Our Unique Experience

As we reflected upon the week, on Saturday, we realized that we all have changed, we shared in a unique experience.

Empathy. As we discussed what we had done this week for others, people that were strangers a week ago and are no longer strangers, and for people who are still strangers. Many of us felt that we had grown in our empathy for others. We felt that we would never look at our own homes and neighborhoods in the same way again. Through this unique experience we have changed.

Appreciation. Everywhere we went, restaurants, stores, and the people in the neighborhoods where we served, said “thank you”! Everyone was so appreciative of the work we were doing to help rebuild their neighborhoods. People seemed desperate to have their neighbors back home. As we talked about how often we heard “thank you” we came to the conclusion that the residents of New Orleans and the surrounding areas are feeling forgotten, feeling that the things may never improve and they wanted us to know that they are grateful to those that are still coming to help out. Through this unique experience we have changed.

Words cannot adequately describe the unique experience we shared this week. We saw homes, modest homes in neighborhoods that we probably would not venture into in our own towns. We saw people living under the highway in tents, the kind of tents we might camp in for a weekend. These tents were their homes, providing shelter for people without other resources, those looking for work, those working but that cannot afford any other shelter. We worked in homes that had been broken into, not for anything we would think was of value, but broken into because it might have more than the next abandoned house. These people live in a very humble world where they lost everything in one great storm. It is the people that continue to offer their time and gifts that offer hope in this humble world. What we brought was a variety of gifts and physical abilities that offered hope to those living, working, walking through the neighborhoods were we ministered.

Our ministry was in the paint, drywall, roof tar, brooms, rakes, sanders, plumbing wrenches and hammers that we used each day in these humble homes. Our ministry was in the coming together of two congregations, the combining of gifts and talents to make one unique group. Our unique experience was in the hope we offered in the blue shirts we wore each day that indicated we were there to offer our gifts in the recovery. Our unique experience was in the time and place that we were serving as instruments of God’s messengers of hope and love.

In this experience we were all humbled and gained so much more than we gave. We will never be the same, we have changed. It is our hope that through this change we can help others to be inspired to reach out, in their own unique experience, to love and serve their neighbor.