Email: Jessie Jennette

Friends,

April showers bring May flowers. Showers of all kinds have been falling in New Orleans, and beautiful things reveal themselves after the rain. I want to share three stories about people I’ve met here that have taught me one or two things about rain.

One family of homeowners we work with has had their fair share of rain since I’ve known them. Project Homecoming had been working with the family two months prior to my arrival at Olive Tree in New Orleans—a mother, a father, and two girls. One girl was a freshman in high school and one is about my age. I had been in and out of their home several times watching the subflooring go in, the reframing of the weak walls, and the beginning stages of dry-walling when I heard that the home had been broken into and the copper wiring stolen along with several of the more valuable tools kept in the house.

I wasn’t there, but Andy, the worksite assistant for the house, told me he couldn’t stand to see the mom (a  short, enthusiastic, spunky woman) examine her front door with a broken window next to the door knob. I remember thinking, “What can I say to them?” as I stopped by the house to check on the progress since the break-in.

“Brother,” as he likes to be called, met me inside and I asked, “I heard about the trouble.  Was it bad?”

“Not bad,” he said, as he led me to the exposed electrical panel in the rear bedroom.  “Look. You can tell just how tall he was because all the wires were cut at the same height. And you know he was probably just a kid. You can tell he’s never done this before because if he knew what he was doing, he would have known to climb up into the attic where he could have gotten six times as much wire, easy. Next time, we should just wrap up eight more feet of wire on each of the lines so we can pull them right on down when someone takes everything hangin’ out of the ceiling.”

Another couple, a family I’ve been with since the gutting stages of rebuilding, has almost completed their home (out of necessity, because they are being evicted from their FEMA trailer this month). (It’s been proven that FEMA trailers have been causing severe health problems—from nosebleeds to headaches to nausea—and FEMA is taking responsibility for removing people from those conditions. It’s a pity that they haven’t asked if the residents have another place to live.) They are both disabled and up there in years, but you wouldn’t know it the way they still talk and tell stories. Last week, they had nearly all their floors installed (the volunteers made an extra effort to get everything done they possibly could). The husband sat on a stool in the middle of his living room with glistening, new, hardwood bamboo flooring (affordable and environmentally conscious, because bamboo is a fast-growing renewable resource) and told me he sat there for three hours just imagining the way it was going to look with his small table here so he’d have a place to set his keys and always know where they were, and his umbrella stand here—“it’s been in the family for years, ya know, and this wall here, we’re dedicating to y’all… we’re going to put pictures of all the groups we’ve had up here in frames and have a book of the notes they’ve left us here and see it every time we walk in the door.”

Then there’s one man that I met last month. He walked into the village and asked one of the volunteers if they could help him. Elree is his name and upon visiting his home, one could see that a stiff breeze would blow it down. Any precipitation could fall right into the hallway, the house had been knocked off its foundation in places and had fallen two feet to the wet ground beneath. There had obviously been squatters living in the structure, and Elree and a few of his tough cousins had cleared them out and started gutting the place on their own in an effort to prevent the city from razing it to the ground, which had been the fate of other homes in the area that had shown no signs of “intent to rebuild.”

“The best option would be to demolish and rebuild,”said Mark, head of PSL construction (who had taken time out of his busy schedule to come and assess the damage of Elree’s home with me). The problem is, Elree explained with a bit of desperation in his voice, that if he knocks the house completely to the ground, the city won’t allow him to rebuild. New construction in the industrial area has been banned, so he’d have to tear down and rebuild one section of his house at a time in order to circumvent the city’s red tape, which would take much, much longer and would be quite a bit more expensive. After PDA headquarters was informed of the situation, I was told to tell Elree that we would not be able to help him. PDA in New Orleans can only assist pre-case-managed homes, so all I can do is hand Elree a list of numbers for Red Cross, Salvation Army, and the New Orleans hotline, 211, and hope that he qualifies for funding, receives a case manager for the project, and does so before the city condemns his home. PDA’s tag line is “Hope through hospitality.” Call me a cynic, but I don’t feel that I provide any hope or hospitality. “You can’t help them all,” they say. But how can you console yourself with the 22 starfish you save and ignore the 22,000 that you didn’t?

Is it possible to maintain the perspective that it makes a difference to this one and be satisfied with what you can do?

I don’t expect an answer. The reality of it is that it isn’t possible to provide for everyone in need. But then I look back at the people that I’m supposed to be helping and find that really, it’s not about me helping them, it’s about them helping me. Knowing them has shown me what it is to be a Christian. Knowing them has shown me what it is not only to provide hospitality, but to receive it with grace.  And watching them, they’ve shown me how to move on and remain faithful after it rains.

Love,

One more starfish back in the sea,

Jessie