Quite a few members of the Meadville Lombard community traveled south this summer to help with the Katrina rebuilding efforts in Louisiana and Mississippi.
Renee Zimelis Ruchotzke, a student in our Modified Residency program, went to Biloxi and Pass Christian, Mississippi, earlier this year with a group from Kent State University, when Renee was serving as Campus Minister. "This is the way the world should be: people helping people, strangers becoming friends," Renee was quoted in the Kent State Magazine.
Eliza Galaher, right, fourth year residential student, also went to Biloxi, Mississippi, with a group from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, California, where she was finishing up her ministerial internship. The group kept a blog for members of their congregation in Davis. The blog has photos and comments about the work the group did and the people they encountered. Toward the end of the week, Eliza entered the following:
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.
James Hobart, BD '64, adjunct faculty at Meadville, and Deane Oliva, fourth year residential student, also went south with a group from First Unitarian Church of Chicago. Rev. Hobart gives the following account of how the trip affected him and his ministry:
Deane Oliva and I were two of the 16-member crew from First Unitarian Church of Chicago who spent a July week in New Orleans this summer, living in boy or girl dorms at the First Unitarian Church of New Orleans while we volunteered to work at the church and in the community.
One group helped get the church ready for its planned re-opening Sunday in early September. There was work to be done indoors and out. The sanctuary had been flooded to about five feet, and there was both clean-up and clear-out work throughout the first floor of the building. We were able to get some of that done in a week.
The second crew worked during the week to prepare two houses for interior re-building-- two of 400,000 homes damaged or destroyed in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast. They cleared out clothes, furniture, appliances and other items which had not been touched since the September 2005 flooding after the levees failed. They removed the interior walls and ceilings. It was dirty, exhausting and stifling work in the New Orleans mid-summer, humid climate. Most of this house-by-house recovery work is being done by volunteers from religious groups, with college students providing another large contingent.
We ate most of our meals at the church, prepared by members of our group. We devoted time daily for worship, and dedicated regular time for group processing of our experiences and relationships. We also had some recreation and education time in our busy schedule.
We got a good picture of the achievements and the failures, the challenges and the possibilities that face the people of New Orleans as they continue to put their city back together. While it is not yet altogether clear what New Orleans will be, it is clear that it will be different in many ways from the city it was before the Hurricane and the flood. For good and for ill, it will be different in scale and organization. It will be different in culture and attitude.
These differences apply, too, to the three UU congregations in greater New Orleans. In the time ahead, they will continue to need the support of partner churches, including First Unitarian and others in the Chicago area. This ongoing relationship is a fine example of a word we often speak these days: interdependence. We give bone and flesh and blood to this abstract word. Grounded in our living and loving relationships, we discover religious meaning and power. We began to build these fine and sturdy threads of interdependence this summer as we sweated and strained, as we wielded tools and removed loads of debris.
It was good and satisfying work.
The work goes on.
