Venturing Further

Travelling through the Upper Ninth, across the Industrial Canal and into the communities beyond, we saw many houses still boarded up four years after the storm, with the "X's" marked on the front from the search and recovery teams, info indicating who searched, hazards, people or casualties found, etc. It was very sobering.

The Lower Ninth Ward impacted us deeply. Once one of the city's most densely populated areas, nearly 60% of the residents owned their own homes, with many families residing here for generations. Now the majority of the neighborhood is gone. A few restored homes dot the landscape, with some irreparably damaged structures remaining as well. They are dwarfed by large expanses of green fields, marked only by concrete pads where houses used to stand, or steps rising up to nothing.

On Flood Street we got out and walked. In one block there were three destroyed church buildings. The pad was all that was left of the Mt. Nebo Bible Baptist Church building, where my friend Charles Duplessis has pastored (see above). Up the block to the east is the Morning Star Baptist Church building, gutted but with pews still lined up in the interior (though not in their original order). Back across the street was the sanctuary of the Antioch Spiritual Church, its brick structure damaged and empty of worshippers, but with a little statue of Jesus sitting free on the lawn. Closer to the street, spraypainted messages offered the pastor's phone number for those seeking him or others who used to live and worship in this place.

Our folks began to wonder: Where are the people whose lives were grounded in common life on this street? How many are still longing to come home? What did the neighborhood surrounding these three churches look like prior to Katrina? What did people share on a daily basis? Where will the good news once proclaimed from these church pulpits now to be embodied? Our lives were being drawn closer together.

We were shaken by the realization that if this were New Hope, Pennsylvania (or another Delaware River town) four years after a flood, or a midwestern town that had been flattened by one of hundreds of annual tornados, the place, and the residents lives, would already be substantially rebuilt --with a great deal of help! . One would hear very few outside suggestions that "It would be better if Yardley wasn't rebuilt--it may just flood all over again."

As we left our eyes were drawn to some striking new home construction along Tennessee Avenue. Could these be a sign of promised new life?

Our boisterous, enthusiastic group was very quiet all the way back to the Mission House in Mid-City.