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News from Behind the Mall Picayune,Mississippi and beyond Saturday, June 3 The Lord carried us to Mississippi in a 13-hr scenic and serene road trip where the worst thing we encountered was a little carsickness and boredom. Anni, who wasn’t with us physically, performed “service” by text messaging Josh for several hours during the height of his boredom. Kathy slept her carsickness away courtesy of Dramamine. The rest of us dozed, ate Cheese Nips and tried not to whine during the 11th hour. We arrived in Picayune around supper time and met our missionaries, Mark and Sheryl Ditmer and their three boys, Jacob, Andrew and Michael. Missionary “camp” consists of several trailers behind a strip mall in downtown Picayune. God works in weird ways, but we never could have imagined this! Imagine your favorite strip mall. Imagine the area behind the mall: oily concrete driveway, dumpsters, rusty metal back doors to the stores, wobbly stray shopping carts, cardboard boxes, and assorted debris of all descriptions. Yet, this is the place where God placed us to live for a week. There is a trailer with showers and a divided trailer with bunks. There is a kitchen trailer and a gathering area for eating and a fire pit. This is all on the concrete of the driveway behind the mall. It is actually pretty private because there is a storage building that blocks our view of the mall’s backside and a woods on the other side. So we have a little “camp” and we aren’t even aware we are downtown! There’s good bit of grass with a volleyball court and the Ditmer’s trailer is nearby. In the old JCPenney’s store in the strip mall is a church. The backdoor to the church remains open because that’s where the toilets are. It’s a little hike, but hey, it’s really fun in the middle of the night. Tonight the guys erected canopies over the eating and meeting areas. Tomorrow another team will come in from Rockville, IN Christian Church and join us on the adventure. You knew that malls were really “happening” places, but I bet you thought that it all happened on the INSIDE. If you look OUTSIDE and BEHIND the mall in Picayune, you would change your mind. Well, that’s all from behind the mall. Stay tuned. News From Behind the Mall – SundayPicayune, Mississippi and BeyondJune 4, 2006 After a really good, hard sleep, we arose for breakfast and church. Church began at 10am (11 EST) and ended at 1pm (2pm EST): (don’t get any ideas, Brucie.) This charismatic house of worship occupied two storefronts. One store was the Sunday School, the Kid’s Church with games and music (and the bathrooms we used), skateboard and basketball areas and conference room. The other part of the church was offices and an enormous room that could seat over 500 people. We were slammed with 45 minutes of non-stop singing, dancing, guitar-playing, drumming, and PowerPointed hymn and chorus worship. There was dancing in the aisles and in the front, a lot of hand-waving, and a trek to the altar to put our offering in the basket. After everything settled down, we were treated to a guest speaker from Baltimore who preached and entertained us for 2 hours. He literally poured himself out on the congregation and we left out the back door, exhausted in God’s prosperity, to a great lunch at camp. This afternoon we went to the Waveland/ Gulfport beaches and saw the devastation there. There are streets and streets where all you can see are steps up to….nothing; in-ground pools next to…nothing; concrete foundations with FEMA trailers alongside and tired American flags wrapped around trees that used to shade homes and now shade… nothing. One woman, out watering what was left of the yard, thanked us profusely for giving up our time to come down and help. Seeing all the people who have come to help has encouraged her to do the same someday if the need arises. It is striking that she remains strong and optimistic in spite of having lost everything. We stopped and walked the beach for a while. The water is a dirty, rusty color until about 200 yards out where it changes to a dark, murky green. The seawall is a pile of rubble; root balls from large trees poke up out of the water and the posts from docks stick up like old gray toothpicks. The beach is littered with debris – pieces of boats, chairs, porcelain, plastic, etc. The beaches are officially closed and there is no swimming because of the danger of stepping on something sharp. We had to wade in our water shoes. The town of Waveland is essentially a ghost town. The pub is gutted and the bank is boarded up. There is nobody around to speak of. Driving around town is like driving in a war zone with pieces of life blown everywhere. Concrete tables and chairs and steel girders are left where a building used to be. Windows are blown out; signs are dangling from storefronts; messages are spray-painted on houses. This is NINE months after Katrina! We felt lucky to come back to our mall camp and play a little volleyball after meal and devotions. Eight more workers joined us. Tomorrow we go to the New Orleans area to work on our designated houses. God is working overtime here as we prepare to work with Him. That’s all from behind the Mall. Stay tuned. 
