Mr.Willy:)

it was amazing to revisit mr.willy,and to all of you who didnt get to his house but worked on it, ITS AMAZING.NICE JOB!!!

hope to revisit him and pastor washington and ray and clara again!:)

they will come back...

it's late and I'm finishing up my laundry from the trip. i can't quite believe it's over already. it seemed to go by too fast. a lot of us are already posting our photos on this blog or on facebook. already enjoying the memories. and i still have dirt under my fingernails. yesterday was our last work day and there's always a deep sense of what you accomplished on the last day. at least for me. yesterday was no different. we had packed up the tools and thomas and rob were finishing some things up as I stepped out onto pastor washington's front porch. I looked out onto a wonderful scene. the sun was beginning to go down and the wind was blowing leaves down the sidewalk. the boys that had hung the sheet rock that day had already finished and were all goofing off in the street. play fighting or something. and I smiled. because I had just talked to pastor washington and i had just seen the grin on his face when he walked into his house and saw the walls up in almost all the front rooms. his house was coming together and he could see it. and we could see it in his eyes. so as i stood on his porch i thought of him standing there one day soon. standing next to his wife watching the sun go down. i imagined his grandkids or maybe even some neighborhood kids playing in the street as our boys were doing and it made me smile. it made me feel hopeful for this man. and when you stand in the middle of the lower ninth ward hope is a word that is hard to say out loud. but in that moment I remembered all that our groups had accomplished and I believed in the hope I felt and held onto the vision of a rebuilt lower ninth ward.
it was too quiet after I got out of my shower tonight. there were no voices from the common room laughing and joking and playing games. there were no singing voices from the next shower. i miss walking out into the bunkroom and seeing the huddled heads of teenage girls watching a movie or looking at a magazine. and i even miss the boys continual attempts to chug large amounts of liquids until they couldn't anymore. but this is not a sad missing. it's a "grateful-that-I-go-to-such-a-church-where-these-memories-can-be-made" type of missing. this is my third year doing this in nola and each year it is wonderfully different. i definitely have a new respect for all that you do Hope! but I also have a new appreciation for the people. i've got to know them in new ways and I am very grateful.
so, from your "boss lady" on the 08-09 NOLA mission trip, i say goodnight. and thank you for being a part of the church that makes me feel like family.

The Children

Beginning on Monday, I noticed that there were no signs of children in the Lower Ninth Ward. No toys in the very few yards; the homes that have actually been rebuilt look like they're inhabited by older people (I realize this sounds biased, but some houses just don't look like they have chldren in them); the homes we have worked on over the last three years are all owned by older people; the school we drove by every day looked abandoned (and I so hope it was only because of Christmas break); a small playground on the way to Pastor Washington's church never had any kids on the swings or anywhere else - I was saddened by the thought that the few people who had returned to the Lower Ninth Ward were mostly old men and women who had lived there all their lives and wanted to die there. Today, on our last day, on our way from Pastor Washington's house, we drove by a house with a young couple in the driveway and two boys playing with a dog in the yard. To my worried heart, those two boys were angels of God's presence.
Miles only wanted to see a gecko, he said, and he saw two huge, white herons instead - to him they were angels of God's presence in the post-Katrina wilderness.

where did i see god today-day 5 vscc

don z- i saw god today when the bathroom was flooded and i needed a mop; it suddenly appeared and i was able to clean up a big wet mess

zathy z- i saw god in the baptistry as i was cleaning and sweeping and thinking that we should always keep this a sacred space

leslie c- seeing all the inner spaces and friends moving throughout these inner spaces made me sense the Spirit moving with us

julia k.- in the moment of carson's recognition and acknowledgement of boyd's help and ability; in the re-creation/re-claiming of a holy space here at vscc

alice- i saw god in everyone who was here today. everyone made the "work" so much fun. this is especially true/important knowing that for most, this was not the first day of donating their time this week

joe - i saw god in the group working together with a positive attitude and for me, truly being church

nancy- i saw god when i thought about the people of vscc this week, working hard for their church. they are committed and it makes me proud of our church

morgan- i saw god in the dunpster guy, he was really sweet and nice

emily b.- i saw god when i was mopping with hope

carla - I saw god in hope. without hope, this week would have never happened. she's a wonderful leader and her determination has made this all happen

carson - i saw god in boyd. he helped me so much. we did 24 jobs. i could have done 5.

benjamin- i saw god in everyone. when megan asked me to come help, i didn't really know what to expect. i was embraced with warm arms. to see everyone work together was truly a truly awesome experience.

megan- i saw god in the poop wax and all its experiences

hope- i saw god in benjamin as he willingly subjected himself to our mission team. we needed physical strength, emotional maturity and cooperation. he certainly added the missing dimension to our group and and did it while covered with poop wax.

thompson- i saw god in the two giant pizzas that came to feed all of us when we were so hungry from working

kathy b- i saw god in the boiler room when we realized we had too much storage space! i saw god in the children, through their tireless efforts, hard work, leadership and the wonderful example they set for all of us.

boyd b- i saw god everywhere!

loaves and fishes

last night i asked god to appear in the form of lots of dry floors and no leaky toilets. it happened that way, but not in the manner that i anticipated.

• instead, i received a phone call from the berhows at 8 am asking if we needed 5 more workers.
• instead, three lovells appeared when they weren't on the schedule
• instead, 2 carsons walked into the chapel area with huge smiles on their faces and asked if it was okay if they stayed and helped
• instead, howard and eva appeared in the tablecloth closet right in the middle of the day
• instead, a zamata came and went and came back
• instead, the dumpster man was lovely
• instead, benjamin brought kindness and brute strength
• instead, a jafari brought pizza
• instead, a trull popped her head out of the boiler room and said " I'm taking julia's place"

it was one of those loaves and fishes moments when the scheduled 8 somehow turned into 22. tonight, the floors are all dry and there are no leaky toilets. we've all returned home...satisfied. god has filled us up.

Moments of a Day

The road home.


It takes a lot of good eyes and hands to make one good cut.
I'm not kidding.


You notice? They could be looking anywhere in the room, but they choose to watch Imre make the final cuts to fit the panel on the studs. Great team.


Yes, it says BOSS LADY, and she earned every fiber of that shirt.
Go Sarah!


Yes, Andrew does look that cool.


And here is Josh, the drill master.


Well, yes, its the markings for a cut out in a panel of sheetrock.
It's also a cross, one of the many ways in which the everyday calls us to look for signs of God's presence.
It's also a tic-tac-toe (tow?) board. Playful work. Great team.


Where indeed?

How Do You Blog This?

Tonight after prayer partners - it was all girls in one group and all boys in the other (which means I can't say much about the girls) - I walked out of the kitchen area where the guys had met (and what a guys' experience it had been!!) saying to Eric, "How do you blog this?" It was so real, and writing about an experience or showing pictures can only do so much.
When we created this blog, we thought it would offer a great way for all of us to share one another's days. But all our energy really goes into being in these days, living, laughing, working, praying and playing - adding pictures to a blog (over a very slow internet connection, I must add) is a very solitary exercise, and at least one step removed from the transformative process we are seeking (and having).
I still think blogging can be an intrical part of a mission trip, but we may have to think about it as something some of the group do for all, perhaps taking turns, very much like kitchen duties, cleaning crew, vespers team, etc.