A few things right now in the life of my family are coming together for me in the form of a new obsession or I guess it could be obsessions. I am currently reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, her husband Steven Hopp and her daughter Camille. We also spent a few days last week at the Presbytery’s annual youth camp. The keynote speaker for the 4 day camp was David LaMotte . These two sources of information and inspiration have motivated me to make a few changes in my life. Both talk of changing the world little bits at a time – biting off chewable pieces (and in Barbara’s case very tasty organic homegrown pieces.)

Barbara is talking about eating really good food that comes from as close to home and as organic as possible and at a fair price as a way to change the way the world works. Reducing the number of calories spent moving an edible calorie of from one place to another reduces the nations reliance on fossil fuels, provides better tasting and healthier food to a greater portion of the population, and provides income to local family farms that have been seriously struggling over the past twenty years due to the rise of the mega-monocrop farms that put us one disease strain away from total agricultural destruction.

David on the other hand talks of changing the world through social justice, education and direct aid – each individual doing what they can to change the world a little bit at a time. Taking the time to listen to the folks around you and hear their stories of poverty and living life as a person on the margins of society. I, like David, was lucky enough to be born in the United States, white, and male. Like it or not, that puts me in a position of power. As David says, that means that we need to be aware of what our decisions and actions promote and propagate. He talks of the churches that were burned down in the southern portion of the country back in the 1990′s and how it only took one person to do the destruction, but the more important point was the many people – black and white – that showed up after the fires were out to rebuild those churches and show the kind of love for another human being that gives me hope.

So, Does one walk into Wal*Mart and buy really cheap products that were made by people that make cents a day for really tedious and dangerous work, or do we insist that our products are organic, fair trade, local, in season, “sweat-free” and/or second hand. Should we stand by and and watch as our country consumes massive quantities fossil fuels to power our huge cars and trucks and the economy of consumerism based on disposable products  – always taking a much larger portion of the global pie than is equitable with the rest of the world’s inhabitants?

Well, I guess this brings me to my point for this blog. I am striving to obtain as much of our family’s needs as we possibly can and still meet the above criteria. I am looking into the feasibility of having a backyard chicken flock for both eggs and meat, and also looking into building a little greenhouse in the back to grow some of the foods we love, but that are out of season much of the year. Greens can be grown all year long in a greenhouse, as well as at least starting peppers and tomatoes really early for spring planting (I think I will try winter growing too, but I’m not so sure that will actually work out – we will see though.) I don’t have a farm to use – unlike Barbara – but I am going to try and do the best I can with what resources are available to me. This means more Red Radish shopping and fair trade shopping on the internet. It means driving less.  It also means that I will most likely go back to Mississippi with the church to help with the relief from Katrina.

Small steps, but we keep looking to see how we can make less of a negative impact on this planet and its inhabitants, and more of a positive one.

David has a song on one of his albums called “Middletown Mall.” The other day Meg and I were listening to this song, and I asked “Do you know what the mall is?” And she looked at me straight faced and said “the what?”  I call that progress!

I am utterly exhausted and spent. I cannot believe the amount of energy, both physical and emotional that was put out by our crew this past week. I am really proud of the work that we accomplished while we were there -see the first picture. Our group arrived after our two days of driving to find that the work site had not been prepared as was promised to us. The holes for all 21 of the 8×8 pillars had been drilled (we later found out that 6 of them were drilled in the wrong place – but fixable.) This is not where we thought we were going to start. We had been told that all of the pillars would be cemented in place and the floor would be on. That would have made a lot of difference. As it was, we got all of the pillars cemented in place, the floor on, all the walls up and framed in, and then about half of the trusses on the roof. What an exhausting endeavor for the five days we had to work. Everyone put their all into the work. It was as if we were a crew possessed. Everyone focused on one thing, trying to get as far as physically possible before we needed to pack up and drive for two days home. The home owner Lorraine was constantly telling us how much she appreciated us showing up to build her family – her and her two kids Alicia and Julian – a new home, and a big one at that. It is drawn up to be a 1500 square feet 3 bedroom two bath home. The smiles on their faces as their walls started to go up were amazing. Each one went to their own room and talked about what they want to do to it to make it their own space – Lorraine included. Lorraine is home schooling her kids during the day and working as a security guard at night. Alicia has been asking for violin lessons for months now, and even has a violin. There is apparently a shortage of private tutors – or maybe it’s a shortage of funds, but Alicia was finally given her first violin lesson on Friday afternoon – by one of the volunteers from our group who played violin in high school. How happy she was to learn to hold the instrument and play twinkle, twinkle little star. Very cool.

