These words ring in my ears. Though we heard them only a few times during our visit to the Baptist church, I will not soon forget them. Somehow they fit from the first glimpse through the airplane's window to the tour of New Orleans. Everthing seems so different from my first trip when we came here to swim as children and decades later, a vacation trip with my wife.

The topography was different, but that was due to the whims of nature and somehow it didn't bring a personal hurt with it. What struck me inside was the the difference in the the people.  There were so few...there was so little traffic in the neighborhoods or around the stores or street corners and the broken buildings that no one seemed to be trying to repair. What happened to the city services, staff and equipment that has always been so much a part of community life ?

As the week has progressed, these feelings and questions have faded. Hard work and enough humidity to fog your glasses the moment you walk outside start to melt into an uneven rhythm. Starting a job, finding you don't have all the right tools, and the job is not really defined acturately have become the norm. Complaints don't get voiced because there is no need nor resolution. They disappear when you show up to a house to work and the owner greets you with genuine joy...and gratitude that you are there to help. Even though everyone knows there is so much that needs to be done and so little can be done with hand tools and unskilled labor,everyone smiles and eagerly attackes like oodles and goobs ants at a picnic.. 

 And yeah...at that point ...we are in the "Right House. 

 See you soon, Mike B.

Due to limited time and an unreliable internet connection I am still behind on the pictures.  However, I am going to edit and post the remaining days' photographs on Saturday.  So check back Saturday night or Sunday if you would like to see the rest of the photographs.

-Jacq 

Tomorrow is our last day of work, and it's going to be followed up by a shrimp fest, thanks to Bryan. It's been an amazing, educational week, and all you have to do is read people's blog entries to catch up with the details of our days--from attending a Baptist church service, to visiting the two UU churches in New Orleans, to digging and gutting and painting and sweating....

 What I'm seeing, as we search for a full day's work tomorrow, is the complexity of all that a hurricane's aftermath brings. What's valuable work for a volunteer? What's satisfying? What's it mean if we don't get a full day's work? What's it mean to work one day in the hundred year old home of one family in East Biloxi, ripping out walls and wondering if the house will even be able to be saved, then going out to the Biloxian "suburbs," where there are different colors and trims for every room, and we spend our time touching up last patches of paint, feeling a little Martha Stewart-esque? 

 The truth of this hurricane is that it creates such chaos that it's hard to get one's mind around the systems that need to be in place, for systems to be in place, for systems to be in place. There are economic systems, organizational systems, racial relation systems, insurance systems, volunteer systems, on and on and on, that all tie into each other, sometimes creating threads of compassion and progress, sometimes knotting up and creating yet further obstacles to progress. 

So there are days that are frustrating, when we're not ripping apart walls or leveling lawns, or when we're not all able to work together on one site. But I believe with every day, we are learning as a group just how incredibly complex this situation is, that we are only one very small part of a picture that is far too large for any one of us to see in its entirety. I'm extraordinarily grateful for the members of this group who have been willing to share honestly and openly all they have experienced in this journey together. I very much hope members of the UU Church of Davis, and the community of Davis will feel free to ask us questions when we return, that we will be able to share our journey, in words, photographs, and in even in the memories our bodies carry of hammering, prying, painting, shoveling, and hauling. 

 I hope too people will realize there are years and years ahead of this community needing the generous help of strangers. It is indeed a vast, complex situation. And one way to understand that is to come down here and witness. I'm so glad we have this week.

Peace,

Eliza 

I have taken it upon myself to document our trip with lots of photographs.  If you click on the my photos selection under photos you can view a few of the photographs that I have taken each day.  I have made several albums, one for each day. If you click on an individual photo it will enlarge and will have a caption underneath it.  I have gotten a little behind but I have photgraphs from the first three days posted and will try to post photographs from yesterday sometime tonight.

-Jacq 

A house stands in northwest New Orleans, maybe 20 blocks from Lake Pontchartrain, across the street from the gutted Unitarian Church we had just toured, the water line clearly visible about 8 feet up on the wall/roof.  Located amidst of block after block of deserted houses, this house is different.  Unlike Biloxi, where the houses were demolished, destroyed by the hurricane, these houses were just empty, gutted.  But this particular house was not empty-deserted, but not empty.  Nothing had been touched in this house since the floodwaters receded.  The carport and car were covered with an inch of dried, cracked mud.  A snow shovel and two of the four-legged walker type canes were among the things in the carport.  Were these retirees, recently moved from snow country? I could see into the house through an open door from the carport, mud and rotten drywall everywhere.  A rack of ties, askew on the floor of the dining room, stood out incongruously from the general shambles.  A built-in book case filled the wall in the far corner of the room, still shelved with ruined books.  The destroyed kitchen was visible over a high countertop.  I started to walk through the dining room to the hallway and bedrooms to the left, but quickly retreated when I felt myself becoming congested from mold.  On the front of the house we read a posted letter, stating that the house was not eligible for rebuilding because the framing was not structurally sound and the insulation contained asbestos.  There was a line for signature by the owners-it was blank.

