Feeding the Homeless in New Orleans
Stepping into the thick humidity of New Orleans the thought crosses your mind, “How long will I be able to breathe?” As soon as the thought finishes amazement at the sounds and smells takes over. They are just as thick and intense as the humidity, at the same time welcoming.
The French Quarter with it’s bright colored houses and shops, musicians on every corner and the rumble of hundreds of conversations can be like one of the sparkly masks that are available in one of the shops. There is a dark underbelly to The Big Easy, one that is just down the street, around the corner and under the highway.
It’s a smaller community, with it’s own set up of walkways through cardboard boxes and around tents. There are beds set up, protected from the elements only by the highway above and cardboard boxes around. Some people sit in a circle talking and laughing, drinking from a bottle in a paper bag that they pass around. This is a different kind of drinking than what is found on Bourbon Street, it’s filling a deeper hunger that is really eating them.
We approach this group slowly and gently with our shopping bags full of food. We had packed hundreds of them that morning. For a couple of the teenagers who are with me this is their first time ever seeing homeless people, and we are given the opportunity to give them food and to feed the deeper needs of their souls. We handed them the food and asked them about their days, one man shared that he had gotten his house back and he would be back in it in three weeks. The others dove into the bags and started making sandwiches with their bread and Spam.
Watching someone eat who hasn’t done it in a while, who doesn’t know when their next meal is coming from is the opposite of dignified. Both unwashed hands dig in and shove food into their wide open mouth. There is barely a breath taken between swallow and next bite. Nourishment.
Pastor Collins and his wife Miss Florence had told us that they come by every week or so, they spoke to us that morning about the need in the city, about how many people lost their homes in Katrina and if they didn’t they lost them afterwards because of a corrupt government. It had been left to the church to look after many people, Pastor Collins and Miss Florence and those who work with them were ready and willing.
The group of teenagers, college students, parents and grandparents had come down from tiny towns in Oklahoma. The ten hour drive did not seem to put a dent in their enthusiasm, the heat did not bother them and the humidity did not deter them. They had come to work and work they did. Fifty-one people, the youngest being twelve, the oldest seventy-five, and everyone of them worked, laughed and engaged with what was going on. Two different churches came together to the extent that by the end I didn’t know who was in what church.
Over the course of a few days we became close, maybe it was the large bunk rooms, the late night chats well after “lights out”, sitting around tables with one another, or going on and getting dirty together, but I like to think it was because God was working on all of us while we were doing all of it. Whether it was painting, working with kids, or packing shopping bags full of food, while our hands were busy, God was busy working on our hearts.
It is impossible to unsee the joy in a homeless persons face as you hand them a bag of food, it is impossible to get off the residue of the smile of a old lady who is excited about how her house now looks with fresh paint on it, it is impossible to forget the feeling of a hug from a little kid who just doesn’t want you to leave, ever. Impact is what missions is about, and it can happen in a few days, a few weeks or a few years, it is not up for us to determine how long it takes to make God’s impact, it is up to us to be obedient to His call to go and make it.
As the group from Oklahoma drove away into the early morning clouds, I couldn’t help but think of cowboys riding off into a sunset at the end of a movie. This job was done, done well, and done right, there would be more, and they will be ready.
God layer it on my heart to get coats and blankets for the houmeless in New Orleans. My wife wants me to find an Organization that would hand out these items. She is afraid to go because she does not know how the people will react.