of their time to do relief work on the coast. When asked why they did it they had a very simple and profound answer. "We're here because America helped NYC when we needed it, and now it's our turn to give." I broke down when I read those words. If only we'd act like this all the time rather than when a disaster comes, I think the world (and Church) would be a much better place.

I'm a changed person after this past week, and it's for the better. On to finish up ICY stuff and rest up the rest of my weekend.

Robert