I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plants, but God made you grow. . . . Or to put it another way: you are God's house. Using the gift God gave me as a good architect, I designed blueprints, Apollos is putting up the walls. Let each carpenter who comes on the job take care to build on the foundation! Remember, there is only one foundation, the one already laid: Jesus Christ. I Corinthians 3:7, 9-10

Twenty-three of us lived these verses during the recent mission trip to New Orleans.

Our group divided up to work on three houses. It was a sort of "baby bear, mama bear, papa bear" arrangement. One house was in the early stages, with only framing and exterior sheathing, and only half of the roof sheathed. One house was in the middle stages, and that group did painting, interior finish work, and tiling. The group working on the third house was the next-to-last group before the owner was to return to her home. In addition to final preparation work and finish work, the group added some nice "welcome home" touches, like vases of flowers.

Clearly, we were all building on the work of those who were there working before we arrived. Clearly, we were setting a stage for those who would come after us.

This, as Paul recognized, is the way it is with the body of Christ. We never exercise our faith in isolation. We plant, we water, we tend; we develop blueprints, we build, we rebuild (some in my group discovered some major problems and were able to correct them - thus averting huge difficulties down the road). It would be impossible to give credit to any one person or group. As Paul so aptly observes, the credit goes to God. "It was God who gave the growth."

We each do our part in bearing witness to Jesus Christ. No contribution is too small to be of no worth. No effort of time and energy is insignificant. No contribution is so large as to claim all the credit.

I am so grateful that God works this way. I am so grateful for the occasional living experiences of the richness of our common witness as the body of Christ. I am so grateful that surrounded by so much need and so much to do and so much that needs to be done, twenty-three of us were able to make a profound difference in the lives of three families (and of the extended families and friends who are part of their lives).

If this note has brought to mind similar experiences of yours . . . take a moment to sit with those memories, to pray those memories, and to give thanks for those with whom you share the wonderful labor of showing Christ's love.

Written by Val Fowler, Pastor at Honeoye Falls Presbyterian Church

by Matthew Ulakovic
"While most of us were relaxing this past January, nine Service Learning students from MCC traveled to disaster stricken New Orleans, Louisiana and provided much needed help to the laggard rebuilding efforts which still haunt the region.

As a component of the many valuable opportunities available from MCC's Center for Service Learning, nine students participated in a course which took them to the heart of a nearly five year old epicenter. They went there to help rebuild that which has been forgotten to years of neglect. Some of them returned home wondering what ever happened to hope.

To these students, it seems as though New Orleans was not much different from the atrocity we sat watching from the comfort of our own homes just a few short years ago. The wrongs originally present in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina remain present to this day. We must continue to question how the initially disappointing response of our national government led to the very identifiable urban epicenter which remains.

As MCC student Chad Peters emphasizes, 'If there was more help to improve the area ... perhaps another five years [of rebuilding remain] ... It will take longer than that.'

Our only solace, like that of the native New Orleanais, continues to be rooted in the generosity of the regular people, such as the MCC group, who have taken it upon themselves to perform the tasks left unanswered by the federal government. No practicality, no efficiency exists in having a predominantly volunteer workforce rebuilding a region on their own good will and it probably shouldn't entirely be expected of volunteer workforces. Perhaps the duties of the real recovery should have been carried out by those whom possessed the most resources, the United States government and insurance companies.

We are all humans and deserve certain inalienable rights which include a place to call home. Sadly, even volunteer efforts, which are largely organized by a plethora of different Non Profit Organizations, are lacking the leadership that seems necessary to efficiently move the region forward. 'It was not as well organized as it should be, in other words,' says Peters.

These MCC students have come home more determined than ever to help make a positive difference in our world. Human companionships and the experiences of helping build up the lives of people whom really are no different than us are the counter balance to the disappointment rendered to the students. Some have questioned the relevance of comparing Haiti's recent disaster, specifically our nation's response to the immediate needs of such a close neighbor, to our growth toward handling an aftermath of such proportion.

