New Orleans
By: Todd Grassman
Last Spring, over Spring Break,
three of us set out together and drove my car to New Orleans.
That's over a thousand miles, about an 18 hour drive plus rest
stops.
We were going there to join in one of the largest efforts there
has been to help the people of New Orleans, joining over
ten-thousand college students with Campus Crusade.
The same morning we got there, we were put to work. We did about
a half-day at a house the same day we had arrived. We continued
working for about five days; each day was a full 8 hours of
carrying stuff out of houses and tearing out the drywall,
appliances, and pretty much everything else other than the frame
and outer shell (roof, siding). Some houses took more than a
day, as you can imagine.
After a long
day, we fully cleared this house OUT! Last thing we did, Anthony
and I
wrestled an oven from the kitchen out the front door and to the
street.
Outside of one of our completed houses. A small part of the
debris we removed is visible. Khary and I
built the ramp
we are all standing on so we could wheel-barrow
everything out of the house instead of stepping down the broken
stairs.
We were there as part of the Impact Movement, a "Sister
Ministry" of Campus Crusade. Our camp was actually one of the
nicest.
Impact
was given oversight in placing the over ten-thousand students,
and our group stayed at Camp Good News in City Park New
Orleans. "Nice" became a very relative term for me while I was
there. Our camp housed over a thousand people and not much more
than 10 shower stalls with cold water. Many students and other
workers had no showers at all. On top of housing workers and
those who could not stay in there homes, our camp also
distributed food clothes and supplies to those in need. Some
other students were not so lucky, running out of food themselves.
Charles Gilmer, President of the Impact Movement and
National Director of Intercultural Ministries for Campus Crusade
for Christ.
The Inside of the Men's Tent at our camp.
Overall, going into a
situation like this gives you a whole new perspective on what you have.
To see such destruction as we saw in the Lower Ninth Ward, the
hardest hit area... houses on top of cars, refrigerators on top
of houses, houses gone, buildings down the street from their
foundations... and all this still more than half of a year after
the storm... it seems nearly impossible to fix.
Homes in the Lower Ninth.
Where some homes HAD been in the Lower Ninth, completely removed
by the hurricane.
Cars were tossed around.
But there is still
hope!
Sidewalk chalk, left by someone
in our camp.
"Jesus
went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their
synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and
healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds,
he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and
helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his
disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are
few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out
workers into his harvest field." - Matthew 9:35-38 NIV
That is exactly why we need to be
there. We need to help out every day in every way! As James 1:27
says, "Religion that
God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look
after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself
from being polluted by the world."
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