NoLa, #2

The bright sunshine awakened me again this morning. After stumbling down the hall to brush my teeth I found the kitchen and brewed a pump-pot of Community Coffee-dark. As the warm elixir slowly revives me, body and soul, I begin to realize how stiff and sore my body became overnight. It might be an Advil kind of day. However, as I reflect on our Memorial Day activities in NoLa a smile comes to my face. We accomplished much and had a great deal of fun in the process. This is a great team of which to be a part!

After a leisurely breakfast at the church we loaded up the bus with people and supplies for cleaning and painting. After traveling only a few blocks we stopped on a quiet street with classic shotgun duplexes on one side of the block and larger single family homes on the other. All had large porches or verandas, with wicker furniture for sitting under the shaded porch and people watching. We carried our supplies to one of the duplexes. This was the place Michael Hitch and his family would be moving this week to be in the midst of the community where the church is located. We quickly discovered that much work needed to be done before it was ready for this sweet family - furniture, rugs, tools and dust covered every floor. Starting upstairs, our group cleaned and painted the two children's bedrooms and cleaned the floors, baseboards, and fixtures in all of the rooms. Painting the 12 foot high plaster walls was a chore - one gray wall in each room, then pink for the little girl's room and blue for the boy's room. I put my long honed skills to work and replaced a toilet seat before jumping into the painting mix cutting in the rooms. By lunchtime all that was left was a few touch-ups.

For lunch we took our sack lunches to City Park and ate while watching geese play on a small island in the pond. As they finished eating the boys in our group taught the girls to skip rocks. We were entertained by the small gauge train that circumvented the park, waving at children and tourists joyfully riding around the park. After the hour we made our way back to the house. Before beginning work a few of us walked down the street in search of a bottle of water. Instead we discovered a snowball shop. Snowballs are similar to snowcones, but so much better! The concept is the same, but the shaved ice results in a texture more like and extra thick slushy. The praline-cream syrup was amazing!

After a quick strategy meeting the team tackled the first floor. One crew hauled some unneeded furniture away while the rest of us - experienced painters now - quickly painted and cleaned the downstairs and the steps. The refreshing sent of pine sol now replaced the stale odor of a long empty, older home. The bright walls and shining, mahogany stained heart pine floors were now ready to welcome the Hitch family later this week. It was a good day of work!

After dinner Micheal took us to the sanctuary for worship and bible study. He discussed the ministry here at Canal Street and in the city as being one modeled after Philippians 2. It is an incarnation all ministry that seeks to meet people where they are with the Gospel. 

Hitch noted that God has been calling his followers to a deeper faith for generations. The more liberal among us have been pushing for change for 30+ years. Yet these prophetic voices have been pushed to the background by those in charge in denominations. However, beginning with Anthony Campolo, moving to his student and mentee Shane Claibourne a new generation of radicals has emerge. David Platt & Francis Chan have joined the growing chorus of those who believe that membership in the church is not a salvation reserved for the elite, but is for all people and which calls us to a faith that is concerned about "the least of these." Platt and Chan have a platform that cannot be silenced by those who would attempt to quell their cries for a faith that is uncomfortable with the American status quo. People are hearing them now and are responding with a desire for a deeper faith. Hitch does not like to call the movement radical, because it should be the norm for all people who choose to follow Jesus.

Hitch challenged the students to pay attention to the dreams that God gives to them now because they are at a time in their lives when their dreams will be more vivid and they will be able to hear God in ways that will never be so clear again. He advised the, to listen and to act on the dreams and visions that God gives them. 

On missions it is easy to be incarnational for a week or a bit more. on trips such as this we are in solidarity with our teammates about focusing on Jesus in all of what we ate charged with doing. However, Hitch advised we need to be that way always! We should allow Christ to live in and through us at all times and in all things. We should have the mind of Christ that Paul presented in Philippians 2, one marked by humility and putting others above our needs and desires.

On missions we should do our work as Christ did, incarnationally. But we should also live that way when we get back home and when we go back to school. We should not only focus on begin the proverbial "hands and feet" of Christ, but on allowing Jesus to live in and through us at all times, in all places, responding to every situation in which we find ourselves through our whole selves, not just through various body parts. 

As we headed off to an evening of fun activities around the church Hitch challenged the team to ponder ways Jesus might want to be more incarnational in our lives, and to identify ways we were each resistant to such living.