Thursday, July 23, 2009

Day 4

 

God’s Work.  Our Hands.

 

I’m intentionally borrowing the ELCA’s tagline for today’s blog because it will never be more appropriate for us.  It turns out that even before Hurricane Katrina, the ELCA was in conversation with the city of New Orleans about the 2009 Gathering (we learned this from our servant leader, Leslie, of whom you will learn more below.)  But after the storm the ELCA asked the honest question: can you still handle our group?  Of course, New Orleans eventually (in faith and hope) said yes.  They worked hard to recover enough to receive such a gathering and here we are.  So even before the storm hit, tens of thousands of Lutherans were slated to offer works of service to the City of New Orleans.  And today it was First Lutheran, Onalaska’s turn to do God’s work here with our hands.

Most of our group woke up EARLY this morning.  It was a 5:45 bus call in hopes of a 6:00 gathering time at the Superdome with many buses who would then scatter around the city by 6:30 to dozens of worksites.  I say most of us woke up early because one of the rooms remained in dreamy slumber til’ well past 6:00.  I’ll change names to protect their identities but suffice it to say Anne SloBerg, Paige SLofald, Ella Slonutson and Rachel Sl(o)unney were a tad tardy to the bus (mentioning them in this blog is their only punishment). 

Happily, their lack of alarm prowess didn’t matter one bit.  Our bus at the Superdome didn’t leave for another 45 minutes.  That time was spent with our Servant Life Rep, Leslie who is a chem. major from Oklahoma and extremely gifted with energy, smiles and a willingness to know other people.  She made it her mission to know our names, share herself and find out our stories throughout the day.  We were extremely fortunate to be assigned the best Servant Life Rep the ELCA has (although they could all be that good, I suppose.) 

After our brief commute to the service site, along with about a hundred other orange shirted people, we received instructions: avoid all poison oak, poison ivy, poisonous snakes, poisonous spiders, and alligators (at least they aren’t poisonous).  And while we avoided all those things, we were introduced to the invaders: Chinese tallow trees and cat’s claw vines.  Our mission: remove every tree or vine we saw.  And we saw a lot.  Our efforts would contribute toward reclaiming this park for the local neighborhood.  And although we were hot and the humidity levels were at least 111% our kids and adults went at this task with gusto.  We hunted and killed every cat’s claw and Chinese tallow we found.  For one group of young men, they entered into a sort of battle mentality.  And trust me, those young men won every time.  There was a hacker (scythe), a lopper, a ‘lumberjack’ (bowsaw), a poison man (every exposed stump received herbicide) and a clean up gang to make sure no offspring (seeds) survived.  In short order, they made a highly effective team and Scout Island no longer has even one Chinese tallow tree left.  I can confirm that.

Our return home was uneventful and most of us rested this afternoon in preparation for another worship service at the Superdome this evening.  There, we heard more amazing speakers whose theme was: Love.  Know that God loves you.  Love others as they are.  Viola Vaughan shared her story of going to Senegal to retire, but being pulled by God into educating 10,000 girls – by herself (seriously… she is the only adult).  We heard about Thistle Farms which supports a ministry in Nashville where prostitutes and addicts are welcomed and sheltered that they may restart their lives.  And we heard more wonderful songs that all lifted up the theme of love.

What especially struck me today was how we went from many groups to one gathered group.  Each group down here brought their own t-shirt.  Most say where they’re from and have their own color.  But today, every participant offering service wore orange.  That we are from Onalaska, and they are from Illinois and they are from Texas is starting to matter less and less.  Today we all wore orange and we all offered service in the name of Jesus for a place in need.  You can feel barriers melting away as people say hi and get into real conversations more easily.  We’re past ‘where are you from’ and I’m hearing kids asking about what their churches do, what their families are like and what they are like.  God made this day fantastic – through service, fellowship and all the ways our kids’ parents have prepared them to be them on this trip.  I can’t wait to see what happens tomorrow.