Thursday, April 13, 2006

Maundy Thursday

The following poem, by Macrina Wiederkehr, published in Seasons of Your Heart, arrived in my email "in box" today:

Supper was special that night
There was both a heaviness and a holiness hanging in the air
We couldn’t explain the mood It was sacred, yet sorrowful.
Gathered around that table eating that solemn, holy meal
seemed to us the most important meal we ever sat down to eat
We were dwelling in the heart of mystery
Though dark the night
Hope felt right as if something evil was about to be conquered.
And then suddenly the One we loved startled us all.
he got up from the table and put on an apron
Can you imagine how we felt?
God in an apron!
Tenderness encircled us as He bowed before us.
He knelt and said, “I choose to wash your feet because I love you.”
God in an apron, kneeling I couldn’t believe my eyes.
I was embarrassed until his eyes met mine. I sensed my value then.
He touched my feet He held them in his strong, brown hands
He washed them.
I can still feel the water, the touch of his hands, see the look in his eyes
Then he handed me the towel and said,
“As I have done so you must do.” Learn to bow Learn to kneel.
Let your tenderness encircle everyone you meet
Wash their feet not because you have to, because you want to.
It seems I’ve stood two thousand years holding the towel in my hands,
“As I have done so you must do,” keeps echoing in my heart.
“There are so many feet to wash,” I keep saying.
“No,” I hear God’s voice resounding through the years
“There are only my feet
What you do for them you do for me.”

Friday, April 07, 2006

FINAL Report from Biloxi

One last word, I promise!

It's 4 a.m. Friday, I've slept well on the church floor, but I can't sleep anymore before we actually get going at 4:45, and there were a couple of incidents last evening.

Jay and I drove down to the far east end of Biloxi to view the US 90 bridge over to Ocean Springs that was wiped out by Katrina. These massive sections of concrete and steel highway just toppled over like dominoes! A man and his wife were sitting there, enjoying the very pleasant afternoon air; they live here, there were an elderly Japanese couple, very friendly. They tried to make conversation with us. We think they asked us, "How long before it will be rebuilt?" I took a guess and said 6 years, which is probably not far off.

Then we toured the east end where many of the Vietnamese shrimp fisher folk lived -- many, many lots bare of houses, a few FEMA trailers sprouting up. We went on the the house where we had helped with some painting on Saturday, the home of Mrs. Bourgeoise. The volunteers who had done her dry wall had written their blessings and names on a bare stud that was in a closet opening, that would have to be covered with wood trim. She wanted so badly to keep that as a memento, so Jay took some photos of it and intends to have Kinkos do up a nice photo strip for her to affix to the trimmed and finished frame.

Well, we were in an office here at church trying to find her correct phone number to tell her, since she hadn't been home when we stopped by. A site manager came rushing into the office saying, "Oh, good you're still here, two pastors, just what we need! There's a call in from a potential suicide. Can one of you take it?" Well, I took the phone and spent a very harrowing and exhausting half hour trying to hear/understand/reassure this woman. Multiple medical problems, plus family problems, some house damage, and on drugs. Jay sat nearby coaching me with notes to me (he specialized in Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Work when he worked full-time in Ann Arbor). He asked me to get her to commit to coming into our clinic tomorrow, and since I won't be here anymore, to tell her that I would call the clinic from Ann Arbor to see if she had come. She didn't want to give me her last name. "Why do you want it?" I told her so that I could be thinking about her and praying for her. I ended this crisis call by praying with her, then let out a very deep sigh of relief. I've really not done much crisis intervention like this in my career, and several times I just wanted to hand the phone to Jay and tell him to take over. I wrote up my notes from this call, passed them on to the site manager, and Jay and I suggested the kinds of people who should be prepared to intervene with her. Happily, Dr. Bob will be her today; I understand that he is most compassionate and should be able to engage this woman's trust, since this is such a complicated situation. Also happy that a pastor will be on duty at the clinic -- the pastor of our Lord of Light '05 graduate from Whitehall, MI, Sally Hollister.

