God in the silence
Finding home in the wreckage of New Orleans
February 6, 2008
Christian Plover
Destination: New Orleans.
Organization: Samaritan’s Purse.
Time frame: Five days.
Task: Gutting water damaged homes.
Upon our arrival in New Orleans my mind was busily figuring out how we could optimize our team’s productivity. In typical male fashion my focus was on the project ahead of us. Our task was to remove everything from the hurricane ravaged home and place it on the street in neat organized piles for pick-up. Once every couple of days, a tractor would come chugging down the street and load all the garbage into a dump truck. I was caught up in the project until the first day of the garbage pickup. Seeing these individual’s belongings loaded into the back of a dump truck was a surreal experience. As I stood there watching, I realized it had been our job to take the home out of the house.
Think of your home. I know mine is full of furniture, food, electronics, and toys. There noise is constant in my home, the sound of the television, someone on the phone, popcorn popping. This was not the case in New Orleans. We were taking it all away.
We removed the water logged personal belongings, we removed the moldy sheetrock, the warped flooring, we took everything out of the house including the nails that had once held the walls in place. Everything I consider to be part of a home, we removed.
After completing our first house I was left standing in an entirely stripped home. I stood at the front door looking through the few studs that were left in place. In appearance this house was empty, bare, and desolate.
However, as the owner and I stood there looking at what had become of his house I began to see instead a house that was surprisingly full. Not of material goods, but of love, kindness, and thanksgiving. Unlike my home, where God can get pushed under the couch or drowned out by the sounds of the TV, this once water soaked home had no place for us to hide Him. In a little house with nothing in it, I found God. God had shown up in a place I least expected him: not on my Christian college campus or at a mid day chapel service, in the aftermath of a natural disaster standing next to a man who had lost everything. Too often we leave on missions trips looking to give, instead I encourage you to go and see what you find.
Now you go...
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