My 10th NOLA anniversary

“O LORD my God, you have done many miracles for us. Your plans for us are too numerous to list. If I tried to recite all your wonderful deeds, I would never come to the end of them.”
Psalm 40:4

I am coming up on my 10th anniversary in New Orleans. I don’t remember the exact date I drove into town. It had to have been late July or very early August because I had to report to work on August 6th. That date sticks in my head because it is Jasmine’s birthday. I was excited about my job, but that was about it as far as positive emotions. I was terrified, overwhelmed, and so very angry with God. I did not want to be here. All I could see were the sacrifices I had made: giving up my new “Mike-Made” home, leaving behind all of my family, saying good-bye to 20 years worth of friends. I felt like I was dying. I could not imagine being happy in New Orleans. It is a good thing that God is not limited by my lack of imagination. I wanted to stay in Indiana. God did not give me what I wanted. He gave me what I needed. When I look back over the past ten years, I fall on my face before God, thanking him for his tender mercy, his patience, and his loving kindness. Some of the most amazing miracles God does are the ones he does in our hearts! He softened my rock hard heart. I have gained so much living here. I have learned the charms of having a courtyard over a lawn-they are small, its true, but there is no mowing and I can use it in the winter. I miss daffodils, but I get to have pansies in February. I have learned to appreciate football-Geaux Tigers! I have reached the point where I prefer suffocating heat and humidity to bone-chilling cold and driving on ice-covered streets (though I do miss looking at snow). I miss having a driveway, (world’s worst parallel parker, that’s me) but great coffee, live music and wonderful food is all within easy walking distance from my house. A word about our food… my final year in college, right before moving down here, professors, advisors, fellow students would ask about my future plans. I would tell them I was moving to New Orleans. Without fail, they would say, “they have incredible food down there!” I would smile and say,” yes. I have heard that”. But in my head I was thinking, “who in their right mind would move someplace because of the food?” Well, after living here, I must sheepishly admit that I understand that now. I know that we have major problems: crime, government corruption or incompetence (often that is a two for one deal), plenty of social injustice, and we have that hurricane/flooding problem. But there are so many wonderful things here-we have festivals for several types food and for a variety of music. We have parades for just about any holiday. I have marched on Mardi Gras Day in costume, caught a St. Patrick’s Day cabbage, done the Palm Court Strut, watched fireworks on the river, just to name a few. Ten years later, I love this place! And to top it off, just at the right time God sent us to Redeemer Presbyterian Church. He also gave us renters who are more like family than anything else. Like me, they are hopelessly in love with New Orleans. If there is one thing New Orleans needs, its Christians to love her and work for her good, come hell AND high water!

a beautiful day in my neighborhood

Our neighborhood is another reason we love living here. Within easy walking distance we have eight different places where you can get coffee, drinks, sandwiches, etc. (About the Hubig’s sign: they make pies like a Hostess fruit pie only better! They have the usual fruits, but they also have pineapple, chocolate, peach and my personal favorite, sweet potato! You cannot buy them at the bakery, you get them at stores, but they make the neighborhood smell yummy!)

We have a beautiful shady park where kids play on brand new equipment purchased by our neighborhood association. There are usually people of all ages playing with their canine companions, sometimes pint- size flag football leagues practices, and often there are Frisbees flying around. This is also where the “traveling kids” gather. Some call them gutter punks. They will be leaving soon. Like the swallows at San Juan Capistrano they come south when it gets cold up north and leave when we start to heat up. They bring their instruments and play for change. They look like Mad Max extras with an Eastern European flair. They will ask for your leftovers when you walk home from a restaurant. This park is where the photo of the phone booth art was taken. We don’t know who did it. The phone hasn’t been there in years. Someone will probably mess it up soon. But it was fun to see it.

The make up of our neighborhood has changed in the past three years. Many of the people who lived on our street before the storm used to work in the quarter. They did not own cars. Many did not return. Now we have folks who work in other parts of the city and they do drive. Parking is not as easy to come by. (Sometimes I do miss a driveway.) We have lawyers, teachers, carpenters, police officers, movie and video producers, a plumber, a magician, a nurse, a furniture salesman, a retired couple from the petroleum industry and a retired stripper, just to name a few. And apparently we have a person who likes chickens! I am told that they are named, Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner and that the lady who owns them is a vegetarian and keeps them for the eggs. Emma and I find them fascinating. There is also a Pygmy goat closer to the quarter (Emma is not sure about the goat). Stay tuned, I will try for a photo in the near future!

And another reason...

Eight reasons, actually. A couple from church already had two sweet little girls under the age of four when they became pregnant with quadruplets. After the babies where strong enough to come home the whole church pitched in to help with the feedings. Mike and I go almost every Sunday evening. I had forgotten how soothing it could be to hold a tiny baby. It was like therapy. At six months they are starting solids, smiling and laughing. These photos were taken when the babies were around three months old. Being able to be part of this family in this way has meant so much to us. Paul and Jenny Kate always say, “thank you so much for all your help”, but it is us who are thankful. Thankful and so blessed.