The most joyous part of the evening was when a retired pastor and his wife and two church members from Kentucky asked Jay and me to take pictures of them making a presentation to Pastor Jerry and his wife Judy. First they had them open a box, which contained a hand-made pastor's stole, green for the long Church-season from June through October. On one end of the stole was the symbol of the church in KY: three crosses. On the other end was the symbol of Biloxi: the Biloxi light that withstood Katrina. That wasn't the end: they presented a check from their rather small church in the amount of $7,000.00!

Such examples of outpouring of love for the folks down here is truly amazing and heartwarming. And although it saddens us to see volunteer crews leaving, and for us to leave, too, with all the work that remains, we see the continuous flow of new crews coming in last night and later today to take up the work.

Take heart up there! Enjoy your day! Next week is Holy Week and Good Friday, BUT, Easter is coming!!!

Roland

(Almost) Final Report from Biloxi

Hello up in the MIdwest and Eastern coast!

And for you at Lord of Light in Ann Arbor: do you need a picket fence built? No sooner said than done! Yesterday Jay and I went out with a Lutheran Disaster Response Construction Site Manager to build a picket fence. We had hoped to take 2 or 3 more workers along, but Jay and I were the only ones Tim could scrounge up. He really should have stayed at the front office to manage, but he was out working along side us. The place was the home of the City Inspector for Biloxi, so we were a little suspicious about the urgency of building this fence around an undamaged fairly new home out in a suburb of Ocean Springs. The story is that this fellow lost his entire house in a Biloxi location, then just happened to have the chance to buy this one. Further more, it's a matter of Luth D Response "owing" this guy one for probably many, many breaks and favors he has done for us over the past 7 months.

So, there we are on the site, and Jay and I start drilling the holes for the posts with this gasoline-powered augur, which is a real trip going down, then every few seconds pulling it back up to bring up the dirt, getting bucked by the stubborn drill. First hole went well. Second one gave us problems down around 2 feet. Now, I'm really watching how I lift this machine back up in tandem with Jay. But suddenly down there, as I'm bending and lifting with my legs, I also have to use my back...and zing! Out goes my back again, the third time in one month. And I had been feeling super up until then, no back problems in spite of some very hard destruction work. I had even thought of cancelling my chiropractor's appointement for Friday afternoon. Well, I'll keep that appointment.

I left Jay and Tim to continue the work, then drove back the 12 miles to base to try to scrounge up a couple replacements for me ( I don't mean to imply that it takes 2 to replace me!). I found them in Tent City (Camp Biloxi, as the other LDR tent site is called) in the persons of 2 America Corps gals. I drove them out, then picked them and Jay up at 5. Jay reports that they did a terrific job with the power augur. It figures! These folks, from 18 to 24 years old, are the best.

The rest of yesterday afternoon I puttered around the church's volunteer base, running a couple errands with the car, taking it easy for my back.

Last night was Lenten Service here at the church, another good blessing during our week. Every night after dinner we offer stories about "Where did you see the face of God today?" Really quite amazing how peole discover this reality in their hard volunteer work here: like doing dry wall and painting in a house, and the little kids who are to move back in there come up to you and give you a big hug. Or a young member of this church who lives 90 miles away in New Orleans, who has been rather depressed because of the long wait to get his condo gutted, re-dry walled, painted, etc., only to find that his electric stove can't hook up to where the outlet was placed. Yesterday, just by chance a group from Pennsylvania who had an electrician amongst them ( a premium skill down here) returned mid-morning with nothing to do. Judy, the pastor's wife, who is the site manager here at the church and the spiritual spark plug of this effort, realized that God didn't have anything for them to do for no reason! She asked two of them if they would drive to N.O. to take care of this guy's electrical needs. They did, and last night at the "soup and sandwich" Lenten supper joined in by church members, this guy's mom reported how happy her son was for the work accomoplished. So happy that he gave these two folks some his Mardi Gras beads that he has been hoarding for most of his life -- like a whole trunk full! So take that, Pastor Sue Sprowls and Barb Hayworth!

Back in October one of the volunteers made a DVD of "8 Days in Biloxi" which included the story of Frank, who nearly lost his wife to the surge of water, and he himself survived by climbing up onto his kitchen stove with his two dogs. The stove started to float, but he managed to settle it down. HIs favorite Lazy Boy chair was ruined by the water, but he still used it, since that's the only place he can comfortably sleep. Along came an SUV full of volunteer women to visit him, and they were so touched that they went out and bought him a new Lazy Boy. On Tuesday, our Pastor on duty and another volunteer were called to do a home visit...to Frank. The found him still quite down, and later I heard one of the team talk with one of our dry-wall experts about getting out to do his work. All these kinds of stories are so touching!

