Phoenix, Louisiana: A Story from the Gulf Coast, by Sarah Wagner

Honest to goodness, the house hadn't been touched since the hurricanes left a year and half before.  The place was in shambles.  Debris was everywhere.  The bed was on top of the dresser in the bedroom, with all of the ceiling tiles piled on top of it.  The dining room and kitchen looked like someone had a food fight, and when they ran out of food they threw the dinnerware and chairs instead.  Mold grew so thick in some areas I thought at first that the walls were painted black.  But the ceiling fans seemed to say it all, drooping depressedly like wilted flowers that someone forgot to love.  And only three teenagers, two young adult mentors, and one of the moms to clean out the debris.  The deal with the county was as long as the homeowners could get the junk out to the side of the main road, they would cart it all away.  Now, this wasn't just your average weekly rubbish bin collection.  We dumped several moving truck-sized loads full of trash out to the curb.  It was incredible.

Right from the start, I could feel myself getting weighed down with a complaining-“I don't care” mindset.  I had gone down to help build something, armed with my trusty tools (well, my dad's trusty tools), and I was ready to tackle anything that needed measuring or nailing down tight.  I can't say that I was too thrilled about “house cleaning”.  So, I did what any good youth leader should do when trying to set an example to complacent teenagers: I turned into Drill Sergeant Sara.  I'm good at being that person when the need calls for it. I can holler orders and keep everyone on task while looking out for them at the same time.  “Keep moving girls!  Hope, please keep your mask on, there's a lot of dust and mold and I don't want you to get sick.  Bring that full wheelbarrow out to the street please Julia!  Here, let me help you lift that, it's too heavy for one person.”  I was good.  For about 15 minutes.  Then the other leader/mentor for the girls (Prisca, KC Transit '05-'06 graduate) just snapped at me.  Not because she was cranky or because I was being too pushy about anything, simply because I wasn't noticing what was going on.

The girls were all standing around with Prisca, looking at something.  I told them gently, but firmly (teens, you know, they need a lot of prodding) to just put it on the truck and keep working.  The girls went inside; Prisca came over to me glowering and showed me a small photo album that was mostly ruined, but still had a few clear pictures left.  “This was some of their precious stuff,” she told me.  I said “that's cool!”  (Really, I was interested!) and she put the photo album off to one side.  Soon the girls were bringing out more stuff and putting it on Prisca's pile, taking a few minutes each time to just sit and look at it.  Again, Drill Sergeant Sara said “Just put it down and keep bringing stuff out,” and that's when Prisca boiled over.  She said something about being sorry for being so compassionate, and then walked off to collect her thoughts.  That's what really caught me, the walking off.  I knew she needed time to process all that was moving in her heart for the people who owned the house.  It unnerved me-why wasn't I acting as affected as Prisca?  I mean, these people had lost everything that was precious to them except for their own lives and the clothes on their backs.  What calluses had I allowed to build up over my heart to keep me feeling compassion for these people?

Honestly, the calluses are still there.  I still haven't allowed myself to see or feel the loss of these people as if it were my own.  I'm glad I was able to help them; the smiles on their faces meant a lot to me.  They felt better at seeing things accomplished that they wouldn't have been able to do on their own.  But maybe that's why I allow the calluses to be there in the first place.  There's too much to get attached to and too little I feel I can actually do.  When those commercials for orphans in South America or Africa come on, I flip the channel.  I don't have the finances to support them, so why should I bother watching something that puts a guilt trip on me?  When someone tells me about the AIDS epidemic in Africa and Asia, I listen to the facts with my head, and only a little with my heart.  I read about slums and prostitutes and slaves and homeless people, and my heart starts to wake up a little bit, but I soon push it aside to go about my normal everyday routine.  Why? I'm not sure.  Complacency?  Probably.  Maybe more so the overwhelming largeness of everything in the face of my identity as a single female who can barely make rent each month, let alone feed Africa.  Part of me wants to justify my actions and say I was doing something that I could do to help that homeowner out, and I'm sure what we all did that day and the next really blessed the guy (about 15 more people showed up to help, a couple of big strong men and whole families came over and we literally gutted the whole building down to it's framework!).  But that doesn't mean my attitude shouldn't change.
 

Next Page: What You Can Do to Help and Why the Gulf Coast Matters to You