Perspective

I feel that my time in New Orleans over the past three days has really taught me a lot in an unexpected way. Because of the size of our group, United Saints has not been putting our group on building/Katrina relief projects. My group spent both Tuesday and Wednesday at The Mission of New Orleans and the Second Harvest Food Pantry and today at the Mission all day.

I have to say that at first I was very disappointed to not be building. After all of the exposure that I had to information about Katrina's wrath and aftermath prior to the trip, I was extremely excited to "get my hands dirty" and contribute to the rebuilding of this amazing city. While I was able to do this working on Brian's house on Monday (see my previous blog for details), my past few days have been spent doing a different kind of service down here in New Orleans. Needless to say, I began service on Tuesday with a bit of a negative attitude, upset to not be on a build site. After spending my day cleaning the Mission (they will be featured on an HBO show whose camera crew is coming this Friday) and sorting food at Second Harvest, we had small group reflection at United Saints. A great conversation within my group helped me realize that everything is about perspective and I would consider that moment to be both powerful and impacting to me.

That conversation and my experiences the past few days have helped me to realize (or more specifically be re-introduced to the fact) that everything is about perspective. I could have easily spent the past few days complaining about not being on a build site and, consequentially, brought down the moral of the group that I was working with. But, I chose to look at it like this: in just four hours sorting food we were able to package food for approximately 7,500 families; without our man power at the Mission they would have never been able to clean up in the magnitude which we were able to, the exposure from this show will help them achieve a lot of much needed funding. While we may not be putting walls on a house or working in the 9th ward, we are making a visual difference in a community which has faced much hardship.

So,as I sit in my bunk listening to music and reflecting on my experiences here in NOLA so far, I cannot help but think that maybe this trip was not intended to teach me what I had thought it would originally. Life has its way of always keeping you on your toes and presenting you with unexpected lessons in unexpected places.