Thursday, August 23, 2007

NoAH, Jacob and Joshua: the Program

PROLOGUE:

I had to pinch myself every morning. Over the last two months, the new guys in the NoAH project were doing so well that James and I could hardly believe it. Perhaps it was the ninth set of modifications in how the program operates. Perhaps it was the difference in the new people coming in. Perhaps it was the modifications God has been working inside me as he challenges me again and again. More likely, it was all of the above, and then some. God took us to a new baby-step up the ladder.

Van and Freddie, both professional cooks, came into NoAH just when God's Katrina Kitchen really-really needed a cook or two. They were determined that they were not going to go around again on that cycle of addiction that they had been caught up in for way too long. And they jumped into the Camp Avenue kitchen operations like seasoned professionals. Van and Terry were to become the second and third successful graduates from the 60-day NoAH project.

Van especially seemed to have a knack for working with people, and for getting along even with difficult people. (Do we have difficult folk come through here? You bet.) This week I listened to Van counseling one of the other workers here, and thought, "Wow. I wish I could talk like that." But Van knows that he still needs much more grounding before he can be sure of long term success against his former drug life.

The air around Freddie sniffed like a man who was called to preach--and had been avoiding the call for a long, long time. His transformation from street-based drug user to budding preacher astounded not only himself, but all the people he had known on the street. His sermon at the Camp Avenue nightly worship service was powerful, as he described his new direction and his steely determination. But there was still a certain broken-ness lacking; that missing limp that Jacob carried all his life after he wrestled with God.

Terry came in three weeks later, and slipped smoothly into Kitchen life as Van's assistant and dishwasher. But like most new NoAH members, he soon found he had to deal with the real issues in his life. His street life as an alcoholic mendicant morphed into a camp life as an ailing mendicant. Eventually he revealed that Terry was not even his real name.

Terry left us this Monday, holding a bus ticket to Vicksburg, Mississippi where his parents live. His goal had been to get sober so that he could return home, and the bus ticket would take him to a family that would hold him accountable. The former Terry, reclaiming his real name, left holding a 30-day sobriety chip in his pocket from Alcoholics Anonymous.

Freddie left us this Sunday, returning to help the mother of his youngest daughter through difficult circumstances, and determined to use his skills as a senior cook to pay his child support, become the father that he wanted to be, and become the man that his recently deceased father had always wanted him to be. He called me last night, and wants to stay in an accountability relationship as he struggles to make it in the culture where he never made it before. If we had the staff in place to open a Sober Living House, Freddie would be a prime candidate to move in.

Van is staying on. As he puts it "I ain't going nowhere." With the recommendation of Gabe, our former head of cooking operations, and with the support of James, Van was offered and accepted the position of head of cooking operations for God's Kitchen. Also, he especially wants to stay on for the next phase of the Church Army Gulf Coast Life Transformation program, the Jacob project.

THURSDAY MORNING:
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Van has various portable grills and stoves available to him to use outside at the Sanctuary, and he has begun to use the upstairs kitchen in the Mansion. This morning he had four volunteers from the Vision Quest team help him prepare breakfast here.
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Vision Quest's 24-member team arrived late Sunday night, and has immediately set to work. The day for these young people often begins with vigorous calisthenic exercises, and with "circling up" to share and receive direction.

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Vision Quest, like Church Army Gulf Coast, also has a goal of life transformation. They work with teenage men and women who have had problems coping with society or have fallen afoul of alcohol, drugs, or the legal system.
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Van is working with a four-person team of Vision Quest teens assigned to him for cooking, washing, and cleaning up. Here is Van taking a break on the upstairs screened porch of the Mystery Mansion after breakfast operations have been completed.
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EPILOGUE:

The NoAH project kicks off the year-long Life Transformation program with an intensive 60 days of 12-step classes, Bible studies, worship and accountability. The next phase is the Jacob project; five months of transformation as we wrestle with who we have been, wrestle with who we must be, and inbetween these, wrestle with God until he gives us our blessing--and our holy limp. Completing the year is the Joshua project, five months in which, having found who we are and having chosen whom we will serve, we prepare to re-enter society and to join in Christian fellowship as we go forth to claim the land that God has promised us.

I have been talking lately with the Chaplain at the Harrison County detention center, where he runs a pull-out program for inmates based on spirituality and the Bible. He has been looking for places to send his people for after-care, and I suspect soon that he will have a candidate or two for us to interview for the NoAH project. All in God's time.

Every few months, God cleans house here at Church Army Gulf Coast. Then shortly, He sends us new people. Each time we learn. Each time we move up to a new level, one baby step at a time.

God is getting ready to take us up to next baby step.
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Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Serving from the Sanctuary

Church Army Gulf Coast lives on!
We're still working, still watching God transform lives, and still working alongside God's Kitchen, the umbrella organization over the former God's Katrina Kitchen.
Here are some photos of the not-yet-complete evacuation from our Camp Avenue site:
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While the signature red-and-white dining tent came down July 31, it was a few days later before the kitchen's cooking canopy could be disassembled and moved into storage.
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James drove the Barney Bus off to its storage site, while Ray and Steve and a full crew of helpers moved the volunteers' cabins two at a time. Here we see Cabin One, the former home of Church Army's NoAH program (and my home also) loaded and ready to move to storage.
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With all the cabins moved into storage, the former volunteer housing site begins to take on a desolate look. The queen of James' sunflower garden looks on unperturbed, while six of God's Kitchen permanent staff remain housed in trailers on Camp Avenue.
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Meanwhile, NoAH project volunteers Van, Freddie, and Terry prepared the first meal for the first team of volunteers to be housed at the Sanctuary.
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This team was housed for a week at the undisclosed location of the Sanctuary in the Mystery Mansion, which is also the site of the Clubhouse (below) which now houses the Church Army Gulf Coast life transformation program.
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In the upcoming post I'll update y'all (I've been down south too long) on the exciting things going on with the NoAH project, and the newly named Jacob and Joshua projects. Stay tuned!

