A Fond Memory

As the Hope Team just got back from spending a week in New Orleans serving in the City where Hurricane Katrina wreaked her havoc.  I can't help but think of the week that I had spent there a year ago.  I have so many memories.  One thing for sure is that when I was there I realized for the first time how small and helpless we really are and how small and helpless I really am.  

It didn't take long to realize the devastation that the Hurricane did.  There were traces everywhere.

When I was there it was like I lived in two worlds.  The place where we slept across the causeway and then where we worked in New Orleans, on a street called South Derbingy.   All that week I had the privilege of bringing hungry teenagers to eat.  All around us were houses boarded up or people homeless.  It was hard to take in.

One day coming back from lunch I got lost and ended up on another South Derbingy.  But I guess for the kids that traveled with me all week I guess I was constantly saying "Where am I".  So they were used to it.  So they didn't know that I was really lost this time.  But it was a very scary moment for me and my GPS that kept on bringing me to the same spot.  

So that day as I said "Where am I".  I realized that I can't be in the USA, could I be.  A country that helps in so many other disasters.  Surely can't we help are own countrymen.  Or when I said "Where am I",  I realized that this was where I was supposed to be at this moment in time.  

On the last day at the airport going home once again I got lost in the airport cause I couldn't find the rental place.  And again I said "Where am I".  Well, I guess it has been tradition for team Hope in prior years to give plate awards and guess what award I got?  Yep You guessed it I got the "Where Am I" award.  Till this day sometimes I really don't know where I am.  But I guess thats a good thing!  At any rate whenever I say the words "Where Am I" it brings me back to that moment of time when I was the most uncomfortable and the most vulnerable and very humbled.