For the past day or so our free phones and internet connections have been out in order to do some more proper reconnection. Our local coordinaator asked me to be the handy man for a more expert volunteer as he worked with cables, switch boxes, power adapters and more. I did some climbing around in the church attic, and thankfully, my back didn't holler out.

When were here a month ago, Judy wanted the collection of good crutches, canes, walkers anda a wheel chair to be taken down the street to "Hands On Center," where they might be better used. The day we left, I thought I had arranged for someone to do that. Lo and behold! when we got here last week, those things were still piled up in the hall. I put them in our car and drove them down. Then at the work site yesterday, I got a call to ask if I knew where there was a walker for one of our clinic folks. So, I stopped at Hands On and they said all the crutches, canes and the wheel chair were gone, but all the walkers were still there. I was happy to pick out one and bring it to the clinic for this patient. Small errands, small chores, but everything everyone does around here fits into the bigger picture of "being the hands and feet of God" for just one more day.

This afternoon I'll put on my clergy shirt/collar and go down to the Distribution Center a mile away to work with a couple Intake volunteers as people come for their food/clothing/other needs. Apparently there is a great need for pastoral work down there. Jay has been back to wearing his Social Worker hat in our free medical clinic, during which I observe that he also is very much the pastor that he is pleased to be. Then this evening Jay and I will pack our gear for a 4:30 a.m. arising to g et us to the airport for our return home.

See most of you very soon. Blessed Easter to you all!

Roland

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Tuesday Report from Biloxi

Yesterday, Monday, was a hot and sultry, but great day here. My colleague, Jay, from Lord of Light in Ann arbor, worked in the health clinic here at the church, wearing his Social Work hat rather than pastoral. He was in his element as he did Case Management and some Intake, but mostly coaching and supervising a terrific crew of 6 young women from American Corps. I did pastoral counseling for the day, and found out that I am filling up with Katrina stories so that I really need to get back out to home rebuilding sites. Besides the clinic work, we began our day with trash, clean-up and latrine duty. Bags and bags of styrofoam plates and cups and plastic table ware. It's a garbage hauler's heaven, but continued death to the earth. I did the same this morning, and Jay did his Social Work all day today, but around 10 I put on my clergy shirt and left the clinic in the hands of two pastors from Virginia and Georgia. I walked across the street to the FEMA site, intending to offer support to staff there. The two directors met me very cordially and explained that FEMA has its own support folk. But the receptionist for the Parks and Rec, who run the building, suggested that I look around the whole place. It is a wonderful rec facility, and I stopped to visit with a woman on an exercise bike, who told me her Katrina story. She is a member of St. Mark's Episcopal Church, whose building had stood right across the highway from the water. It is totally gone! Only a small Episcopal flag flies at the site. They now meet for their 3 services in a double-wide trailer.

After that visit across the street, I drove out to the site where we had begun demolising a very old house last Friday. It was now down to just a few pieces of lumber and some bricks and front steps and general debris. There was a team from America Corps plus some Lutheran Disaster REsponse volunteers. None of them were wearing masks, and the dust was fairly thick. I had mine on and I offered my other 3 to anyone who wanted one. None of them accepted! Not even the team leader was wearing one. Soon the FEMA subconctractor who was picking up this huge pile of filthy debris came by and chastised them for not caring enough for their health to wear proper precautions.

That was only one hour on that job, then we ate at a Salvation Army feeding site for volunteers -- lots of disaster food: the standard hot dish prepared for such sites from wherever, shipped here, heated and served along with plain bread, chips, etc. I was rather tired, so went back to the church and crashed for a few minutes on my pad. Then I did my best to bring some order to a janitor's closet that gets "beaten up" by a new set of volunteers every week. Early this morning I drove over to Gulfport to find vacuum cleaner bags and mop heads for use here.