"The Rev" Arsell McGee is a joy-filled older black gentleman, a deacon in the Baptist church, whom we assisted on our first day in Mississippi.  Through the course of the morning we spread about six yards of dirt over the site where his house used to be, where he now wants to plant grass.  The house had disappeared in the hurricane and flood.  Next door was another residence he owned, miraculously still there, and nearing the point where it could be lived in again.  In the meantime, the Rev was living in one of the infamous FEMA trailers parked in his now vacant lot.  While we worked the Rev was off helping a neighbor re-roof.  During our initial conversation just after we arrived, one of us asked the Rev about the large boat on a trailer in his vacant lot.  "That boat," smiled the Rev, "that's a blessing."  And he proceeded to tell us the story.  The boat had finished the storm wedged between two neighbors' houses.  Not knowing what to do, the neighbors told Rev that if he could get it out of there, it was his.  The Rev rented a crane and hoisted the boat onto the much too small trailer that normally carried his 16' fishing boat-the same boat that had miraculously floated around his yard during the storm and flood, bumping up against the closed fence gate where it came to rest when the waters receded.  He bought himself an appropriately sized used trailer for $300, hauled his new boat down to the harbor and made the trailer switch.  Now it sat there with a new owner, The Salty Dog, needing some engine and electrical work, but otherwise seaworthy.  A Blessing.

Bryan

It's now Monday evening, following our first day of work with the Grassroots Volunteer Network.  As we were working today, I kept thinking about the Baptist church service we attended yesterday morning.  The people there were so beautiful, so passionate in celebrating their community and God's love for all of us.  We had been invited the previous day by their pastor, who told us we were in for a treat coming to a black church in southern Mississippi, the home of Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, and other masters of the blues.  The music of his church, he said, is heavily influenced by blues and jazz.  He also told us that the Lord's spirit keeps coming to Biloxi through volunteers like us, that we are providing hope to his hurricane-ravaged community.  He said they feel abandoned by the government and mistreated by the insurance companies, so it is only our presence from the outside world that offers hope.

And I witnessed that hope expressed during the Sunday service.  When the choir sang, the congregation was on its feet, clapping and swaying and singing praises of God.  Brother Arcell led us in a prayer that brought me to tears - it was a loud and forceful prayer of gratitude, thanking God for all that he has provided and for sending volunteers to help in rebuilding.  This from people who have lost so much.  Eleven months after "The Storm," many of their houses are yet to be rebuilt, so they're living in FEMA trailers.  One hundred members of the congregation, about one-third, have moved away permanently.  And their church building is still being repaired.

Pastor Davis preached up a storm.  The sermon was long and rhythmic, with lots of shouting and arm waving, and I loved it.  Maybe I was southern Baptist in a former life.  He preached on the story of Gideon, from the Old Testament Book of Judges, totally unfamiliar to me.  The Israelites have lost their way (again), distracted by the self-centered material world (like us), and forgotten about God and caring for each other.  So God tells Gideon to go to the local heathen idol and "Tear It Down!!"  Just like we have to do now with those things in our life that oppress us and keep us from what's really important. 

"You gotta tear it down!" Pastor Davis challenged, "you hear what I'm saying?" 

"Tear it down!" we shouted. 

"Whatcha gonna do?" 

"Tear it down!" 

"Now turn to your neighbor sitting next to you, and tell them what you're gonna do."

Jerry and I turned to each other: "Tear it down!" 

I was giddy with joy.

Then this morning we are taken to a house near the eastern end of the peninsula that Biloxi occupies.  Katrina put this neighborhood under 30 feet of water.  Most of the houses were gone, leaving only weeds and a crumbling driveway.  But the houses built with bricks, like this one, were decimated only on the inside.  Our job was to remove wooden planks of interior wall, pull up old square nails from the sub-floor, tear out a rotten carport ceiling, and clear off piles of pine limbs and straw that had landed (after floating) on the roof.  Volunteers before us had begun the process of gutting out, and others would come after us to complete the job. 

