Their are a lot of loose ends you may be wondering about.

First, we were able to finnish the "down to the studs" cleanup work on Renetta's house befor the end of the day on Thursday.

Renetta joined us for dinner and reflection that evening. She even stayed while the church's music director was rehearsing for a Friday evening Karaoke fundraiser. We all had fun listening and singing old songs. Renetta even joined in for one of them.

People have asked "what is next for Renetta?" I don't think she is even sure of the answer to that. Their are many more steps to take. And it will require resources she does not have at the moment, if she rebuilds. But she has been able to take the first step of many.

During our reflection Renetta was asked, "What would you like us to tell the people we are returning to?" She asked that we pray that New Orleans gets good people in office during the up coming elections.

If you don't know their are 22 candidates on the ballot, and the area has quite a history of corrupt officials.

Second, the church is virtually finnished, and ready for mold abatement before rebuilding. Pat De Jong helped with the church, and also went with Shelly to take a look at the scope of damage in New Orleans.

We worked hard on Joan's house, but their is still a lot of work to be done. The concensus of our group is her house is probably too far gone to be saved, but it is still important to go through this process with her.

We also had a group go off to a forth house in a middle class neighborhood (the flooding was a equal oportunity destroyer, and did not stop at even uper class neiborhoods). Some work had been done on the home before, and the group helped get a little farther on the process.


I think I can speak for the group when I say that we all feel blessed haveing met both Renetta and Joan. And we wish them the best as they struggle to rebuild their lives.

Now that we have returned home, their is a lot for us to refect on and share with everyone over the next few months. -- Paul Hoy

Prepairing to leave

After finally getting used to our schedule, with its early morning wake-up calls, fixed meals times and succession of activities, it's time to wrap things up and go home. Like at our work sites, we make sure all of the "tools" (our air mattresses, cups and bowls, etc.) are clean and accounted for and ready for the next group like ourselves to arrive and get started. After a relaxing last evening of fellowship that included kareoke, we had a closing worship session puntuated by a cappela renderings of "Sanctuary" and "Stand by Me", a prayer circle (using Shelly's "squeezing the hand" method), and a sharing of visual images that teams of three created to represent what the trip has meant to us. Some of the themes: "Stand by New Orleans" (with the image of a hammer); "Listen.Tell.Act."; and "Who is your Neighbor?" (from the Good Samaritan parable).

Many of us are praying that we hold onto what we have felt this week---the empathy, the learning, the empowering, also the anxiety, the confusion, the frustration, unprecendented event that has splintered a community, left miles of neighborhoods empty and quiet, and overwhelmed us all. We all hope to tell more of the stories we've seen and heard here, so that our committment to this work is sustained and our greater community (we are all New Orleans' neighbors) will continue to extend its hands and its resources for this need. -- Paul T

It's been marvelous and overwhelming to be here. I remember the words "O God the sea is so big,my boat so small." Did we make a difference in the vast suffering and need? Perhaps the difference is in us. We've worked together, prayed together, eaten together and struggled together. We'll return home with gratitude for this time and with hope that we will be able to come back in a year? someday, and see a city rebuilt on hope, determination and faith in God and each other. -- Pat dJ

Lunch with Joan

This is actually from yesterday, but I did not have a chance to write it in the blog until now.

Yesterday morning another house was added to our list because a elderly neigbor of te church finally was given the keys to her FEMA trailer and was going into her house with out proper protection and a mask. So Jonel, Paul T, Hannah and Chau were asked to start working with her and hopefully make the place safer for her to be there.

The people working at the church were to carry the cooler and water to Joan's (pronounced Jon) house and have lunch with the people working there.

When we got to Joan's house we learned that Joan was so grateful for us helping her that she made, not only the people working on her house, but all of us, a fried chicken lunch with a salad bread and vegitables. She insisted on being able to feed us. She apologized for only feeding us fried chicken, and said that if she had more than a day's notice, she would have made us a real New Orleans meal.

Some of her belongings had been in plastic tubs and were still water logged (and rotting) from the flood after Katrina. Her home was filled with mildew from the months of being sealed up since the flood. You can not believe the stench.

We all were all invited into her FEMA trailer, but knowing we would not all fit in there, we went, a few at a time and helped out selves to the food she prepaired. I don't think we were able to take even half of all the food she offered.

We then went out and sat on the ground in front of the neighbor's FEMA trailer and had lunch while Joan intertained us with stories of her life growing up in the neighborhood and about her take on the politics of New Orleans. What a treat.

Their are so many stories to tell and so much we have learned while being here. -- Paul Hoy

Morning, day 3

Good morning, blog-ees! I woke up this morning with a new awareness of some old(er) muscles and joints. Yesterday was devoted to nail pulling: I am the BADDEST nail puller on the planet!!! These nails were all below the 4-foot (or so) level that had been de-sheetrocked by Monday's team, at Renetta's house. While I was pulling, others were continuing the de-sheetrocking in other rooms. It is messy, noisy work, but satisfying when that last piece of sheetrock, lathe and plaster comes down, or when that particularly stubborn nail finally gives way!

Renetta was there all day, outside most of the time. Occasionally, I tried to put myself in her position: How would I feel to have a crew of strangers inside MY house, beating at the walls with mini-sledge hammers, ripping out the baseboards with crowbars, hauling out the kitchen counter (okay - truthfully, if anyone has a desire to haul out my current kitchen counter, I'll let you know when!), and pulling nails out with great creaks and groans. And this on top of the trauma of (1) the initial flooding, (2) being kept out of the house by officials for a month, (3) the shock of finally returning to find mold crawling up the walls, and (4) the financial straits she's facing. No wonder she's watching carefully, but from a distance. And multiply this by many, many, many New Orleanians and others in the Katrina/Rita swath. Send positive, supportive thoughts this way by the truckload: They desperately need the emotional boost!