It is seldom boring

There is always something to do in New Orleans. I consider that a perk to living here. If we don’t celebrate it with a parade, we celebrate it with a festival. (This is not an exhaustive list, just the ones that come to my mind first.) We have parades for holidays- Halloween, Mardi Gras, Easter. We have parades for Saints- St. Patrick, St. Joseph, Joan of Arc. We have festivals for food: Po’boys, mirlitons, seafood; separate festivals to celebrate different types of music (Cajun, Brass bands) and festivals to celebrate wide ranges of music (Quarter Fest and Jazz Fest). That is one thing the festivals and the parades have in common: Music-everywhere, all the time. The parades generally all have throws in common-beads, cups, coins, stuffed toys. But St. Patrick’s Day parade Uptown is different, they throw food! Everything you need to make Irish Stew, but the corned beef. I love that parade. This year we caught carrots, potatoes and seven cabbages. I gave all but two away. It rained before, during and after the parade. Hey, in New Orleans water in one form or another is always interfering with our plans. Do we cancel? Not us. We get our umbrellas and shrimp boots and off we go. Ian was home for spring break so he went with us. (I asked Ian after Thanksgiving if he went to the Macy’s parade in NYC. He said he saw it last year, and well, after growing up in New Orleans he found parades without throws kind of boring) We bumped into some friends, Mary Lee and Toy, from church. They had friends with them from out of town. Half the fun for us this year was seeing the out- of -towners enjoying themselves at the parade. It was delightful despite the rain.

Crawfish season is another reason

Who was the first person to look at those and say, “hmmm, I bet if I boiled them with some spices they would taste great!” I do not care for the texture myself; I don’t like shrimp either. But I love the way the garlic is so soft that it spreads on the bread like butter. I love the little red potatoes and corn on the cob, the onions and sausage. Yummm! I love the whole atmosphere about a crawfish boil. There is something very communal about grown ups sitting at newspaper covered tables, outside, eating with their hands. It must be the kindness of God that crawfish season coincides with Lent.

Another reason why

The high today was 72 and the sky was bluebird blue. Thursday and Friday, more of the same!

Christians behaving badly

Yesterday, Saturday, was the first day of the big Mardi Gras weekend. Here in the Quarter, the craziness only grows from now until Tuesday night. In other parts of the city, families along the parade routes are having barbeque, crawfish boil, and King Cakes on the neutral ground with their neighbors and little kids are catching more beads that their mothers will have room to store. On Bourbon Street, young women will take their shirts off to catch beads. They do not live here. All locals know that EVERBODY get beads no matter what, more beads than you will ever want or need. But young, drunk female tourists are not the only people misbehaving. Christians from other towns and states arrive and start preaching. The only problem is that most of them are not “speaking the truth in love”! Yesterday Mike heard a preacher with a bullhorn say to a man, "so you're a Catholic, are you also a child molester?" Tell me, how can people think this kind of behavior is going to advance the cause of Christ? They have no idea the damage they do with this behavior. They will return to their hometowns feeling that they have been persecuted for preaching the gospel. Yet we remain, picking away at the walls raised in relationships by their faulty representation of the Lord, trying daily to live out God's love to the people who live and work in the French Quarter. One the bright side, Mike talked to some Christians from Texas holding a sign that says, “Despite what they say, Jesus loves you.” He was impressed with their kindness.

A quaint drinking town with a hurricane problem

I kept waiting for a time when I could list all the reasons of why we continue to live here despite the crime, crumbling infrastructure, corrupt politicians etc. Well, that perfect time never seems to arrive so I will list them one at a time if necessary. Aside from the obvious, because God wants us here, duh, there is the weather. It is warm here. The sun shines almost every day. There is color all year round. Since Thanksgiving I have had pansies, snapdragons, and hibiscus blooming in my courtyard. Yes, we do have suffocating humidity in the summer and fall, and that hurricane/flooding issue to contend with, but every place has their own natural disasters to handle. I prefer to face ours with the perks that living here provide. More about those on another day.