We were Tearing It Down, alright.  We were getting rid of what had to go, the old moldy decaying stuff that prevents restoration and renewal.  A family of Vietnamese immigrants lived in that house before the Storm.  Before that family could return to Biloxi and live in their own house in their own community, we had to help throw out all that debris.  We left a huge pile in the front yard.

Jeff

Yesterday, us Davis Biloxian's (can I call us that?) had a full day.  We did not work at a job site because it was Sunday, but we were fortunate to be invited to a Baptist Church run by Reverend Davis.  The church is located right next door to the Grass Roots camp which is our base camp.  Services were at 8:00 am and there were many volunteers who attended as well as local parishioners.  The choir was outstanding and I felt very welcomed.  From there, we went to the UU Church in Gulf Port.  We thought services started at 10:30 but they started at 10:00 (oops).  The people were very gracious about our tardiness and they were also really interesting to talk to after the service ended.  The differences between the two services was quite amazing and the people in both congregations were kind and happy to have us attend.  

From there, we headed to New Orleans.  It was absolutely pouring rain for awhile!  We drove through the Ninth Ward, spent some time on the French Quarter, and visited 2 UU Churches in the Orleans District.  The belief is that one of those churches is going to try to be saved but the other one is not salvageable.  That sentence condenses quite some time, but it is difficult to express how haunting it was for all of us.  Words we were using, such as overwhelming, sadness, disturbing, anger, frustration.........hardly can describe the sites we saw.  I had no idea what it looked like to see block after block, mile after mile, neighborhood after neighborhood destroyed and deserted.  How can this be?  But yet it is....Eliza said that ~half or more of the people who lived in New Orleans and called it home have not returned.   Many of the places we saw are going to need to just be torn down.  Some already have.  We had seen damage in Biloxi on our first day here, but it really set in how bad and how widespread Hurricane Katrina was when we traveled through Mississippi and into Louisiana.  But there is so much more to do and I for one can say that after seeing that, we were all ready to get back to work helping in any way we could.

Our second day of work started out at the Grass Roots Camp meeting our new supervisor, Jim.  He has been here for 10 months and is a great source of information and know how!  We spent the morning working in a Vietnamese neighborhood finishing up gutting a home that was going to be fixed back up again.  Jim told us that this house was very fortunate to survive the 30 foot wave that hit it and that it was because it was built so well.  I had never seen rectangular/square nails before, and we worked very hard at trying to save any wood paneling that we removed.   Thanks to everyone on our crew for teaching me new skills on how best to remove those nails!!

For lunch we went to the Volunteer Relief Camp,  What a great experience it was to see so many people from so many organizations working together.  Lunch was served under a high school bleacher stand.  Everyone was friendly, there was lots of food, and a clean bathroom!

In the afternoon we went to the Grassroots warehouse and helped to clean, sort, and organize all of the donations and stuff.  From lumber to lighting fixtures, from windows to waste baskets we did our best and were pleased with the end result.  I must say, I was very impressed with the window frame that some of the guys made!

Jim then took us to a home that had been gutted but could not be saved.  It looked so good from the outside and we learned the lesson that what you see on the outside does not tell you much about the inside.  That sounds like something we should know!  We met Marion, whose house we will be working on tomorrow, and planned our next morning before finishing for the day.  Wow what a busy 2 days!

Susan 

Greetings all Davisites! The Biloxi branch of the Plude Family (i.e. Keldon and Bryan) is/are checking in and letting everyone know we're ok!

Day one in Biloxi has truly been an eye opening experience. The trip from Biloxi/Gulfport International Airport to our hotel in Biloxi was merely a glimpse of the overall devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. However, despite the toppled bridges, caved in parking garages, dilapidated churches, and collapsed homes, Biloxi seems to be pulling itself out of the wreckage. Trailers and tents abound where people are already working to rebuild their homes and neighborhoods.

Our first day, as you already know was mostly spent helping a gentleman named Arcel spread dirt around his yard. Once Jerry got his bearings without his glasses (which later turned out to be in his shirt pocket!) we all got to work. From then on, wet was a constant state of affairs. The already humid air was buffetted by several hearty blasts from the yard's hose, leaving everyone downright drenched. This however did not have quite the desired effect that it does in Davis' dry heat. But no one complained (much) and by the time we were done, we went from being soaked to just being damp again.

Back at the hotel, after helping lay a pallet pathway for Grassroots, and even on the way back, stiffness and achiness started to set in (even for the younger ones). Hot showers and Ibuprofen helped to aleviate this, but I have the feeling that everyone will still be thankful for the day of rest tomorrow. We city slickers certainly have our work cut out for us, and we all are going to have to do our best to cope.