On the weekend I met a Missouri Synod Lutheran Pastor who is his own disaster relief and crisisministry, approved by the Synod, but support stricly by his own efforts. He flies around the country wherever necessary alaong with his handsome Golden Retriever, Georgie, who wears his vest that states "K-9 Crisis Chaplain." What a team! The pastor seems to have success in getting into FEMA offices and work sites, and offered to take me along today. But when I called him this forenoon, he was on the road to a site in New Orleans. I doubt I'll get to go with him, since Jay and I expect to get out to rebuilding sites tomorrow and Thursday.

For Jay's birthday, we sang "Happy Birthday" at breakfast yesterday, then one of my cook friends baked him a cake and we put 3 candles on it for April 3. When we brought it out for dinner last night, I commented: "Some folks come down to Bethel/Biloxi to do volunteer work; others come down to celebrate their 70th birthday, like Jay Haite."

Well, we're nearly ready for another disaster relief dinner. Jay and I are truly enjoying the experience with so many other wonderful volunteers and especially the chance to work alongside of these Bethel Church folks and the residents of Biloxi. Talk to you another time. Take care!

Roland and Jay

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Sunday from Biloxi

Hi, all!

A nice Sunday on the demolished Gulf Coast -- sunny and quite warm. Had a great day in church this morning. It was a special treat to preach at BEthel for the pastor. It was the first Sunday his wife Judy, who is the site director for Lutheran Disaster Relief since she retired from 30 years in the VA here just when Katrina hit. She had a heart attack a month ago when we were here. So, it was good for the folks to see her again. Also it was touching for a member to stand up and look at the crew leader who had overseen the gutting of her house last fall; she is back in it. It's really something to see the connections made between volunteers and members and other residents. It's good to be back here.

After I had finished my preaching, I went to my seat next to the young, perhaps 12-year old male acolyte. He turned to me and said, "That was a good sermon!" And he said it again after church. You just don't expect a compliment like that from a male adolescent.

Volunteers go out working Sunday afternoon, too, as I learned today. Jay and I went out, too, and wound up painting trim on a nearly finished house in East Biloxi, where the folks took a hit both from Katrina's gulf surge, as well as from a surge from the opposite direction with back bay waters. We helped a large Habitat For Humanity crew who are concentrating on rebuilding homes in a one-or two-block area. It's neat to see the progression from demolition (where necessary) or gutting to dry wall to painting to trim to roof, etc.

This afternoon there was a human surge again here at Bethel, as a new crew of volunteers showed up -- from Georgia, Viginia, Penn, Wisc and Michigan and Minn. There's a Catholic team from Grand Rapids and a team of 12 from Muskegon/Whitehall. When I asked the Whitehall folks if they knew Sally Hollister (a very active LOL peer minister who graduated a year ago, whom Barb and I mentored, who is doing this year with Lutheran Volunteer Corps, they said they were from Sally's church, and included her pastor. They said Sally is applying to several grad schools, including U of M. So, we may see her again. Another woman said her daughter is a Jr. at U of M and gave me her c-mail address so I can invite her to check us out.

Pastor Sue will be interested to know that this evening Judy Bultman did the orientation for the new folks. Sue knows how excited Judy gets about this ministry in disaster relief. Well, she came up with a half-hour stem-winder sermon that had us all riveted on her every word. You wouldnl't know she had had a heart attack 4 weeks ago! Super real, super energetic, super committed, super convinced that God is real and showed it in responses to Gulf Coast needs.

So, tomorrow Jay will work in the clinic mainly as Social Worker/pastor and I will also help out with pastoral services, since Judy wants 2 pastors available if possible. Tomorrow is Jay's 70th birthday -- he works at our site needs like a 50-year old. Tough guy!! Our cook's assistant has a cake for him baking in the oven right now.

Time to begin bringing this great day to a close.

Love to all of you.

Roland

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Report from Roland: April 1st - No foolin'!

Jay has his camera, and has taken a roll already. Today, after waiting around at a Habitat site (almost a whole block of homes that are in the stage of drywalling and painting) for over an hour, we finally got over to a house a mile away. This house also had its drywall done, and Jay and I had a somewhat lighter day in working in a much more finished home for a disabled widow. She served us coffee/iced tea and pineapple pudding cake for our afternoon break.

