Thirty-five pounds of spicy boiled crawfish for dinner.  Block after block of boarded-up houses with body counts spray-painted on the front.  Live jazz at a hole-in-the-wall brunch joint called Buffa’s.  Homeowners living in FEMA trailers parked in their own driveways nearly four years after the flood.   A Wednesday church dinner of red beans and rice, accompanied by outreach programs specifically for musicians:  health screenings, social services, legal aid, and even an instrument-replacement program.  Sno-balls-like Italian ices, only better-after work, before dinner, and before bedtime.  Head-high water lines painted as memorials on new and restored buildings.  Eighty degrees and high humidity at 7:30 a.m.  Schools, libraries, and shopping centers, boarded up and abandoned.  Radios turned up and windows rolled down on the expressway after a hot, humid, dirty workday.  Friendly, grateful, welcoming people everywhere we went.

These were some of the highlights of SPISH’s mission trip in New Orleans the second week of June.  The ten teenagers who participated are Sarah Barlow, Allison Cooke, Arthur Halliday, Hobey Jiranek, Willy McClintic, Charles Sipe, Jr., Katie Smith, Will Smith, Laura Sullivan, and Ryan Winkler.  Adult chaperones were Shirley Cunningham, Associate Rector Will Peyton, and Charles Sipe, Sr.  We’re looking forward to telling the parish more about the trip, more about the state of New Orleans, more about Hurricane Katrina, and more about the good work of the Diocese of Louisiana, sometime later in the summer or early in the fall.  In the meantime, ask us about our experiences, pray for the homeless, for those struggling to rebuild in New Orleans, and for the work of the Diocese of Louisiana.  Lastly, consider volunteering for a future St. Paul’s, Ivy mission to New Orleans!

A Note from New Orleans

“The roof of the Super Dome broke.” I don’t know who said it, or exactly when, but I remember those words that I heard on August 29th, 2005. They didn’t mean much to me in my small sixth-grade world, but they sure meant a lot to the multitudes of people within the stadium. While I sat in utter boredom through sixth-grade math and learned what a helping verb was, people sat in the home of the New Orleans Saints and prayed. They prayed for their lives, their families, and their flooded houses. Now, almost four years later, I have completed Algebra II and learned linking verbs. But much of the 80% of New Orleans that flooded is still not rebuilt.

When we went to New Orleans, I had no idea that the damage would still be so bad and that so many houses would sit, boarded up, and longing for people to live in them. My group was helping a poor woman, Mrs. Cagnoletti, who had suffered even more than the average Katrina victim. She had received government money to rebuild and was almost ready to move into her brand spankin’ new house when disaster struck…again. The house next to hers was home to several squatters, who inadvertently started a fire that burned their house and the almost finished one. To rebuild a second time, Mrs. Cagnoletti contacted the Episcopal church’s rebuild project.  The Office of Disaster Response, Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana is the last-ditch rebuilder. They take the mentally and physically disabled and the horror stories like Mrs. Cagnoletti. They build the whole house with a combination of sub-contractor and volunteer work and ask only for money to cover the materials. This makes it one of the least expensive ways for homeowners to rebuild. The older volunteers who serve as the on-site leaders did a great job of teaching us skills required for cabinetry, trimming, tiling, using various tools, and, of course, painting. I worked mostly on cabinetry and trim. I now feel that I could trim and cabinet entire rooms and I am amazed that I can have those skills and get the great feeling of helping someone else. Anyone who wants to feel one or both of those feelings can donate money to EDOLA and/or go volunteer with them.

by Arthur Halliday