I am currently serving as the volunteer village manager at a Presbyterian Disaster Assistance camp in New Orleans, LA. The camp is called Olive Tree and the PDA slogan is “Out of Chaos: Hope.” After Noah got flooded, the peace dove brought the olive branch to signify dry land and hope. Get it? That’s what this village is supposed to mean in New Orleans East. This is a place that houses groups of volunteers amidst deserted and devastated homes for a week at a time—a revolving door of sorts—who come to serve God through serving others. I have been at Olive Tree for just one month but it is clear to me that this is where I am supposed to be. I am here to serve—this is just one way for me to do that. Although I do a lot of grocery shopping and paperwork, I have the opportunity to both be blessed and be a blessing to so many lives from across the country. I am not sure that I could ask for more: other than for a few days of rest.
Of course I now have a network of places to stay during my travels throughout the US but I also have been touched by the kindness of those individuals who have offered their homes, in all seriousness, to a relative stranger who hosted them for a week in a city seen as broken. It is such an interesting world that people will stretch themselves far beyond their comfort zones and reach into the depths of their being to swing a hammer and hang some drywall for a week—while sleeping on an unimaginably hard mattress. It is so much more than taking a week of vacation from work, finding a housesitter, pet sitter, child sitter; it’s about learning to live and work with people like or unlike yourself while serving the generalized “other” whom you have yet to meet. I, of course, reside in a beautiful RV in the parking lot—ah the luxury.
People often come to the Gulf Coast with the goal of fixing or helping someone who is broken or helpless but the truth is they’re just serving their equal. A person is a person no matter where you come from or where you’ve been. It is easy to believe that people who live in different places are a completely different type of person but it is not true. Many of the folks down here have been hit by an unbelievably devastating natural disaster but that does not make them any different than the folks—whose homes get hit by tornados often enough—who are coming down to work in their homes. Rachel Naomi Remen wrote an essay called “In the Service of Life” that discusses the concept of service as a relationship between equals and I’d like to quote it here:
“Service rests on the basic premise that the nature of life is sacred, that life is a holy mystery which has an unknown purpose. When we serve, we know that we belong to life and to that purpose. Fundamentally, helping, fixing and service are ways of seeing life. When you help you see life as weak, when you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. From the perspective of service, we are all connected: All suffering is like my suffering and all joy is like my joy. The impulse to serve emerges naturally and inevitably from this way of seeing.” (Remen 1996)
My time at Olive Tree thus far has provided me with the opportunity to greet individuals from churches across the country who bond with other members of their congregations and return home as a strong force of mission together. People leave here with the revelation that they do not have to leave their towns to serve others; I see helpers and fixers turn into servants in the city where thousands swam for their lives.
Thursday night is usually when people experience their ah-ha moments and realize that they’re not here to hang a few doors but to attempt to understand the meaning of love and service. Whether it is the hug they receive from their homeowner, the grateful greeting in the Winn-Dixie parking lot, or even the wave from a car in the next lane; people change in New Orleans. If anything, living and working here—even for just a week as most do—puts things in perspective. “After being here, I realize all those things I was worrying about before I left aren’t really that important.” (Volunteer)
Hopefully this isn’t the first place that you’ve heard it but there is a greater purpose and a greater cause in this life beyond our comfortable homes and our decent jobs; true life exists far beyond the reach of our comfort zones. If there is anything that I could ever say, it would be that the greatest opportunity for personal growth exists outside of your comfort zone, so get out and do something real with your limited time on this earth. Live, Feel, and Love it.