I was sad to see that I had missed a friend of mine by a couple of days. They started for home in NM as we started for MS. I did see signs of him around though. Name tags hanging from the pole on the common tent at the PDA camp, and then a note written from the work team from Belen, NM wishing the family and future volunteers good luck continuing the work they had started. Well Steve, if you get to read this, that house for the sisters made some serious progress the week I was there. They mudded and sanded all of the sheet rock the NM crew put up, Jana and I put in all of the electrical outlets and light switches in the rooms that had sheet rock on the walls, two guys built walls to enclose the garage, insulation was finished, two plumbers got the kitchen and two baths – including the oversized tub needed- all ready, a new water heater was placed, new windows were installed, and kitchen cabinets purchased. They are well on their way to being able to move in.

That makes me think about the point I made prior to leaving about the slow pace of progress down there. I was pleased to see that they amount of new construction that has popped up all over Pearlington was quite impressive. I don’t know if people have finally given up on trying to repair their torn up homes and have given in to new construction or if insurance payments are starting to really be disbursed or what, but there are a lot of new homes up and going up all over the place. The library has reopened, the baptist church is under construction, and the community center has broken ground. A beautiful sight two years after the storm. I have included one of my favorite homes that has been under construction since I was there last in February, but it seems to be coming along really well. I believe that most if not all of the work on this house was done by Amish crews that have volunteered their time to help out. Check out the height of this house! i think the FEMA code is going to go up o 22 feet above sea level as the minimum height for the deck of a house. I think most of Pearlington sits at about 4.5 feet above sea level. Guess I better get over my fear of heights.

A sad note though is that the Salvation Army is pulling out. They will no longer be giving out the $10,000 grants to build or repair homes. That will be a blow to the families still waiting for the help they so desperately need.

(Just a quick aside here, this is a link to you tube and a song called Pearlington’s Prayer – written and performed by a former miss Mississippi. There are a few other videos on YouTube if you search Pearlington and Katrina. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK9yp4qv32Y)

All in all, it was a great trip. I know that when February rolls around and they are looking for people to sign up again, I will be on the list. Even though there is a two day van ride each direction and you have to sleep in a plastic hut on a cot, I will be there. I don’t know what it is about Pearlington, but they people and that place draw me back again and again. I don’t think I can remember how to ignore their plight.

Well, it’s time again to head south. Our church is sending a group of us back to Pearlington, MS – a little town 30 miles or so northeast of New Orleans. I have such mixed emotions about this trip. I am really disheartened that the trip is still needed after two years of time to rebuild an area. Last time I went down there we built the house in the picture. We also took a little trip on 90 east to Gulfport. I was pretty floored by the number of structures that still haven’t even gone through the initial triage stage of fix it or tear it down and start over. There are also an astonishing number of homes out there that have “don’t tear me down, I will be repaired” painted on them, most of them look so far beyond repair that it is difficult to imagine how one could even attempt to “fix” such a structure. It’s heart wrenching to see that. It looks as though the government has abandoned these people. the only work that we saw happening – at least in the more rural area of Pearlington and out into Gulfport – was being done by volunteers and their organizations, or by those that could afford to pay someone top dollar to repair or rebuild their homes. It makes me sad and angry that people need to wait so long to have the chaos in their lives attended to by the wealthiest nation in the world.

That brings me to the other emotion I get about this trip – hope, or something like it. I’m not sure that is the right word. I guess if one part of me is disheartened by the lack of governmental response to this disaster, the other part of me is heartened by the response from the private sector. The churches – of almost all denominations – the relief organizations such as the Salvation Army and The Red Cross, and then the other privately funded organizations and companies (foreign and domestic) that continue to send dollars and and people to aid in the relief effort – one house at a time. George Bush should be ashamed, even the Amish a group of people that don’t drive have responded better than the government – way better, those guys are amazing.

Anyway, I am off to build a house or some such thing. I will let you all know how it went when we get back. Wish us luck and send nice weather our way.

I’ll have to research this a bit but if our experience is any indication, coffee drinking is in the genes. Ella started drinking coffee this morning (this morning being last Saturday when I started writing this post) She kept signing eat and then drink but every time I offered water she shook her head vehemently side to side. Then she peered into my coffee cup. So I dipped my finger in and gave her a taste. My plan was to dissuade her from futher interest in the sacred mug but apparently she’s got the gene. She’d still be drinking it if I hadn’t cut her off.

image courtesy of nothernsun.com where you can buy really cool stuff!

Wow, I am so impressed with us. Sarah has had a Google account for a while apparently, but I just set mine up/ Now we have something very exciting for us – a single calendar. A SHARED calendar. This is pretty crazy stuff here. I can look in one place and see if I am available – or if Sarah is available, or imagine this – if we have something planned. Who knew this was possible! Organization!  My calendar stuff has been transferred from my Outlook calendar – let’s see if Sarah can catch up too.

Ok, we better try it now for a few weeks and see if it really works before I get anymore excited. Whew, deep breaths.