Perhaps we can hold on to some hope. Maybe the disaster area that remains from Hurricane Katrina will be given the attention necessary for rebuilding, since the Saints big game victory may yield some much needed light on the realities of their region. As Chad Peters believes, 'this will help rebuild the city and bring more hope back into the people ... By the Saints winning the Super Bowl this will help lead them in the right direction.'"

 

Alanna's Story

[click photo for more images]
A few days before leaving for New Orleans, we received an e-mail telling us about the family we would be helping. Jose and Fatima are immigrants from El Salvador, who moved, with their two children, to the US a few years before Katrina hit. They bought a house in St Bernard Parish which they worked hard to fix up and make their own. Fatima speaks only a few words of English. Jose, who speaks conversational English, spends his days shucking oysters. The family worked hard to live their American dream, until their entire county was drowned by hurricane Katrina. After the storm their children, Jamie and Fatima Jr, went to stay with family in Houston. Jose and Fatima stayed back to fix up their home, working hard to do it themselves. This fall, 4 years after Katrina hit, their children were still not able to move back in. Our hope was to fix up the house enough that the children could move in by Christmas.

This is a beautiful story, and I went to New Orleans motivated to help this family, ready to do whatever I could to make sure that their house was livable within the next month. I was motivated, until we actually got to work. Barb and I were assigned the job of putting in floor tiles, having no experience whatsoever. Jose was to work with us for the morning, and go off to his real job in the afternoon. Our leader taught us to lay the tiles, and we practiced and practiced until we were sure we had it right. This was a frustrating experience though, because every time we laid a tile, Jose said 'No' and re-did our work. This was understandable, as we were completely new to tiling, and Jose may not have had the English ability to explain what he wanted us to do. Showing us was the easiest way. We were willing to learn, and I tried to discuss it with Jose in my bad Spanish, but he didn't seem willing to understand my grammar. I don't know why! "Jose. This way? Good? Yes? No? Before I do it this way. Artichoke?" After two days of this we became frustrated.

We felt like we had gotten nothing done. We came back from a lunch of muffalottas to find that we had been fired from the tiling job altogether, with Jose stating that he and his friend would do it that night. By this point, we were sure we knew how to lay tile, and frustrated that we weren't allowed to do so after our 2 days of learning. Everyone else had put up cabinets, and otherwise visibly made a difference in the house, except us.

Barb and I were given another job that afternoon, that of putting up shelving in closets. We spent the afternoon taking measurements, and then hid the measurement sheet in my backpack, so that no one could steal it, and therefore steal our job, our only possible accomplishment in our house. We called it our 'Secret Closet Measurements'. We learned to use all sorts of saws, and eventually put our first closet together. Proud of our work, we went to find our leader to see if it was ok, but not before Jose showed up. Uh oh! We joked with him about how he might fire us from this job too. Jose looked at the closet, stated 'It's good' and walked away.

After this, Jose seemed to show up just as we were finishing each closet. Each time, we wondered whether he was going to re-do our work, and why he didn't trust us to do it right. We continued joking with Jose about this, both in English, and my bad Spanish. On our last day in the house, Jose got a phone call while chatting with us. He said 'Its Obama', smiled, and walked out of the room. 'Did Jose just joke with us? Does he not hate us?' we asked ourselves. Later, having successfully completed all 4 closets, I finally decided to ask Jose more about himself, since he now seemed to be friendly with us. Jose told me about his children. He told us how their English is better than his and how they are 10 and 11. He told me about what he did to fix up the house, and how much he had done by himself before he enlisted the help of Project Homecoming. And, he told me that he is only 27! 27? I'M 27! I was sure this couldn't be right. "Vente siete?" I asked. "Yes, I was born in 1982." I WAS BORN IN 1982! This, I have to admit, made me a bit resentful. Here I am fixing up this guy's house, when I, at his age, live in a tiny studio apartment. Later, though, telling his story to others, I realized how much Jose has been through for someone his age. He got married young and had kids as a teenager, as is the culture in his country. He immigrated to the US to give his family an opportunity, despite being extremely young. He worked to buy his own house, and fix it up. He did all of this before the age of 23, when a hurricane came through and wrecked his home, and his dream, just when life should have become easier.