Ooo, sorry dude, I blogged on your carpet

Ok, so I know what a blog is, but this is not going to be pretty. Yet, in an effort to be honest about what life is like for us, here goes…
Some of the information in this story comes from the news, some comes through people who have connections in this specific part of the Quarter. Last Saturday, 8 pm, Wendy, a beloved bartender in the residential end of the French Quarter was murdered in a botched attempted robbery. (At this point, let me explain a few things about this area. It is mostly residential and the bars there are like “Cheers”, people from different walks of life, creating their own family. They are very close. The movie, Love Song for Bobby Long starring John Travolta and Scarlett Johansson is a fairly accurate portrayal of this.) Wendy was walking with a male friend when they were accosted by 3 young men. The police state that she did not resist physically, but word in the community is that she told the guys to, “F*** off!” She was shot in the chest and the perps got no money. The man with her was able to give such a detailed description of the guys, that once the drawing were released in the media the mother of the shooter recognized her son, confronted him, he confessed to the crime and she took him to the police. He is fifteen. The mother of one of the other boys heard the first one had turned himself in and she knew her son ran with him. She confronted him, he confessed, she took him in. He is fifteen. The third boy, they knew, but they could not find him for several days. He turned himself in on Thursday. He is fourteen. So many thoughts go through my head, Where did they find a 9mm gun? Did he just mean to scare her and put to much pressure on the trigger? Was he angered by her disrespect? What were boys that age doing in the Quarter after dark? I admired those mothers for doing the right thing in making their boys turn themselves in, but did they know where their sons were? They have lost their boys as surely as Wendy’s loved ones have lost her. My son was a 15-year-old boy once. He spent time in the quarter-he had jobs there, but he was well over 17 years old before he ever went in with friends at night, usually to music venues and often by car. The DA is calling them thugs; they are probably going to be tried as adults. They may be thugs. Yet, I saw them on the news, they look like little boys. It makes me sick. And here is another thought, that could have been Mike and me. But Mike would be the one shot in the chest. In every confrontation he has had with young toughs, he has been belligerent with them and they have backed off. But were they armed? I have always felt safe with Mike because of his appearance. (The clerks at the Baptist Seminary Bookshop follow him, I assume because he looks like an unsavory fellow.) I cannot beg him not to confront them because until the situation is upon you, you really cannot tell what you will do. Let me tell you about something I was involved in this fall. I was walking Emma, our black Lab mix, in our neighborhood, during daylight hours, on a street that we have always thought of being “safe”. A man passed us loaded down with grocery bags, walking quickly. Two young men were walking closely behind him. I made eye contact with one and said, “hey”. They didn’t look like thugs or gang bangers. Not more than 6 or 7 steps past me I heard someone yelling for help. I thought people at the restaurant on the corner were fooling around and I said to myself, they ought not to play like that and I turned around. The man’s groceries were all scattered about and he was being mugged and robbed just steps from me. My very first thought was, “I need to get out of here.” But next I thought, “No, NO!” they are not gonna do this in my neighborhood!” It seems silly now, but using my “teacher voice”, I yelled, “HEY, you! Knock it off! Leave that man alone!” All this time the victim is yelling for help. One of the preps turned to look at me and reached for the back pocket of his jeans, “Brilliant! They have a gun. Well, I can’t run now, better just keep yelling” So I did. I don’t know if they were armed because just then they got the victims wallet and took of running. Afterwards, I felt bad that I had been too scared to do more, like charge them with Emma. The detective who interviewed me said that it was wise that I did not, because if they had been armed they could have shot Emma and then, me. He did say that they probably did not mess with me because of Emma. And both the detective and the victim told me that I probably saved the victim from further abuse because I put up a fuss and had a dog. I had always felt safe on that street before.
I will try to pull all this together, but I have a couple more things to add. On Monday, I had a conversation with a young women who graduated this past spring from Moody Bible in Chicago, spent the summer with a mission team in some Eastern European country whose name I have forgotten, and now she is working as a nanny for a family in our church who have brand new quadruplets and two other older children under four. Hannah was talking to me about her parents struggle with letting her serve God where she felt him lead her. She said to me, “Jesus did say that he would be with us always, but he did not promise us safety.” On Wed. evening in our home group meeting, the scriptures under discussion were the early sections of Colossians chapter one. Particularly the parts about Christ being above all things, before all things and in him “all things hold together”. The question was posed, if we really could apply this information to our lives, what would that look like? I answered that if I could really grasp that knowledge, I would probably sleep better, and probably not have an ulcer. Ok, I have said all this to get here, two of the things I have been telling myself to make me feel safe have been shown to be false: Mike’s presence and location/time of day. They are false security. Yet I am not more frightened of living here that I was before this all happened. I can do all the safety smart things and bad things can still happen. I have to put my trust in Christ alone, that he has my life. He is my protector and defender. Yes, bad things happen, but he is still Lord. You may ask yourself why we stay here. I will have to address that tomorrow, because Jared will be here any minute for a cooking lesson. Love to you all.

Good neighbors

Our neighbor, Julie, is giving up a successful career in law to join the New Orleans Police Department. Julie is intelligent, determined, and brave. She feels she can make more of a difference to the welfare of the city by being a police officer instead of a lawyer. I admire her commitment. The crime in New Orleans continues to make national news, please pray for her safety.