Email: Sarah Leer

Greetings All,

The Gulf Coast mission site has been a whirlwind of activity since we arrived. I cannot believe a month has passed already! Most of our month was spent as a group—all eight of us were living in our shotgun home in New Orleans together. It was a great opportunity for us to get to know each other very well. By the time we left to settle at our individual placements, we were already looking forward for our next retreat.

I am placed at an organization called Project Homecoming, the rebuilding effort of the Presbytery of South Louisiana. My first assignment as an advocate for Project Homecoming is to call each presbytery and drum up volunteers. It has been two years since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the people of New Orleans fear that the country is forgetting about destruction and devastation that left this community in great need.

As I called the presbyteries in the Synod of the Sun, various churches responded enthusiastically that they were already planning a trip. Then I called Lyon College, a small, liberal arts Presbyterian college in Batesville, Arkansas. I started to give my pitch to Nancy, the chaplain. “We are looking for volunteers to come down to the region; we are still desperately in need of volunteer labor and we can help put together your lodging if you decide to come through Project Homecoming.” I paused. This is where I was hoping for an enthusiastic “Sure!” or “Already have the Car Bingo cards for our road trip!” Instead all I heard was a pregnant pause. Nancy replied, quietly awed, “I have been online for the past few days, checking out the PDA websites, looking for an opportunity to serve down there.” I broke into a grin and told Nancy how to bring her students to the Coast. Just when I thought my calls were falling on overly committed ears, my call to Nancy proved that my work was not in vain. Nancy and her college group are just one of the groups that answered God’s call to come rebuild and restore hope to New Orleans.

Finding volunteer groups is only part of my job as an advocate. Weeks ago I found out that the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) is coming to New Orleans to listen to a panel of key leaders in the community to find out just what is being done in government, social services, and church organizations to respond and recover from disaster. ACSWP is committed to writing policy that will enable churches in the PC(USA) to continue to support the region. New Orleans in many ways resembles a war zone: businesses are skeletal remnants of their former selves, hospitals struggle to reopen their inpatient facilities, and half of the city’s population has not returned. My colleagues and I at Project Homecoming are forming this panel of leaders who will accurately represent the true current state of New Orleans to ACSWP. I am honored to help host this group.

Every morning, when I arrive at the satellite presbytery office in the Gentilly neighborhood, I look at the enormous white board that takes up one wall of our office. It is filled with names: names of people whose houses are being rebuilt by the tireless labor of our construction managers, assistants, and volunteer groups. Names line one side of the board with people who have waited for two years for their houses to be gutted. They are names of the people we serve.

Sarah