Katrina Relief Urban Plunge (Part 1)


The amount of debris was endless. During Boston University's spring break, we took about 55 students to New Orleans to work with Habitat for Humanity. After our 27 hours bus ride, we found ourselves at Gentilly Baptist Church. We slept on cots for the week, it was great to see that the building was seemingly untouched, but I found out that the church was flooded as well with about 6 inches of water. On our first day there, all we did was pick up trash along 15 blocks of streets. We saw endless number of houses either abandoned or destroyed...


The reality of the situation had finally hit me. I thought that the city was well on it's way to recovering from the storm, but locals told me that it would take another 20 years or so to get things to at least some what "normal". I had a mixed set of emotions. I was sad, yet frustrated with the seemingly lack of progression in the rebuilding. People still had raw emotions and vivid memories about the storm and as they were telling their stories about having to abandon their homes and lives, we saw everything just come out. This city needed hope... and it has hope in Jesus.


Our days usually ended with group discussions in small groups on different topics and they were rather intense... Part 2 of the post will detail that aspect of the trip. (Next post 4/14/09) Thanks for reading!

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