News From Behind The Mall June 5, 2006 Stuff is Stuff and Jesus is Lord Five thirty came very quickly for those of us on breakfast duty this morning. After devotions and a egg and sausage breakfast, we loaded up and took off for Slidell and St. Bernard's Parrish. We split into two teams, the first team staying in Slidell at the little home of Geneva and Sonny. Stephanie, Laura, Josh and Charlie (from the Rockville team), Mark Ditmer and his son Jacob remained at this site to help with finish work. The couple lives in a FEMA trailer in the backyard. Josh and Charlie smashed concrete sidewalks and steps (Josh is now very buff and Charlie is very tired), and Stephanie carried the concrete away. I think she’s pretty trashed, too. Laura spackled walls and Mark hung doors and did electrical work. Stephanie and Josh also painted the bathroom and Josh entertained Stephanie by singing the blues. Stephanie was also singing the blues after listening to Josh for 15 minutes. They are going back tomorrow to do similar work. This team learned that when you have lost everything and have nothing, your viewpoint changes dramatically. Your “stuff” is just that. Stuff. Geneva no longer cares if things match or even if she has a front door that closes completely. All she wants is a recliner and a good bed. And that’s enough. The rest of the team went on to St. Bernard’s Parish in New Orleans. We went there with Charlie Dillion, a former WWF wrestler (called The Swift, he had his back broke by Hulk Hogan), drug addict and alcoholic. Charlie D. is a modern-day Paul the Apostle. He is a type-A madman who came clean and sold his fancy house in North Caroline and quit his high-paying job and is now coordinating the renovation of these houses. Riding in a truck with him was a real “trip”. “Welcome to hell”, he said as we crossed the bridge into the part of the area near where the levies had broken. Indeed, it was like a war zone: windows and doors blown out, swamp grass in massive clumps on roofs, entire houses moved off their foundations and over to the back doors of other houses, boats and vans perched on roofs, holes cut in roofs where people tried to cut their way out and died in the process. Most all the trees and vegetation died in the salty flood and all that is left is the shells of houses….rows and rows and rows of shattered homes and dreams. Charlie took us to one home that was gutted. The family consisted of mom, dad, a wheelchair-bound son and a daughter. When the storm hit and the floodwaters started rising, they wrapped life-preservers around their son’s wheelchair. In a few short minutes, they had climbed into the attic and floated their son with them. They chopped through the roof, mad at God the whole time. When the flood waters reached past their roofline, an empty boat was made available to float them out of their attic.(We saw the photos!) These good people, who didn’t know God, now know him through their experiences with Charlie, who helped bring them into a relationship with the Lord. This is a short version of the story, but there are many, many stories like this one as the Lord seeks to reclaim this awful place. The second team then went to another home and finished the gutting process. This is a very dirty, time consuming task consisting of taking down of drywall, pulling nails, pulling up linoleum, taking out insulation, sweeping, removing fixtures, shoveling and dumping. Tomorrow the team will go to a house that has not been gutted at all and start the process from the beginning. It is very hot; we have to wear masks and gloves because of the mold and the dirt. However, knowing that we are making a difference in someone’s life makes the work joyful and the heat tolerable. That’s all from behind the Mall. Stay tuned.
News From Behind the Mall June 6, 2006 Team Stinky Area officials estimate that this area might be restored to some sense of normalcy in about 7 years. That estimate seems conservative. Today it took a team of ten people to gut a 2- bedroom, 2- bathroom house, and we are still not done. We scooped through a 15- inch-deep sea of insulation, drywall, clothing, toys, carpet, padding, and bottomed out with a 3-inch layer of black sludge consisting of sewage, seawater, and smelled like all things dead and rotten. Underneath that sludge was a linoleum floor, which we still have to remove to reveal the concrete beneath. Water was still present in boxes in the attic as we tore through Christmas decorations, baby furniture and boxes of now-moldy tax returns, photo albums, and Mardi Gras keepsakes. A couple of team members uncovered a nest of cockroaches big enough to lasso; another team member cornered a snake between the bathtub and the studwall. People alternately scooped, scraped, tore off drywall, and ran the wheelbarrows. There is now a pile of house innards in front of the house that is as wide as the house itself and about 4 feet deep. Sandy Hale, who just built and decorated a kitchen in her new home in Hancock County, set to the task of dismantling the kitchen in this house. The irony of disposing of another woman’s special tools, wine glasses, dinnerware, and plastic leftover containers was not lost on Sandy. It could be an emotionally-charged task if you allowed yourself to think about it at all. We scooped out this house from 9am to 4pm with just a short lunch break and frequent breaks in between. We were instructed to drink at least 10 ounces of water each hour. We wear filtration masks all the time and sweat profusely on our faces as well as everywhere else. On this block there was only one family in residence across the street and they were sleeping in a FEMA trailer in their front yard. However, their house had been gutted, bleached and disinfected. What was left of