Where Have I Been?

For those of you that have not heard, I have out of town quite a bit in the last two weeks. I spent a whole week in New Orleans with our mission team helping the people there to rebuild. I will be preaching more on this experience on Sunday, but I thought I'd give you a few of the details about our trip.

We were able to help four homeowners while we were in New Orleans. We met three of the homeowners we helped, which was an unexpected, but very rewarding part of the trip. What did we actually do? We "gutted" homes, mostly. When a team "guts" a home, they remove absolutely everything in it. Thankfully, the homes we were in already had personal effects removed. Our job was to tear down wall board and all the nails so that the only thing left were the studs. It was physically challenging work!

When you're in someone else's home, literally tearing it apart, you become very aware of how you have entered their personal space and their personal lives in a very intimate way. In the bathroom of one of the homes, a linen closet was still in the wall. Of course, it was ridden with mold and needed to be removed. When we opened the door, we found all the things you find in a linen closet--towels, washcloths, soap etc. You are quickly reminded that you're not just dismantling the "nuts and bolts" of a home. You're dismantling a whole life, a life style, normalcy as it was before the storm. So many emotions go with that. There is an inherent sadness to see a home stripped down. There is a sense that something new is arising out of the ruins. There is hope for a brighter future. There is frustration with a painfully slow process. So much more goes into "gutting" a home than just the physical labor.

So, it was a real roller coaster of a week, and I promise you will hear more about it on Sunday, October 28th. If you can't make it on Sunday for worship, you can hear the audio file of the sermon on Trinity's podcast at www.trinityalexandria.org.