Thankful by Caitlin (a pilgrim)
Today we took our pilgrims from Fellowship Bible Church to continue the work of gutting the homes still standing in the aftermath of the hurricane that struck New Orleans in August of 2005. We spent the day in the heat tearing at sheet rock and striping the house down to its studs exposing its foundational structure. I asked Caitlin a student pilgrim to share her perspective on the day.
“This morning we went to the Lower 9th Ward, the poorest part of New Orleans. The government was supposed to spend millions of dollars on a new levee, but it was never spent. We saw houses that only had the foundation. It made me feel so grateful for what I have back in Dallas. After we looked around we went to gut a house. The house was still standing but it looked like it could topple over any second. I was wondering why save the house but at least he had this; some people only had the foundation. We wouldn’t have gotten far though, if we hadn’t met some Belgium kids. They worked on the first floor while we worked on the second. We got almost the whole house done.
After we went and played cabbage ball which is like baseball but with a bigger ball. The Belgium kids played with us and were quite good for their first time. We had fun with each other.
Afterwards we came home and washed all of the rubble off our faces. What I took out of this day was to not store up your treasures here on Earth because they will be taken away some day. You should make your relationship with Jesus stronger. I was also grateful to have everything that I have at the moment: a house, family and personal belongings. Today has taught me a lot!”
Much like the work of gutting a house we are asking God to reveal what is in us that has been destroyed by our own hurricane and asking our heavenly father to help us strip back the debris so we can rebuild. The work done on the interior of a home or the interior home of our lives requires hard work. Our pilgrims seem to be up for the challenge