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Bad Night Out

Last Sunday I was determined to get out and go camping, despite (or because of) all the turmoil involved in moving from one home to another. Besides, it had been so long since I have gotten out hiking that my legs had stiffened up to the point that I was hobbling around half lame.
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Around the Sanctuary (our new home) lies dozens if not hundreds of acres of woods. "I'll go for a backpacking hike right here!", I thought. Right.
Between the underbrush and the Katrina-felled trees, hiking (as you and I think of it) was out of the question, especially backpacking my tent, food, kitchen, bedroll, etc.
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Once I was truly into the woods, I made only about 50 yards headway before I was worn out and confused. I picked this lovely clearing (?) to pitch my tent.
I did manage to cook a meal (ham&rice pilaf), and settled in to rededicate myself to writing in my sadly neglected journal, while waiting for nightfall and the peak of the Perseid meteor shower.

Alas! The sky was overcast all night with nary a star to see, let alone a hint of a shooting star.

And Alack! I waited for the night to cool me off from the 98 degree temperature (and 110 degree heat index), but not a whiff of wind was stirring. In the morning when I put my shirt back on, it was still just as soaked with sweat as it had been when I took it off.
This was not one of my better camping experiences. Perhaps better than the time I waited out a two-day blizzard under a tarp, but not by much.
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But I have not given up. I left my tent and sleeping bag behind, carefully marking the trees on my outward trail, lest I should never see my gear again. I'll give it a try again soon, for the night-time temperature is now dipping into the frigid (brrr!) high 70's.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Missing Tent; Noah's Cottage; Mystery Mansion

On July 31, 2007, God's Katrina Kitchen served its last meal to the general public and took down its signature red-and-white tent.

Dear friends, miracles continue to happen on the Gulf Coast. Here are three items of breaking news (and private disclosures) of events over the last few days: 1) GKK's last meal; 2) NoAH's new and undisclosed location; and 3) the Mystery Mansion which will house Katrina volunteers for a time.

The Missing Tent:
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About mid-day July 31, kitchen volunteers took down the red-and-white striped tent that has been the landmark for the GKK feeding facility for almost two years. The cross that sat behind the lectern in the tent still calls out, Cast Your Burdens Here.

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With most of the tables folded up, volunteers sat in a circle on the concrete to eat their luncheon meal. Strong showers visited us during the evening meal, when volunteers and public alike huddled inside the kitchen with the cooks.

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The press corps has been near and among us constantly: here a reporter for the SunHerald wraps up her 3-day visit talking with visitors to the Kitchen. If her story appears online, I will post it here.

*NEWS FLASH* On Tuesday, WLOX TV did a story on the shutdown which included an interview with our own NoAH volunteer Van. That video may be found here:
http://www.wlox.com/global/video/popup/pop_player.asp?LaunchPageAdTag=Homepage&ClipID1=1632473&h1=Toni%20Miles%20Reports%20On%20Last%20Meal%20At%20God%27s%20Katrina%20Kitchen&vt1=v&at1=News&d1=134234&activePane=playlist&playerVersion=1&hostPageUrl=http%3A//www.wlox.com/&rnd=76796291
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Meanwhile, across the street the permanent staff was loading up the first of the volunteer bunk houses to be moved into storage on a local church property, until they can be pressed into use under the ministry umbrella of that local church.

A Cottage for Noah:
Little more than a week ago, Fr. James told me that they'd been looking at a site where one could house some 50-60 volunteers already scheduled through the month of August, and that (get this) there were one or two buildings on the site that could be converted into cottages to house the NoAH program.
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On my first visit there, the property seemed like an overgrown jungle. Here is the cottage being prepared for us (dead center of the photo, really!), hidden by the bushes.

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The building consists of two rooms, one quite large and the other a former garage. Drywall was already in the first room, and the second was waiting to be righted, for the hurricane had tilted the endwall six inches off center.

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By the next day, volunteers had painted the first room, insulated the second room, and had scurried about to find a large and beautiful window to add grace and light to the building.

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Then by the following day they had righted the building and begun framing in a wall in place of the former garage doors. All of the buildings on this site had 12 feet of water in them during Katrina.

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The Mystery Mansion:
The most spectacular building on the site is a large lodge, which I have begun to call the Mystery Mansion. Other volunteers have dubbed the entire site The Sanctuary.
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The downstairs may be used to house 50 or 60 Katrina relief volunteers at a time, while the upstairs can be used for overflow.

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Between the house and the garage is a large open air pavilion, where volunteers can be fed out of the rain. (Dinner on Tuesday was almost rained out without the tent.)

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Here is a large interior room of the lodge graced by a fireplace.

The lumber on the floor is the makings of bunkbeds that have been disassembled and moved from the Camp Avenue site.

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The back window of the Mystery Mansion opens onto a spectacular veranda, which may indeed earn this property the title of Sanctuary.

We're hoping to have NoAH moved into the cottage and have the volunteer feeding operations up and running at the new site this week. Stay tuned.