Dear Everyone,
As my plane takes off into the dawn, the storm of the last three days has, literally, just passed. I opened a book to distract myself from everything ahead, and found this word, Rothoron. I had to stop to take it in.
This moment, for me, is the gossamer bridge between planning and reality, between dreaming and working the dream, between the anticipation and the taste. It’s also a shift: from the sidelines of a national disgrace to putting a hand in.
As a determined group we extended an invitation to the nation just over 6 weeks ago, and hundreds of people — from thirty two states — have accepted.
It was a message from our hearts. Seeing how passion changes peoples faces has been moving and, for me, the biggest surprise.
We have each made the sacrifices we could. We have each extended ourselves farther than we believed possible. We have each had sleepless nights: When we realized the magic number of 25,000 would flood a city still recovering from a greater flood. When we couldn’t find housing. When housing got snatched up behind us. When New Orleanians interpreted our words to mean “you all haven’t done well enough.” When we didn’t know where everything was going to come from. When trucks and insurance cost more than we could have imagined. When each phone call and each hand shaken meant….who knew what.
We had hoped for help from the mighty. Instead, we have been on our own. This magnificent team, and the friends who have joined us along the way, has moved from being strangers to being…Katrina Corps. Not without bumps in the road and not without fear, but always with a full sense of adventure and shared commitment to what could happen…IF (to borrow from Bono) the saints were to come. In the end, our saints are college students and families and retirees.
We said we wanted to bring the energy of America to New Orleans. We have said we want everyone to get to come home. We are doing all we can to make that happen.
We have experienced a New Orleans we could not have imagined. Wounded in spirit. Defensive. Tough. Resilient. Warm one-on-one. Ultimately welcoming. Whole realities we could not have imagined. And could not have experienced had….Keith not gone first. To witness for us the unseen truth of our sister region. Had others not followed after his first teams. Had we not made a collective New Year’s resolution to “act like we’re all connected.”
The royal “they” would have said this was un-do-able. But because of Paul’s amazing picture — the molded-over poster of Muhammad Ali, teeth-bared, declaring “IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING” — taken in a house their team gutted, we took it as a clarion call. It has meant we’ve had to “…go outside you, live outside you, love outside you…way outside you…into every little heart you meet” (as we sang so many years ago).
Ray, who took on something no one in their right mind should have, was surprised to hear another theme from other still-vital lyrics: “If more people were for people, all people everywhere, there’d be a lot less people to worry about, and a lot more people to care.” While we, with ACORN, are the only non-church on the list of recognized gutters for spring break, our church is, and always has been, people. With the help of the divine in all of us, we will do our best to serve them well.
Because of it all, I’m on the gossamer bridge of this dawn. Flying to New Orleans. Where, tomorrow, we officially welcome our first Spring Breakers.
With prayers for the safety and joy of our volunteers, and for the life-opening adventures that are to come. And with thanks for every experience — perfect and imperfect — and for every person who has shown up to be part of making this come true.
I send my love and gratitude,
Pam