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Lean on me

February 1, 2009 | posted by Lars under united states, updates

Like half of the other sober tourists in New Orleans’ French Quarter, we were eating our obligatory beignets at the Café du Monde, only a levee away from the muddy Mississippi. We couldn’t see the levee, though; it was a breezy day with a bit of a chill, so heavy curtains had been rolled down to enclose the covered patio, with the exception of two panels, through which one of the districts many street performers sang.

Sometimes in our lives,
we all have pain, we all have sorrow;
but if we are wise,
we know that there’s always tomorrow.

Though it wasn’t evident from the historic district of New Orleans, the wounds of Hurricane Katrina still permeate the physical and social landscape of gulf regions of Mississippi and Louisiana.  Two days earlier, we had biked along the beachfront drive through Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi.  Battered live oaks and concrete slab foundations like tombstones lined the newly paved road; carpets and other debris still hung from trees as some odd memorial of the devastation.  Some of the huge oaks did not survive the storm, however; in many of these cases, new seedlings are growing, but in some places the trunks remain, carved into rooted public artwork.  Reflecting the gulf ecosystem and some image of freedom and liberation, most of these sculptures depict herons, eagles, and fish in sweeping, fluid motion.

Lean on me when you’re not strong,
I’ll be your friend, I’ll help you carry on,
for it won’t be long,
till I’m gonna need somebody to lean on.

We stayed in Gulfport with Nelson & Pat Roth.  Soon after we arrived, Nelson, the pastor of Gulfhaven Mennonite Church, told us the story of how he and Pat camped out under a couch in their hallway during the worst 12 hours of Katrina’s wrath.  “No one was unaffected by the storm,” he said, recounting how one family at Gulfhaven unexpectedly got a beachfront lot when the 20 houses between them and the shore were wiped away, making them the second house from the beach.  Because of the income demographics and Mennonite Disaster Service policies at the time, afer the hurricanes, Nelson said they realized that “no one at the church was going to be helped by MDS … but people with $250,000 homes still needed a lot of help.”  So the church of 200 decided to get to work, repairing each others’ homes, as well as those within a 10 mile radius of their church building.  Now, Nelson says, there are folks at the church who say “a storm blew us in here, but no storm’s going to blow us out.”

Please swallow your pride,
if I have faith you need to borrow,
for no one can fill those of your needs
that you won’t let show.

This isn’t the case for everyone, though.  As Hurricane Gustav was building in the gulf, “the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife,” Nelson said, “people’s stress was so high.”  Nelson’s just in the past year begun to realize the “spiritual damage” that was done in 2005.  “I’ve had grown men, native Mississippians with families, tell me that if another hurricane comes through here like Katrina, they’re done - they’ll pack up and move.”  In response, Gulfhaven has given its pastor time to develop a non-profit called Relevant Ministries to provide intern staff for small gulf states congregations of all denominations and to give young adults a year of ministry experience in these congregations.  The project is very much in its infancy, but it’s one which both Nelson and Pat have a deep passion for.

You just call on your brother when you need a hand,
we all need somebody to lean on;
he just might have a problem that you’ll understand,
we all need somebody to lean on.

The road into New Orleans along US Route 90 bears the wounds of Katrina, but one can see that some healing is taking place; the scabs are forming, slowly.  Rows of piers still run into the bayou as memories of former docks and boats are grounded in the grasses by the roadside, but people are returning, building houses that are almost comical - raised 15-20+ feet above the ground and reinforced to withstand a bombing - or a hurricane.  It was because of a bridge under construction, in fact, that we took a detour through the village of Pearlington, Mississippi and happened by a group of conservative Mennonites from Alberta working on a house there with Mennonite Disaster Relief.

As we neared the city, a kingfisher flew with us for awhile before veering off into the lake; throughout the day we had seen countless egrets, herons and other birds we wished we could identify.  Mostly, we’d see them fishing, nattering about, or simply standing in the bayou, depending on the species; but sometimes they’d fly, too.