Peteifer & Pablo

In a devotion a co-worker gave last week, he was sharing from a chapter in Ravi Zacerious‘ book Jesus Among Other Gods. One minor point really jumped out to me: Jesus’ enemies seemed to understand some of His teachings better than the Apostles.

Matthew 26:62-66 tells about the chief priests and Pharisees who asked to have guards placed by the tomb because they remembered Jesus saying He would rise again in three days. They were afraid the disciples were going to steal His body, so they could pretend He had risen. Yet when the disciples saw Him, they thought He was a ghost (Luke 24:37). Can you imagine the disciples practically falling out of their chairs, “Ahhk, wha…what are you doing here?” And it is not like the disciples had never seen anyone raised from the dead before either.

I think sometimes we are too close to a particular situation for our eyes to focus. I hope you don’t miss seeing God work right under your nose this spring.

This morning in my men’s group we read and discussed Matthew 5:38-42, part of the Sermon on the Mount. Reading it is hard, applying it is even harder. But then on my drive into work from small group I heard an awesome story on the radio about a man who was robbed at knife point when he was getting off a New York subway. He handed over his wallet thinking “If you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money.” As the robber was walking away the  man called after him, “If you’re going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.” The rest of the story is a perfect example of why Christ tells us to love our enemies. Listen for yourself.

It has been seven months since the storm. The images are less vivid, its fading from memory and no ones wondering where their next meal will come from anymore. But the Gulf coast is still very much reeling from Katrina. Two weeks ago I became the first to utilized the new Cre8tive Group Missions Trip Benefit™ (except for Andy I guess, whose trips showed the need for such a policy). I went with another group of 75, again mostly students from Asbury College plus the wonderful addition of my hot fiancée Jen.

Arriving back in Pass Christian, it was remarkable both how much work had been done and how much work there was still to do. One house would be mere weeks away from being ready to be lived in again, while the one right next to it had not even been touched since the storm, still filled with rotting fridges and mounds of mildew that were once called “couches.” What an amazing psychological strain for those who are living in town; those who are trying to rebuild their homes and lives. If and when they get everything back in order, they still have to drive by the devastation each time they go to the nearest grocery store a town or two away. The remaining residents have gotten used to living in a trailer with less space than my office.

So what did I learn? People need hope. People everywhere, in every situation, need hope. Seven months after a major hurricane, they need hope to fight off depression. Hope that things are going to get better, that life will return to normal, that they will one day live in a building that doesn’t have wheels. So what if I helped build a couple sheds, cleaned up a yard and painted a house? In the grand scope of things, that’s really not all that much progress. But, what we really did was build a little hope, show them a little love to know that they’re not forgotten about, and get to know the residents of a little town where we’ll likely celebrate our anniversary some year.

So we saw a lot of damage down in Pass Christian. But one thing that was truly baffling was how much water this water front town had to deal with. The second to last day there my group joined Julie’s on what turned out to be a house that was in much higher water then we could really imagine.

Get this, the house was up on stilts, I would say the stilts were 8 feet tall. This house was on stilts because it was right next to the cannel. So it was on stilts so it wouldn’t flood, but it was not prepared for Katrina. There was 1 foot of flooding…on the second story above the stilts. There were giant holes in the roof. The house hadn’t been touched in the three months since the hurricane and when we got there. There was stuff everywhere. The bed rooms litterally had feet of toys, muck, clothes and drywall on the floor. When we got to the floor, we didn’t even know it was carpet or hardwood. The floor looked like the bottom of a pond. And in the cannel in the back yard, there was a house.

Twenty feet of water does really amazing things.

If ya’ll have been paying attention then you already know that this trip was over Thanksgiving break. Of course that meant Thanksgiving Day as well. Our fith full day down on the Gulf Coast was Thanksgiving. It had always been a question as to what exactly we were going to do that day. It was decided that we would’t work a full day, but we were so excited about finishing our projects that there was no way we were giong to take the whole day off. We started the day by heading over to the next town, Long Beach, MS. That town was so bad off that you had to have a special pass to get in. We somehow managed to scrounge one up, and went to a church that was practically dead before the storm, but the hurricane destroyed the inside and it doesn’t look like the congregation was even big enough to make it worth rebuilding. But another group was down there trying to rebuild it, praying with a “If we build it they will come” mentality. Around noon we were headed back to Pass Christian. On the way back we saw a cross in the clouds, that was a nice reminder on Thanksgiving day. Not long after we got back to the church 80 Thanksgiving meals were delivered in styrophome “to go” boxes. It was tasty. After we finished that we made a quick turnaround to get out to our job sites. We went back to the Alicia St house we had been working on, we were hoping to get it done so we could do one more house before we left town on Saturday. So we all worked quickly to get most of tht done. A few stayed back to spray bleach to kill the mildew while the rest of us went to start on another house.

By how we were all tired not just from working a hard half day, but after five days of work, I know I was starting to drag and can only imagine that others were too. Someone from Steve Thorson’s group had heard about a fire station the next town up that was serving thanksgiving. While the official plan was just to eat at God’s Katrina Kitchen, our group, Steve’s group and Dr. Olsen’s group were willing to give it a try. And why not, we had heard that there were going to be lots of pies. Keith and Michelle also joined us. So we head there. Now this fire station was considerably smaller than God’s Katrina Kitchen, so I got out of the van and asked if they had room for 21. They assured us they did and would not let us entertain thoughts otherwise. It turns out they really did, because besides us, only a family of four showed up. As we were walking in, they started moving everything around, they had pushed a bunch of tables together so that we would all sit at one big table. They ditched their plan to serve buffet style and instead set the food, in large aluminum cooking trays, in front of us. This group serving was made up of students from Lancaster Bible College, who had met up with a congregation from Maryland and had teamed up with the fire department. Those from up north had travled down with the primary goal of serving Thanksgiving Dinner. The bunch of amateur waiters and waitresses did a great job. The smile on their faces as they got us more tea and instisting that we had not had enough pie yet, really rejuvinated me. They were interested in all our stories and it seems like everyone found something in common with someone in our group. It was also one of the best tasting thanksgivings I had had, the sweep potatoes and stuffing we’re particularly delicious. It was so nice to be served after a week of serving other. That thanksgiving dinner, with what a week earlier would have been 20 strangeers really rejuvenated me and I could have worked for another week. And I count that as my best Thanksgiving yet.