their belongings were under roof, but there were no doors or windows or walls. About 10am the owner came over and invited us to use what was left of his house, the toilet in particular. This made the women on the team happy indeed, and allowed us to drink more water than we would have otherwise. God really provided for us and we were able to work without the worry of where we would go to the bathroom. If this sounds crazy to you, remember that this is essentially like a war zone or a third world country. The infrastructure was destroyed so you do not take for granted things like electricity, water, or toilet facilities. On this project site we had 5 people from the Rockville group along with Ron, Sarah, Kathy, Jennifer, Sandy and Mike. Sarah and Kathy, who are the youngest, were real troupers. They worked VERY hard and here is what they want to tell you that they learned today: · From the family across the street, they learned about the kindness and generosity of people who have lost everything. These people would have given us anything they had. No one seems to worry about unlocked doors or possessions. (Remember, it is just STUFF.) · They learned that cockroaches make girls scream. J · They learned that 9 month old water really smells BAD. L · They learned that no matter what comes your way, God will help you through it. During all of this, the local ABC News affiliate showed up with a camera. You might see us on Channel 6 sometime if our connection in Indy requests the story! The other group who went back to the little house in Slidell to do finishing work, managed to paint several rooms and fix up the yard for owners Geneva and Sonny. Next week there will be another team to give them a new roof. This is such a blessing for them because they had hired a contractor to do most of this work, but he took off with their money and left them almost destitute. Both of these individuals are on disability, and living in a trailer has been a sad and confusing time for them both. Tomorrow the entire team will go back to the house that we gutted today, and work to get it ready to power wash. We will quit about noon and try to clean up and head to New Orleans where we will meet up with Richard Hollander of American Airlines, who has agreed to give us his personal tour of the city. Richard was made available through the efforts of the Indianapolis general manager of American Airlines, Juan Carlos Liscano, who was in Jennifer’s online speech class at IUPUI this Spring. Thursday and Friday we will be heading toward Araby to begin work on a house that was under 16 feet of water. They say we will not be able to complete the gutting process in the time we have left. Please pray for strength to get it done. God has provided for all our needs thus far and it is quite apparent that this is His work. However, the organizations that are overseeing the restoration of this enormous area are in desperate need of teams of laborers. Teams from colleges, universities, churches, and individuals are welcome. Jennifer has the contact name and phone number if anyone wants to put together a team to send down here. The organization can feed and house labor teams for very little money (as little as 20 dollars a day, and if you don’t have the 20 dollars, it doesn’t matter.) If you can’t put together a team, they request Lowe’s or Home Depot gift cards. This way the organizations like Christian Service International and The Harvest can just buy the materials without having to deal with checks, etc. People like Geneva and Sonny, who are left with nothing, can then have walls, flooring, paint, and new shingles. This all might sound like stories that are made up. We assure you they are not. We invite you to prayerfully consider coming here yourself. When we get home, we will be casting about for several more teams. That’s it from behind the Mall. Stay tuned. 
News From Behind the Mall June 7, 2006
Team Nawlins
This morning we finished gutting the house in St. Bernard Parish, adding to the considerable pile in the front yard. The scrap metal scavengers came by; the aluminum siding collectors stopped; the guys who collect appliances and electronics all paused and picked through our pile. Scavenging is a way of life here as people who have lost jobs and businesses seek to augment their meager incomes. After lunch we piled into 2 vans along with our missionary family and the team from Rockville, and drove to New Orleans (sometimes pronounced “Nawlins”) to pick up our tour guide, Richard Hollander, who is a customer service manager for American Airlines in Orleans. He treated us to a tour of the part of the levy that breached first, along with a firsthand view of the damage at the breach site (see photos) and the neighborhoods that had been destroyed. As we drove from N.O. (which had little water damage) and across the existing levy, the difference was night and day. Within a few feet lay the difference between green life and living residential areas and brown death. Amazing. Richard led us down St. Charles Ave.and million-dollar mansions (the most expensive one is worth 30 million) into downtown where we saw the Super Dome with its damaged roof and the Hyatt with its blown out windows where the Mayor and other dignitaries rode out Katrina. We walked through the French Quarter and down Bourbon Street and ended the day with a meal at Bennigan’s after dropping Richard off at his car. Arriving home at 9pm, we are all trashed out but very pleased to have seen another side of this area. Tomorrow we go to another very poor area, closer to the infamous Ninth Ward, called Arabi, to begin work on another house. That’s all from the behind the Mall. Enjoy the pictures and stay tuned.
 
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