I'm off to a new site today, for new adventures and insights, and maybe to discover yet other previously unknown muscles and joints!

Diva Dot

Beecher Memorial United Church of Christ

On our first work day half the group continued the gutting efforts at Beecher Memorial UCC. We were left with the difficult tasks of removing moldy panels and sheetrock from the "high" places. Ladders, short and tall, were a high commodity. On the church sign out front a sheet of paper had been inserted that said, "We are coming back." These statements offer evidence to the community commitment to rebuild. Without these signs you might never know this hope. The neighborhood feels desolate and the only signs of life are cars speeding by on the road.

My highlight was making the connection between a black couple, the Alexanders, who had worshipped with us at Good Shepherd on Sunday morning, and this church. Throughout the work day I could envision their community bringing life to the space that was now only studs and a roof. At the start of our work day, Alan told us this story. Right before the flood, the women's fellowship had prepared a luncheon. THe tables were set in the Fellowship Hall, plates, silverware and plastic cups. When the first work crew entered the building post flood, they found the pews in the sanctuary turned over and spewed everywhere. But in the Fellowship Hall, the tables were still set! Six feet of water held the floating tables and after the water receded the tables resettled to their previous stated, including plastic cups standing up! One table had floated away but the cloth and settings landed perfectly on the floor. Simply amazing! The table has been set...in the past, right now and forever more. Amen!

I was also in awe when I came across the huge baptismal font right below the cross and smack in the middle of the chancel- full immersion baptism!
Submitted by Shelly Dieterle

Renetta's House

We went to Renetta's house today. There were two groups of us, the other group worked on the Beecher Memorial Church UCC, also in the Gentilly Neighborhood that had various amounts of flooding. Renetta's house is an old (1900 ish), New Orleans style "shotgun" house whose floor is about four feet above ground. The water came up around a foot above her floor, and stayed for quite awhile.
She greeted us in tears, which I don't think were were from gratefullness as much as from uncertainty and concern about what was going to happen next. She is a member of the Beecher Church, and had requested help from the UCC. Alan Coe, our UCC Disaster Coordinator, had briefly told us that we we would be cleaning out her house and removing the plaster on her interior walls up four feet from the floor (for new sheetrock). The mold extended up only a foot or so in the living room, but then in the closets the mold behind the hanging clothes extended the heighth of the closet, and was really thick and dark on the plaster. Renetta had already had help in removing most of the furniture in the house, but there were many personal articles and books, etc., from her life there with her mother since moving in 1995 (her mother died a few years ago).
We split in half, and my bunch of Cal students and I started on destructing the lathe and plaster with 1/2 inch sheetrock over it in the living room. We wear "paper" disposable coveralls and masks and work with crowbars, hammers, and small sledge hammers. Our crew had great spirit, limited "skill" to begin with, but in the tradition of UC Berkeley rapidly came up to speed and tore into the task at hand.
The other bunch had the more difficult task of taking out Renetta's personal belongings to the curb. She really didn't want to look at them, but as the pile at the curb started to grow, she took a more active interest in what was piling up! Renetta also started to trust us and the process. She had been layed off from the hospital where she had worked, had used the little money she got from her insurance to pay off the mortgage, and really doesn't know how her life is going to go. (She was also worried about squatters coming to live in her house, even with no utilities available, and how she could evict them).
By the end of the day, the house was mostly cleared out (except the kitchen), the walls were bared four feet up in the living and dining room and Renetta was smiling! We are going back tomorrow to hopefully finish the work of cleanout. We don't know how the process will continue after we move on to some other task but we plan to encourage Alan Coe to continue with Renetta's house so she can move back in or whatever to get on with her life. -- Terry Jackson

Good mornin' from No'leans!

What a Sunday it was! We started the day (after breakfast) with a tour of the sanctuary and Pastor Gary's enlightening, delightful description of the effects of the flood, and the surprising way in which the congregation's prayers were answered: We were thinking of making some little changes, but God thought maybe BIG changes were in order!

As the community gathered, Ray and I took a walk around the neighborhood. Although the houses in this neighborhood do not seem structurally unsound, at least 60 % of the houses have a FEMA trailer in the driveway.

I have more to say, but Team Kokua (Hawaiian word for "care") is on for setting up the lunch stuff, so I have to run. For now I will just emphasize how thorough the hurricane was. Individual still shots and even video footage cannot, CANNOT convey the extent of the damage, the number of destroyed and damaged houses in the 9th Ward, St. Bernard's Parish, near Tulane and Loyola, and all over. Astounding. Amazing.

Team's calling. There's a lot to share, from all of us.

Aloha & shalom --

Diva Dot

Sunday at Church

This morning we got our first chance to meet the warm and generous congregation who’s church we have set up home for the week. It has helped us to start to see the emotional damage the storm did to this community.

There is a lot of blame and feeling like the government at all levels have failed them, and continues to fail them. They are very grateful we are hear to witness and help.

The church is relatively small, about 120 people, were at worship. We were told that about a quarter of the congregation has left, and may not return.

Shelly spoke and gave greetings from Berkeley to the congregation. We were all asked to come forward for the children’s time.

Part of the children’s time was performing the song “In the Garden” on hand bells. We were asked to participate. Each of us was handed different colors and asked to play our bell when shown a card with our bell’s color on it (see photos).

We will soon be leaving to tour the city, then spend the afternoon and evening in the French quarter. -- Paul Hoy