Rachel and I recently were given the opportunity to help lead a trip of 22 students down to New Orleans, Louisiana. It was our second trip, and WJU's fourth. We were down in the big easy for six days. During that time, we hammered and pried and ripped and tore apart 4 houses. It sounds almost cruel, but ripping a home down to the studs means that the people who live there will be able to begin rebuilding. This picture was what the bathroom looked like in the third home we started work on in February. You can see the waterline on the back wall. The actual height of the water in this home was about four feet above that line. When we walked into that home, it was full of belongings and had been untouched since the hurricane. When we finished, everything was out on the curb, and we had taken out every wall and every floorboard in the home. It was just studs, a sub floor and a roof when we left. The work we did on that house alone would have cost the homeowner over seven thousand dollars. And it was only one of the four homes we managed to gut while we were there.
I think the most shocking thing about New Orleans is the vast amount of destruction that is still in the city. A year and a half after Hurricane Katrina, only a third of the public schools are open and there are no hospitals open that will see patients without insurance. Hundreds of thousands of people are still living in different cities, and many who do live in New Orleans are living in FEMA provided trailers outside their homes.
While the visit was difficult, it was nice to see some of the progress that's been made. On our fist visit a year ago, most of the city was without power, and less than a quarter of the homes were inhabited. When we went down in February, many more homes had been rebuilt, but hundreds of thousands of homes still lie in ruins.
We hope to return to New Orleans again, and get our hands dirty cleaning up from the damage that still needs to be repaired. It was a very fruitful trip for our ministry as well. As a result of going, we managed to build strong relationships with several students that we never would have had the opportunity to meet. God is doing some wonderful miracles in New Orleans, and in the hearts of the students from WJU who have gone down to help the city rebuild.
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