Why Blog? 2: Electric Boogaloo
Happy Easter!
We are on our way to Easter Service at All Souls Episcopal Church. The team is moving slow, as they do most mornings, but I have enjoyed the slowness to wake because once this group of youth and adults gets going, they are full speed ahead until they crash at night.
I do not want to spend a lot of time trying to explain the history of the church we are going to, but I do want to mention a few things: During the CEEP Conference a few weeks ago, some staff and vestry members of St. Paul's took a tour of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana's Rebuild Ministry in New Orleans. One of the stops on this tour was All Souls Episcopal Church in the Lower Ninth Ward. According to the tour guide, All Souls was founded post-Katrina in response to the number of churches (of all denominations) that were closing down and pulling out because of the destruction. It was the opinion of the Episcopal Diocese that a situation such as Katrina was precisely the time to build a church in the Ninth Ward to meet the needs of the community. Today, All Souls Episcopal Church stands not only as a house of worship, but as a Community Center that hosts numerous programs that contribute to (re)building and (re)imagining the community physically and emotionally. Please check out their web site: http://allsouls.edola.org/
Now, Why Blog?
To be honest, at first we thought it was a really fantastic way to keep our connection with St. Paul's alive and kicking during our time here in New Orleans. It is very important that the St. Paul's community, to whatever extent possible, experiences with us the magic of serving in New Orleans. After all, we are not here on our own, we just happen to be the lucky ones who were sent by YOU to serve in God's name here in this devastated city.
But the ‘Live from New Orleans' Blog has turned into so much more than we could have hoped for!
First and foremost, the blog has been very representative of our community reflection and prayer time at night. While it has only been one member of our community writing and posting each day or afternoon, their posts have come from the conversations, prayers, and silent awareness we have shared as a group each morning and night. Journaling is always a key element to a mission experience for personal growth reasons, but looking to summarize and condense thoughts to communicate to others has really helped us preserve a few nuggets that may have otherwise been lost in the abstract of uncollected ramblings and energetic conversations!
Secondly, it has been another wonderful tool to help individual members of our community to process the experiences of the day. Blogging each day, as you have seen, has helped some of our individual missioners collect and work out their understanding of what it means to be a Christian in this world, in this experience, and what it will mean to be a Christian when we return to our home in Richmond.
Finally, it has been a chance to share the story of New Orleans. This city, this AMERICAN city, is still hurting from the ramifications of Katrina and a broken system. Houses, homes, in many areas still remained gutted as the owners of those homes remain spread out over the country (Citizens evacuated out of New Orleans were taken to 49 different states in this Union). We have heard three words over and over again during our time in this great city: ‘Tell Our Story.'
The more distance between Katrina and the present, the less the country gives (a natural consequence of time and assumption). Now is not the time, as Americans or Christians, to dust off our hands and say ‘Job well done,' now is the time to pull on our work gloves and dig deep for our brothers and sisters, our fellow Children of God, in Louisiana. The blog has helped us to share their stories with you, and hopefully helped you to consider joining the St. Paul's Mission Team next year and inspired you to give to the efforts of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana to support the rebuilding of the city. (SUBTLE LINK TO DONATION PAGE HERE!)
That is all. The coffee is dripping, the bodies are stirring, the dress shirts and Easter dresses are being affixed to bodies that still have dust on them from our work site (we are a little reluctant to leave this experience behind...).
Happy Easter! Thank you for reading our blog. Please do the following: Stop us in church and ask us how you can help, stop us in church and ask us where you can sign up for next year, and most importantly pray. Pray for the people of New Orleans in the hope of the Resurrection that we celebrate, not as an historical event, but as something that is happening today and every day!
God's Peace
Dit is de perfecte blog voor iedereen die meer wil weten over dit onderwerp. U weet zo veel zijn bijna moeilijk om te betogen met jou (niet dat ik echt zou willen ... haha). U zeker zet een nieuwe draai aan een onderwerp dat is al over geschreven voor de jaren. Geweldig spul, gewoon geweldig!