Hope, Delivered

Pearlington Pt 2

Friday was a day of watching God orchestrate, in sometimes miraculous ways, the multiple crossing of paths between two unselfish pastors from Louisiana, two storm battered men from Mississippi, a tired volunteer from Canada, and two men driving, but not knowing where to, from Minnesota. 

The reason for God's orchestrating the crossing of these paths?  He knew the people of this town called Pearlington needed help.  He knew the help would need a place to stay.  And He knew of a tired volunteer from Canada who needed to go home. 

While this was happening, a team of volunteers from Bethlehem Baptist left Minneapolis, driving through the night to traverse the 1200 miles as quickly as possible.  They did not know where or who they were going to help.  As Tom and I slept that night where we did not plan to sleep – at Hebron Baptist, we knew the plans God had for this team - to work in Pearlington and stay at Hebron.  

On Saturday Tom and I connect with the team at Lanier Baptist in Baton Rouge.  On Sunday, while Tom stays with half the team and connects them with various shelters in Baton Rouge, I head back to Pearlington with the other half of the team.  I am excited to return.  God is so in this. 

Our first stop?  Buzzy and Grady's, of course.  I make introductions and then ask Buzzy and Grady if they could tell the team what to look out for.  They said the snakes and the crocodiles had supposedly all gone further inland as they don't like salt water.  They told how the black mold on the insides of homes is more dangerous than the other color molds.  Who needs government sanctioned orientations when there are Buzzys and Gradys on site?

We then head over to the distribution center, located in the school gym.  There, I spot Jon.  I go over to him and let him know I'm back, but this time with 8 others who are here to help for a whole week and with more in Baton Rouge who will be coming over later after helping in shelters there.  A big smile sweeps across his face.  We don't need to say anything more.  

That evening, at Hebron, as we blow up air mattresses and try to fit them in the three small rooms we were using, we brainstorm on what we should do in Pearlington.  Knowing there is no one to serve breakfast the next morning, some volunteer to leave early to make breakfast for other volunteers and for the residents that have no place to cook.  Others, having seen the organizationally challenged distribution center, decide to start by making shelves and clothes racks to get things off the floor.

I have a less practical vision – create a Mall of America – Pearlington, complete with an amusement park for the kids.

Early Monday morning, some head off to Pearlington to fix and serve breakfast for 100 plus people while others go to get supplies to build shelves, etc. I look fo a "car" for the rollercoaster which will be the primary ride in the amusement park that is to rise in the middle of the mall.  I don't find anything that I can justify spending the money on

Then I have an idea: the wheelbarrow the team brought down could be the "car" the kids ride in as someone wheels it up and down ramps made of blocks of wood and plywood.  I buy some paint (custom color, of course) and a cheap (war-time mentality) paint brush to transform the wheelbarrow.

There is only one problem with my Mall of America – Pearlington vision – I am the only one who seems to have it.  Everyone else is intent on making breakfast, building shelves, or organizing the distribution center.  No one is volunteering to help build the rollercoaster.  I don't think anyone thinks I am really serious.  I have that problem sometimes.  If they do think I am serious, they probably are passing it off as being frivolous. 

The reality?  I am serious about being frivolous.  I've spent 2 weeks visiting shelters.  I have seen the children, children without their homes, without their toys, without a playground, trying to "be good" while there was nothing to do.  The shelters are often just rooms of wall to wall cots.  The kids need something frivolous.  They need a rollercoaster.

I keep pursuing the vision.  I get out the paint and start painting the wheelbarrow. As the day progresses, however, it becomes more and more apparent that this rollercoaster is not going to be.  It becomes a for sure not-going-to-be when the first shelving unit is placed – right in the middle of the unseen-to-others amusement park.  It's obvious no one is "tracking" with me.  The rollercoaster vision has died.   

With the death of the rollercoaster, I wonder what I should do.  I decide, as I have not taken any photos during my 3 weeks down here, to take a break and drive around the town. 

The town has both amazing and sad sights.  The most interesting?  The drive-thru house.  Apparently, the simplest way to reopen the street was to cut through the middle of the house sitting across it.

Later, as I walk back into the distribution center, I have to just stop and take it in.  More shelves have been built (and placed in the amusement park).  The team is busy either building more shelves or putting things on the shelves or helping residents find what they need.  Everyone is working hard.  The "Hope in God" t-shirts are mostly soaked in sweat.  Much has been accomplished today.  This distribution center is looking good.   

Then, out of nowhere, it hits.  As I see the others working away, I also see that my time here is over.  I have done what I was called here to do.  Others, finally, are here.  I can go home.  It is a strange mixture of relief and sorrow.  Relief in that I can go – I need to – and sorrow that this incredible time is about to end. 

I am filled with emotion.  I need to work alone.  I go over to my rollercoaster car, the wheelbarrow, and re-envision it.  If it isn't going to be used as a rollercoaster car for kids, it can be used to deliver things from the distribution center to people's cars.  I paint a design on the still wet blue paint and add the letters "DFH".

Canada Jon comes by.  He is finally leaving.  He finally sees he can.  The Bethlehem team is here, working, and committed to staying for the whole week.  He thanks me for those who came. 

In his relief that he can now go home, there is also a sorrow.  I see it all over his face.  We're in the same boat - filled with emotions going in every direction.  We need to get away from here, yet we both know the needs are so great we fight the need to leave.  Jon and I give each other a big hug and say good-bye.  I watch as he walks away and out the door.  It's strange.  We had hardly talked, yet I fell like I have known him for years.  I didn't ask for his address.  I already have more addresses than I will ever be able to keep in contact with.  But I will never forget him.  He will always be "Canada Jon". 

