Serving Bread

We just got back from New Orleans, having taken ten students as part of our first Missions Team. We served alongside a Southern Baptist ministry that is helping rebuild it after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.

This was my second trip to New Orleans in response to Katrina. Nearly three years later and there is still a lot to be done. The director of the mission with which we worked confessed that the old New Orleans cannot and should not be rebuilt—that what we are rebuilding is a new city.

The population of the city is about half of pre-Katrina, and though some people have rebuilt, many others have either abandoned their homes or have run out of funding to rebuild. On every block, you could see the contrast between a newly re-built home next to a home that looks like it has been abandoned, with grass and weeds populating the yard, with a big X on the side of the house that was tagged by the rescue workers in the days following Katrina.

What we did was simply put in insulation and the sheet-rock in the interior of a home. But what God did was far more inspiring. The text of scripture that captures for me the week comes out of Isaiah 58. In that text, I hold on to a promise and a prayer for the city of New Orleans: “Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall rise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in” (Isaiah 58.12). In that text, God challenges the hearer to consider religious practices (in this case it’s fasting).

When we studied it as a group, we could not help but notice that so much of our attempt to know God is done by filling our lives up with things that are “religious” in nature, yet the text challenges us to consider the least among us as an act of worship. For it is when the Israelites practice justice and reconciliation in relation to one another, that the Lord will say, “Here I am.”

While it was nice that we could do something to help rebuild the city, what I wanted is for students to gain a deeper value and longing for missions. I wanted students to see God at work through missions. I wanted God to redefine himself to students within the context of loving others and caring for the least among us.

As the old theme song for the city declares, I saw ten young saints come marching in last week thinking that acts of service were extra-curricular activities of the Christian faith. But they came back seeing that it is essential to the faith.

I doubt this trip was my last to the city. My daughter was born on the eve of Katrina, so I sense having some sort of relationship to this city that runs deeper than merely feeling sorry for it and the residents. I am convinced that the city will be built on the back of volunteers. Some say that the local, state and federal governments failed the city. I sometimes wonder if that should surprise us. It is the people of God (not other entities) who have access to the determination and desire to rebuild the city. Consider whether you could give of yourself to help rebuild this city and help to financially support the faithful men and women who are doing so.

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