Until next time,

Bryan and Keldon Plude

It is now 9:40 pm and I am standing in the lobby of our home away from home (the Suburban Extended Stay in D"Iberville) where 4 feet of water filled this lobby and all rooms on the first floor of the hotel.  Nearly a year later, much of what we have seen (like this hotel) appears not to have experienced damage and destruction of the most natural disaster in our country;s history.  But everyone we have spoken with has a story that is vivid and full of both horror and wonder.  

Tonight we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Ocean Springs, a town about 15 minutes from Biloxi and during an after-dinner-walk in a residential neighborhood we spoke with a woman and her neice.  Their street, which was a couple of blocks from where we met them, had flooded.  The woman told us of friends whose house floated away under them and after hanging on to a tree for 3 hours they were resued.  

The Grassroots Network organizations with whom we are working is located on the land of the black church.  As we headed to our vans this afternoon after completing work there, the Reverend of the church walked down the driveway and we had the opportunity to talk with him for about 30 minutes.  About 100 members of the church have left the area and will not return leaving some 200 members.  He told us of being in his house and watching his roof lift off and return several times.  The church was badly damaged by wind; however, the water did not enter the buildings.  Looking at the church, it was hard to believe that it had been severely damanged.

Just south of the hotel is another residential area and this afternoon Maria and I walked through the area having heard of the Plughs walk there last night.  Foundations were all that is left on some lots and FEMA trailors were in countless yards.

While Katrina affected rich and poor alike, East Biloxi, where we worked this morning, appears to include many businesses and families that are having a harder time re-building and restoring environments to a pre-Katrina state.  

But the strength and spirit of our host this morning and the Reverend we met this afternoon is a strong indication that people here we succeed.  We have been thanked endlesslywhich I confess makes me a bit uncomfortable.  

Eliza's organizaton and attention to detail has been remarkable.  Today during lunch I asked her a question and she whipped out her notebook to find the answer.  She also read information about East Biloxi which included the fact that the median annual income is $18,000.  As the Reverend with whom we spoke this afternoon said there is poverty in the shadow of each casino in this his beloved home town.

It is now past 10 pm and I have got to return Jac's computer to her so that is all for today from the 11 of us here in Biloxi.  Thanks for your interest..  

Mike was going to write tonight too but the wireless connection does not work in his room.  McKenzie he asked me to send along his hello to you since I was writing from the lobby.  

Good night.

Stefan 

Thank goodness that we were blessed with record setting in heat in Davis for the week preceding our trip to Biloxi, because when we woke up on Saturday morning and stepped out the door we were pleasantly surprised that the temperature and humidity didn't seem as bad as we had been warned it would be.  Perhaps a "dry heat" isn't always preferable to overcast skies and balmy moisture.

After having stocked up at a local Win Dixie Market the night before, we breakfasted in our rooms and packed our lunches in preparation for a day on the town - working.  First we visited the Grassroots camp where we received our assignment and were chaperoned by Jerry/Tony (who for whatever reason introduced himself to each of us using one of these two names) to our first worksite.  There we met with the property owner, Arsel, aka The Rev (as in short for Reverend).  We were introduced to two huge piles of dirt and received some vague instructions as to where to move them to.  Seeing as there were 11 of us and only two shovels and one wheelbarrow, Jerry/Tony returned to the Grassroots camp for the necessary tools.  Jerry/Tony has been here since March and it was evident that living in a tent all this time may have dampened his spirits.

 After tools arrived we spent until lunch time spreading dirt, pulling weeds, uprooting small trees and hoisting chuncks of cement (found buried in the dirt) out to a trash pile.  Many of us wondered if/when/how these piles would ever get picked up.  Evidently they must, because the whole town had a one time been massive piles of rubble which have been removed since Katrina's attack.

We decided to  have lunch near the water with a full view of the accordioned Ocean Springs br idge.  After seeing many, many FEMA trailers on the way to our hotel the evening before and on the way to lunch, it was a relief to see a normal sight of a family fishing by the waters edge.  Even amidst the blight and ruin, life returns to normal.

 After lunch we returned to the Grassroots camp.  We were happy that we had decided to stay in a hotel because the camp was basically an empty field behind a car dealership, outfitted with a couple of portapotties, two outdoor showers and a few tents and canopies.  Together we moved pallets (which were used for the foundation for just about everything at the camp), and possibly the world's heaviest bunkbeds in preparation for the next round of volunteers.  We were mighty happy to return to the comfy, air conditioned bliss of our well appointed rooms and hot showers.