It's time to leave.  It will soon be curfew time across the Katrina South.  As others finish what they were doing, I tell Rachel I am going for a walk and that they can pick me up on the way out.  It's my last day here.  I need some time alone.  I need some time with God.  As I walk and pray I look up through the mangled trees of what remain of once majestic trees.  But I do not see mangled trees.  I see an awesome God – a God who can with a "poof" from his mouth cause majestic trees to be majestic no more. 

As I look up through these trees, with the sky behind turning the colors of the sunset, all I can see is beauty.  I see an awesome God.  A majestic God whose majesty trumps any majesty these trees might have ever claimed.  It is glorious.  As I walk, I see I am coming up on Buzzy and Grady's, but something is going on.  Grady is, for some reason, standing on the side of the road.  He sees me coming.  There are orange highway cones placed down the middle of the road with a chair sitting in the middle of the cones.  Before I get there, a police car comes.  An officer gets out, and calls Grady over.  Soon another police car comes.  Buzzy comes out.  Heated "discussions" begin. 

It seems Buzzy had set up his own speed control zone in front of his open camp ground to try to keep down the dust from passing vehicles.  The most controversial part of his operation is his sitting in the chair in the middle of the street with a gun and machete.  The police, seemingly, think that this is not a good way to lessen dust.  Soon more police cars.  And more.  The road is now blocked by cars with flashing-lights.  I, again, find myself in the middle of something I am not quite sure what it is.   

During this time Grady is clearly concerned about what is going to happen to his friend.  Grady has done jail time and knows what it is like.  Grady had been a drug addict.  It is Buzzy who had gotten him off it.  Buzzy is his best friend.

As the rest of the team now arrives on the scene, and with the curfew time approaching, I know it was time to interrupt this police operation to do what I had come to do: to tell Buzzy and Grady thanks and good-bye.  As I shook Buzzy's hand I also looked him in the eye and say, "Buzzy, you don't need to be doing this sort of thing."  He looks back at me.  It is our last words. 

I walk with the others back to the waiting vehicles.  It is another of-God orchestration - to leave Pearlington as I had arrived – entering the flood ravaged and frustrated lives of two Mississippi men called Buzzy and Grady. 

Later, I hear from my Mom that Pearlington has been in the news all day.  I look it up on the internet.  The news story of Pearlington and how it is being overlooked and has gotten little help is being carried across the country and around the world.  There is a photo taken inside the distribution center.  It was how it looked Sunday – the day we arrived.  I smiled.  The incredible timing of God's orchestrations. 

The world may have overlooked Pearlington, but God hadn't.  And He had a plan.  We were a part of it.  As the sun rose that morning, as people around the world opened their newspapers to read for the first time about this overlooked town, we were already there, in place, cooking and serving breakfast for volunteers and residents, building shelving, sorting and organizing the distribution center.

...and painting a wheelbarrow.  While I believe all that we did during our time in Pearlington helped to give people hope, God used the frivolous painting of an old wheelbarrow to show the need is so much more than food and shelter:

As I painted the wheelbarrow, earlier that day, a man stopped by and just starred.  He looked for the longest time and finally said, "I really like that color.  What is it?  I'd like to paint my porch that color."

Amazing.  In a town that was up to its roofs in water, where dried mud is everywhere – inside and out – in homes, churches, cars, everything, where the landscape has turned a winter-brown in the middle of summer from the salt water, where the trees are twisted and broken, a man starts dreaming about having a front porch again  ...and what color to paint it.  Hope.

At one point an older man stops by and asks what I'm doing with the wheelbarrow.  I tell him about my idea for a rollercoaster for the kids.  He gets this strange look on his face as if he couldn't believe what he had just heard.  Then his face gets brighter.  He gets this big smile on his face.  He says he'll be back later with his two grandkids.  Hope.

Then, a woman comes by and asks rather indignantly, "What are you doing!?" 

I respond, rather sheepishly, "Painting a wheelbarrow." 

"Why!?" she asked briskly. 

I said, "Because it needs painting." 

She pauses and looks at the wheelbarrow and asks, with a sweetened voice, "You came all the way here to paint a wheelbarrow?" 

I simply nod. 

A smile comes across her face.  She turns and walks away. 

As I think of the town, covered in drying tan mud, I think of this colorful wheelbarrow going down its streets.  Frivolous?  I don't think so.  Joy and hope and love could all be called frivolous when the "need" is food and shelter.  But man was not created to just survive on food and shelter.  Less practical?  Man has a spirit that needs joy and love and hope as much as the body needs food and shelter.   

No government or public relief agency can meet the needs of the spirit.  That is not their role.  It is the role of those whose lives, whose spirits, have tapped into the Spirit of God to pour out love, joy, and hope.  This is the seemingly unquenchable need.    

Later, surprisingly, the woman with the sarcastic questions returns.  She said she had to come over and look again.  She said, "I wanted to tell you what at a joy your painting this wheelbarrow has brought me.  Seeing you paint this has lifted my spirit.  It shows there's hope.  It is what we need more of." 

I didn't know what to say.  She said it all.  Hope.

The letters "DFH" painted on the wheelbarrow?  "Delivering, For Him".  I was thinking groceries.  God was busy delivering hope.

And the paint wasn't even dry.

20 September, 2005