"We just wanna go home."

The trip to New Orleans was great! It was exciting to help rebuild, and great to make new friends -- but the real treasure was getting to hear people's stories. One phrase could be heard in every one of them: "We just wanted to go home." June said that when the call came saying they'd better get out, she and her husband left for her sister's home in Texas. Her husband passed away while they were there. As soon as she could, she returned home. I asked her what it was like coming home. "Everything was grey!" she said. "The trees were grey, the grass was grey, the houses were grey -- everything was grey!"

Tony's house sits on Abundance Street. It had eight feet of water inside it at one time. As soon as the water resided, but before the barricades had been taken down, he came home to open up his windows so things could dry out. He has stripped the woodwork down to its natural cypress beauty and will put it back when the walls are repaired. He showed us photos of the neighborhood when it was under water. Many of the people in his neighborhood are elderly. Some of them didn't make it through the storm. Hearts that were weak grew weaker. Depression is commonplace.

One young woman talked to us from her front porch. She told us about her whole extended family leaving New Orleans together. They rented a block of hotel rooms for as long as they could afford it while they waited to be able to come home. Finally they brought her father back, and he was able to be home for a year before he died. "At least he died at home," she said.

I couldn't help thinking of Psalm 137: "By the rivers of Babylon (or Cincinnatti or Houston or Phoenix, or any of the other cities to which these Gulf Coast natives were exiled) -- there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion (New Orleans). On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, 'Sing us one of the songs of Zion!' ('Play us some New Orleans jazz!') How could we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?" We just want to go home.

Bogged down in the blog?

It's fun writing about the progress toward sabbatical, but it would be much more fun if you wrote back. In case you haven't done this before, here's how:

Click on the words "0 Comments" at the end of a post. You will get a new screen with a place to write your comments. Below "Choose an Identity" you will need to type your username and password (if you're new, click "Sign up here" to allow you to set them up; then type your email address for the username and make up a password; you also get to choose the name that will appear beside your posts). Make them easy to remember because you'll use them every time you add to the blog. This will be fun! Everyone is invited! All ages.

I'm also working on a way for all of us to post our photos on the blog so we'll have a big summer -e-scrapbook.

Today I will copy all the photos from my camera's memory cards so there's plenty of room for new pictures of New Orleans. I'm going to try to make a slide show of them to show during the sermon next Sunday, April 27 -- so be sure to be at church!

Building Homes

Today I'll get a tetanus shot in preparation for the work trip to New Orleans where we will be rebuilding homes destroyed by Katrina. I need to spend some time emptying memory cards for my camera. I'll be one of four photographers logging our trip. I'm starting to pack -- will need to take along my own bedding and towels. Mary Jacobs, our coordinator, has put me in charge of the morning meditations, called "Spirit Connections." All 20 of us will rotate through the kitchen duty, preparing, serving and cleaning up after meals. The work duties on site will be assigned when we arrive, and may include everything from roofing or hanging dry wall to running errands or fetching supplies.

I just learned that there now have been more than 750 Disciples groups who have gone to the Gulf Coast to help rebuild and repair homes and churches in the three years since the hurricane winds came through. Our denomination's commitment was three years of work and 750 work crews! Thanks be to God for the commitment of Disciples from across the country! And the work is not finished!

Keep us in prayer. Here is a letter from the Regional Office:


April 17, 2008

Dear Friends,

On Sunday, April 20, twenty persons from 7 congregations in Arizona will be traveling to New Orleans, Louisiana to spend the week, April 20-25, doing hurricane recovery work. This trip is sponsored by the Arizona Anti-Racism/Pro-Reconciling Team with Regional Reconciliation funds supporting the mission trip. The trip has a component that considers the systemic issue of racism as it has played a role before and in the aftermath of the hurricane devastation.
Arizona Regional Staff: Denny Williams, Regional Minister
Community Christian Church, Marana: Robin Stout
Desert Dove Christian Church, Tucson: Allen Cunningham, Letty Giessuebel, Laura Greenfield, Marcha and Dave Talton
Saguaro Christian Church, Tucson: Dave Crobbe, Jenna Lindsay, Kasey Lindsay, Mike Lindsay, Bryan Lott, Scott Steehler
Chalice Christian Church: Linda Miller
First Christian Church, Mesa: Ellen Hoff, Mary Jacobs
First Christian Church, Scottsdale: Robert Fugarino, Sandy Dale , Sarah Dale
Foothills Christian Church, Phoenix: Dan Snelling
We seek your prayer support. This Sunday in worship please ask persons in the congregation to pray each day for us as we work and hear about the work of rebuilding homes and lives in the Gulf area.

Easter Blessings to you and the congregation,
Mary Jacobs, Chair Anti-Racism/Pro-Reconciling Team

When home is gone...

I'm making preparations to leave on Sunday with a group of 20 Disciples from the Arizona Region. We are going to New Orleans to rebuild some of the homes that were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Our headquarters will be Westside Christian Church in New Orleans. Our Mission Station Director will be Br. Vance Moore.

I can't imagine what it is like for the people along the Gulf Coast whose homes were destroyed so long ago to still be displaced, without the means to rebuild, living in temporary housing. It must feel something like wandering in the wilderness.

Katrina is like so many other tragedies: we talk about them, read and hear news about them, and think about them almost obsessively for a while, and then our attention moves on to some other "late breaking news" or another more personal crisis. We forget that those most affected by the tragedy continue living with the trauma long after our interest, if not our compassion, have waned. There are still homeless people in New Orleans, and the devastation to their lives has pulled at my heart so long, I just had to go.

I'll be in touch. See you in church on the 27th!

Sabbatical Summer 2008

Wow! One month from today my sabbatical begins! For three months I'll be taking off, leaving behind my duties as pastor of Chalice Christian Church in Gilbert, AZ. I hope to travel to the places where my "grandmothers" in the faith helped form the early church. I'll also spend time back in Missouri where I grew up, visiting the churches I attended, reconnecting with old friends who were in my Sunday school classes, checking out the church camp grounds at Grand Oaks, in every place remembering the people and events that shaped me spiritually. I can't wait to "go home" geographically and metaphorically.

No doubt I'll miss my friends back here at Chalice while I'm gone, so I decided to create a blog where members and friends of Chalice could communicate while we're traveling. I want all of you to contribute as often as you can.

By the way, life will continue as usual at the church during this sabbatical summer. The Sunday schedule will be 9:30 Faith Development for all ages and worship at 10:45. Bob Howard (Rev. Dr. Robert R) will be the interim sabbatical minister while I'm gone. Check out the Chalice web site to learn more about him and about sabbatical. http://www.chalicechristian.com/

The theme of our sabbatical summer at Chalice is "Going Home... Coming Home." On May 4 I'll commission the congregation to make their own pilgrimages home, planning trips back to the places they were formed into the people they have become. Children will be going with their parents to their "home" places, and spouses traveling long distances to find out how it was that their life partners became the people they grew to love.

So let's start planning those journeys "home." Start thinking now about where you will go and whom you will see. Renew some old acquaintances. Take some pictures to share. Explore some legendary memories. Better yet -- create some new legends!

Anybody know where you're going this summer? or what to expect? Tell us about it!

Blessings!

Pastor Linda