While we were down in New Orleans, there were a lot of moments when the reality of the destruction really hit us hard. The first time we entered the city and realized how small we really were in comparison, the time we saw a house where instead of a "0" on the wall there was a "1" for number of people caught inside during the storm, and the trucks coming to clear the mountain of every piece of furnature, photo, and good the homeowners owned--and sweeping it up in minutes.

I think the hardest moment for me during the entire emotionally charged week was helping the son of one of the homeowners try to box up things and put them on pieces of board balanced on the support beams in the attic. The only things that he salvage were dishes, one dance trophy, and a few of his mother's ceramic collectables we could find. Once we had cleared out a lot of the stuff, I began working on one of the worst hit rooms-the bedroom. The water had smashed everything together and warped the floor into an "s" shape. The bed was on an angle, lying half on top of one of the dressers, and the fan looked like it had melted. I think the most heart wrenching time of the entire week, was when the son walked into the room, to the closet we were trying to clear. He stared at it for a moment and said "I lived in this house my entire life." We followed his eyes to a box that had attached itself to the floor. He said, "That's full of pictures, but they're gone forever now. They're all melted. The water melted them. I don't know how strong that water was, or what was in that water to MELT all my pictures!" and then he left.

During my second day of working down in New Orleans, I was clearing debris from the former living room of the first duplex when I found something shiny in the plaster pieces on the ground. It was a small statue that had hung over the fire place reading "God Bless Our Home". This small sign had survived Hurricane Katrina, the flooding, and strangly enough, the Syracuse Relief Team. It reminded me of the strong faith these people who lived in that house had, and I was very glad that we could help them. Their house had been mostly destroyed, but God had blessed their home by letting them out safely. Friar Peter put it over the door frame--a small sign of hope and faith in a sea of destruction. I hope everyone who sees it is moved, as I was, and like me, smiles and believes.