Last night my oldest son returned from an 8-day mission trip to New Orleans. The experience has truly touched him and he can’t wait to get back there next year when our church’s Youth Group returns. The stories that he has shared with us so far are both heartwarming and heartbreaking. His team worked construction on a house (he did drywall) and helped move an elderly woman back into her duplex, which had been half-restored. The group stayed at the Trinity Christian Community Church and they worked in a neighborhood called “Hollygrove” (pictured left), which is a borough of the city located in the 17th Ward. They also drove through the 9th Ward en route and apparently there are still barges sitting in the middle of neighborhoods. The entire place was described to us as a war-zone and it appears that the only people still doing anything there are churches, charity organizations, and volunteer groups like Americorp. The U.S. Govt. has done little in these small communities and the FEMA trailers are now being removed.

There is a police presence; plain clothes cops with machine guns are guarding all the local businesses, but no one will deliver anything from mail, to papers, to pizzas in any of the surrounding areas. Even Home Depot is locked down and surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. Socially, there is a distinct separation of classes and most neighborhoods have become racially self-segregated. Over the course of 6 days spent in Hollygrove my son saw no other white people (minus their group), very few young adults (most were elderly), very few working cars (although shells of vehicles littered the streets everywhere), and ruin after ruin that used to be people’s houses covered in mold and bullet holes. (To be honest, I was not even aware of the dangerous and desperate state of their destination. They had to be inside a gated compound at night and could go nowhere without escorts. It’s hard to believe he was in the United States of America.)

You could tell the pride in his voice was tempered with frustration. He said the place is so bad that it is hard to believe it has been several years since Katrina. He also said it made him grateful for what he had as these poor people, who had little to begin with, lost everything through no fault of their own. He plans to return next year and is now looking at overseas opportunities for mission work. What a blessing this trip was indeed for both the residents and the volunteers.

We are so very proud and thank the Lord for his safe return. There will be a group photo-album of the experience posted in the coming days and I will share a link (or stills) when they are available.