We drove back to our demolition house from yesterday for pictures, to find a FEMA subcontractor loading our massive pile of debris onto a rather mini-truck with just a small caterpiller with bucket and claws. The subcontractor asked us how he could get more help from LDR or Habitat in finding out which of our home projects had piles of debris for him to haul away. So, I passed his info onto the folks in the little green house. And, oh yes, that woman in the convenience story by Tent City, the one with the husband who was suicidal, still hasn't gotten her work done -- a matter of priorities plus the nature of her roof: flat, with special roofing needs.

This morning just before we went out to work, Bob the Roofer showed Jay and me his very extensive handbook of his records of all the shingle donations, donors, amounts, locations, etc., etc. VEry impressive the work he has done, both on roofs and back home in Phoenix with getting out the word.

Tonight, Saturday, it's rather quiet at Bethel, before a new surge of volunteeers tomorrow. We all went down to Tent City for chow. Jay and I just finished one of two DVDs on WLOX's Katrina story -- took nearly two hours to look at. I opted to sleep tonight on a Tempur-pedic in the long classroom, just to see how g reat it realy is. But tomorrrow night, back into the sanctuary. Jay says "Hi" as we turn in for a shorter night as we set the clock forward.

Oh, one more thing from Miss Linda from yesterday's work with the St. Olaf folks: she passed out piles and piles of Mardi Gras necklaces. I took 6. Want some???

Good night! I'm excited for tomorrow.

Roland

Report from Roland: March 31, 2006

Roland Schaedig, our first "Biloxi Boomerang," and Jay Haite are in Biloxi for a week. Here's Roland's first report:

Jay and I have arrived. I gave Judy the DVD right away--she was thrilled; she goes home for the afternoon and evening now. I gave Donna her envelope and left the envelopes for Judy and Kelli in their offices (Kelli is due in this evening).

After lunch Jay and I drove down to the little green house and found another leader-type who took us to a busload of St. Olaf students (20 of them with their campus pastor), who took us out to a work site in East Biloxi. When we arrived at the house, I was dumbfounded. I said it should be bulldozed, rather than gutted and rennovated. Well, we were the bulldozers. Miss Linda next door got permission to have this very decrepit house, uninhabited for 30 years, torn down so that she can properly fix up her place. Miss Linda said she was the chef of her block, and did we have plans for dinner and if not, she would be delighted to fix us some right good home cookin'. Of course, we all had made commitments back in tent city or Bethel.

So, we tore into the house, after instructions on safety by Bart from Lord of Life in Fairfax, VA. His picture is in that newspaper clipping from the Washington Post that Barb and I posted for our "Have A Heart For Biloxi" fundraiser. Bart's crew of 4 stout guys also worked. It was not just dirty work, it was downright grimey and hot and sultry and dangerous. There were long boards with nails flying everywhere, followed by rotten sheet rock. Tell "Little Bit" and Chelsea that we didn't see ANY roaches!. After 3 hours of this we have nearly cleared out the house down to the studs. The next phase will be to start dismantling the galvanized roof, rafters, joists, studs, floor -- right down to the ground.

This project had some very nice neighborhood flavor. Miss Linda was in there carrying out boards for a short while. Then she sat on a chair across the street and comandeered young neighbors and sent them into the house to help. What fun to have such a mix of workers! And the St. Olaf kids were just as energetic as our three and as the Augustana kids.

It's been a good first day (afternoon!). Jay reminds me that tomorrow we're at it all day, although he allowed that I might take the afternoon off since I'll be working in the pulpit Sunday forenoon,Bob the Roofer related that he saw the face of God in the fact that he finished his last peaked roof today. He leaves tomorrow to see his grandkids in North Carolina.

Jay and I would like to go back tomorrow to this project, if there's a crew to work with. We also would like to take Miss Linda up on her offer of a meal!

Jay will celebrate his 70th birthday here on Monday. I'd like to get the cooks to bake a cake.

Otherwise, we're thinking of you folks in your Katrina report Sunday.

Peace,
Roland

Jay was the first casualty to hit the Mash unit -- a slightly bleeding abrasion on his forearm and a slight cut on his chin. He's all fixed up, though. He didn't skip a beat through it all.

Small world: I asked the campus pastor where he had served parishes. One of them was Albert Lea. When I said Mary Olson's father had been pastor there, he said that he knows Mary very well through the Knutson GLBT Foundation. Bruce Benson says to say "Hi" to Mary!

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