Volunteers from Oahe Presbyterian Church. Photo: Meleta DeJong

On Thursday, May 24, six members of Oahe Presbyterian Church (OPC) plus one OPC alumni gathered their tools and clothes (and snacks) and at 5 a.m. turned their vehicles towards the south and headed down to New Orleans.  Duane Jenner, Darin Johnson, Glenda Woodburn, Wanda Wall, Ruth Smith, Larry and Meleta DeJong put on their work attire and spent six days doing what needed to the done following Katrina’s disaster. 

The first night saw the group spending the night in Perryville, Missouri, 900 miles away from Pierre, South Dakota.  New Orleans was now only 600 miles away.

Arriving in New Orleans around five p.m. we were initially greeted by the city by being rear-ended by a pickup on I-10. Following the arrival of the state police and paperwork completed, we headed to the First Presbyterian Church of New Orleans where we were to spend the week and were greeted upon our arrival by our friend, Pastor Cliff Nunn.   The next morning (Saturday) Cliff showed us the way to our week long work project and there we stayed for the remainder of our time in New Orleans.  We worked on the home of a lovely woman who had returned to the city to care for her “kids.” A high school foreign language teacher, she had the opportunity to live elsewhere in the United States with her own children but felt the need to be there for her students as they returned to begin new lives. Her home was in the Lakeshore neighborhood where very few homes had even begun to show any signs of activity — rebuilding or otherwise.  Many of the homes in this area were simply being bulldozed to the ground…leaving green space as was noted on many of the buildings. Block after block of homes were vacant with the weeds and Louisiana growth covering the sides of the structures.

On Sunday we attended worship at First Presbyterian Church and the women had the privilege of joining their choir in song.  Following worship and fellowship we ate a light lunch and headed back to our project where we spent the remainder of the day putting up insulation and dry wall.

On Monday, we gathered our tools and prepared to spend the day putting up drywall, purchasing and adding a new front door and mudding nail holes and taping the seams. A couple of us women became quite knowledgeable about taping drywall but decided that we weren’t quite ready to go into the business. 

The homeowner's belongings. Photo: Meleta DeJong

Our home owner had discovered upon returning to her home after two months (after planning on being gone two days and taking only an overnight bag with her) that her home had been under 20 feet of water and that her neighbor had not fled the city but was drowned in his attic and was still there upon her return.  She had to phone the authorities to have them re-check his house.  She indicated that while in Houston she checked Google Earth for signs of her home during the flood only to discover an arrow pointing down through water.  She thought it was an error on the part of Google Earth only to discover it was not.  Her only salvaged belongings took up less than two square feet of space.

We worked on the house every day for six days and by the end of the week it began to look like a home.  We were all very happy that we had a role in the repair of our new friend’s home but we were also saddened that we could not stay longer to finish the project.  As one of our missioners said on the way home, “Seven of us may only have made a pinprick in terms of the disaster but we made a large difference in one person’s life.  Every empty house is not a broken life but people building new lives.”  

And that’s what it is all about.  Certainly, the city probably should not have been built there and perhaps we are wasting time repairing and rebuilding, but in terms of humanity it is so very worth the time we take even if it makes a difference in only one person’s life…that person knows that the Lord is with him or her if only through the use of HIS Oahe Presbyterian Church missioners.  

And who benefits the most from these mission trips?  Is it the families for whom we work on the homes?  Is it the businesses from whom we make our purchases?  Is it the tourists who go to visit the cities and view the disaster?  No, it is the missioners; the workers; the ones who have the privilege of learning new talents; of making new friends; and learning new cultures. 

It is the ones who chuckle instead of complain when the “mud” plops or the screws won’t go in the dry wall or the insulation just won’t squeeze where it is suppose to or the measurements for the drywall are the exact opposite location of where they were meant to be.  These are the ones who have benefited from the mission trips.   

We learned to love those different from ourselves; we learned that errors can be humorous; we learned that after a day of hard work we can fall asleep with the lights on and people laughing and visiting, and most importantly, we learned that God was with us every step of the way.

Darin, the youngest on our trip, commented on the way home that the trip for him was “very good” and that “the destruction is staggering and numbing — one home after another destroyed and vacant.”

We ended the trip by meeting the loved ones who had to stay home and “man the forts.”

Was the trip worthwhile?  Most definitely!

Would we go again?  Most definitely!

Were we appreciated?  Most definitely!