Learning that Jose did not share his story with the rest of the group, Barb and I realized that Jose did, in some way or another, appreciate us, bad tile laying and all. Perhaps he noticed that we kept trying, after he pulled up tile after tile. Perhaps he noticed that we continued to be friendly, and to talk to him in a language that we weren't fluent in so that he'd be more comfortable. I don't know what it was, but in the end we learned his story, and learned to appreciate that we had made a difference in his life.

And, sure enough, his kids were back in his house by Christmas.

(Photos - click HERE)

By Jonathan Schor - Brighton High School Student
Stepping off of the cold, air-conditioned plane into the New Orleans airport, we were all met with the sensation of breathing into a plastic bag. The humidity in Louisiana is famed nationwide; whereas Rochester has a wind chill factor, New Orleans, or "Nawlens" as the natives pronounce it, has a humidity factor. We had arrived, though, not to battle the heat but to confront a much more infamous environmental foe: Hurricane Katrina.

Though a Brighton connection to New Orleans may seem unlikely, we found one in Jean Coco. Mrs. Coco grew up in Jennings, Lousiana, just outside of New Orleans. She had already been to New Orleans a number of times following the hurricane, serving as both a volunteer and a native expert, but had suggested to her daughter Coco, then a sophomore at Brighton, that she assemble a group of students from her high school to go on a relief trip during the summer of 2009. The result was a group of six students (Jonathan Schor, Stanford Schor, Nikhil Benesh, Prachi Mehta, Brynn Kreilick, and Coco Wilder) and two advisors (Jean Coco and Jennifer Wheeler).

New Orleans is shaped like a bowl. Thus, when the hurricane hit it utterly devastated those places towards the center and bottom of the bowl. Ironically, this area contains some of the poorest urban projects in the city and, as a result, most of the people who had lived there were unable to rebuild their houses due to lack of funds. Because of this, we chose to do our volunteer work through the Annunciation Church relief mission in the Broadmoor neighborhood, allowing us to provide assistance to those who could not afford to help themselves.

We split into two groups in order to maximize efficiency and set to work painting houses for seven hours each day. The three girls in the group, along with one of the advisers, Mrs. Wheeler, painted the trim and final details on the inside of a house that was near completion. The three boys, along with Mrs. Coco, painted the outside paneling and iron-work on a house that was only about mid-way through the rebuilding process.

In the time that we weren't painting, we exhausted ourselves with myriad other activities. For instance, we saw Bourbon Street, went to a plantation, boated down the bayou, made it into the Times-Picayune, heard authentic jazz at Preservation Hall, and met people from Canada, the UK, Slovenia, the Netherlands, and from all around the United States.

Everywhere our small group traveled, whether to work sites, around New Orleans, or back at the end of the day to our church housing, we were met with what can only be described as an extreme form of "Southern Hospitality." The girls got the chance to get very close to the husband and wife who had already moved back into the house they were finishing up. Learning intimate details about the hardships that couple had faced, all of us were able to gain a great sympathy for what they had faced. Not ones to withhold their opinions, Mr. Rutgers and Mrs. Leola made sure to note that the girls were the most kind and easy-to-work-with group that had passed through their house in the past two years.

The experience of the boy's group was altogether different, as the outside of their house had yet to be completely painted. Hours of paint scraping and repainting led to what looked like a finished exterior project. Since the owner of the house worked two late-shift jobs, we were only able to see her on the final day, but, like all others, she was exceedingly appreciative of our work.

Returning to Rochester left us not only with a longing to return to New Orleans (with its boisterous music and delicious food) but also a greater understanding for what it means to play a part in such a greatly-needed relief effort. Our group has had numerous reunions since then, and we all have high hopes for returning to The Big Easy next summer.