by Gary Payton

September 17, 2005 — I have stopped taking pictures (almost). My mind has become numb to viewing destroyed houses, downed trees, and piles of debris alongside the streets. As I enter my third and final week of service along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, I realize these scenes have become my new "normal" and that I must concentrate hard to detect where our volunteers can be of most benefit.

Still, it has been a good week for our Presbyterian Disaster Assistance team. We were sent here to set up a series of camps so volunteers would have a temporary home from which to remove debris, clean out flood damaged houses, and do minor repairs. Our first camp is fully functioning in Gautier, Mississippi. We have begun construction on our second camp in Orange Grove, a suburb of north Gulfport. Monday night a large crew arrives in D'Iberville to build a tent camp on a city softball field. And, massive tree limbs are being removed from a church side yard in Port St. Louis to receive yet more volunteers when the camp is complete. I am proud of our efforts, small though they may be, when compared to the enormity of the recovery task ahead.

So what's the deal about the pictures? It has to do with dignity. The human dignity with which I seek to live and with which others have the right to live.

Friday, my colleague, Bev Cooper, and I were invited to come to East Biloxi to view the destruction of hundreds of homes and businesses in the low income neighborhoods. In East Biloxi, as in countless locations across the Gulf Coast, serviceable used clothes were piled in boxes in parking lots so people might find a garment for themselves or a child to replace what the storm took. Human dignity. It is hard to see my fellow Americans stooped over clothes piles now strewn across the ground picking through items looking for things that might fit them or a relative. It is hard to be present when a neighborhood man interrupts my conversation with an East Biloxi leader to ask if he could have two or three rolls of toilet paper. This gentleman and I share much in common. We are about the same age. He is a father. I am a father. He had a job, a house, a life with purpose in his community. And, it hurts to beg for toilet paper. Human dignity. So, there are no pictures of the African-American and Vietnamese-Americans rummaging through the clothing piles. And there are no pictures of the white man asking for a little toilet paper for his family. Human dignity. In the face of this disaster, how can I strip away even a shred of the self-worth they still possess by taking a picture at this most difficult time?

My work will be handed to another person this week, and I'll return to Sandpoint. But, I am not the same person who left the north country on Labor Day for Mississippi. I hope I am a far better person for these intense, dramatic experiences. Please continue to hold the victims of Katrina and all who seek to help in your prayers.