This is a letter from my cousin Brian, a Minister in Tennesee who has been working in Mississippi for the past few weeks. He has been trying to help some of the poorer communities along the Gulf coast rebuild from the Hurricaines. This letter in particular was very eye opening; I myself had written off the media reports of racism as the usual liberal hype that we tend to get here in Massachusetts.
If you read nothing else please read the last paragraph.
“Every day feels like a month so forgive me if I get mixed up.
JD (our blind boxer friend) has had his house gutted and we are >working hard to help him in any way. He has continued to attend church with us.
We were evacuated briefly for Hurricane Rita (which was frustrating)but thankfully she missed us and we were back at work quickly. The team from New City was great and a tremendous encouragement to me. Our prayers are with those on the Texas coast.
I have been working on spreading teams across the Mississippi gulf coast, where Katrina hit hardest. It is unbelievable to see the damage. Whole towns are gone – non existent. I can’t describe it so I won’t try. Pray for the teams we will soon begin sending to Bay St Louis. There is no food there, everything is in bad shape, and my attentions will be divided. There is great need there.
A group of us went in to New Orleans just before Rita to try to salvage things from an elderly woman’s house there. The stench, the sludge, the rot. Again I have no words.
The work here is growing tremendously. We have continued to make great progress in building relationships in the Lincoln Park community and the people there are very grateful for the help. I was in a yard there, some 3 miles from the Lake, and a man had an alligator gar stuck in the middle of his fence! Pray for Landon and his father Lionel who have been a great help in introducing us to the community but are so discouraged. The shock is wearing off and people are so weary.
*** A note on racism: I am not one to cry wolf when it comes to racism. Like many of you I watched the news of racial bias in the rescue efforts with scepticism, passing much of it off to media hype. We are working quite a bit in Licoln Park, a poor african-american neighborhood, and as I hear their stories I am amazed, and then yesterday something clicked. Almost every building from the church to the shore and all along the coast has two obvious visible things in common: a blue tarp covering the holes in the roof put on by government agencies, and a painted X on the front from the search and rescue teams, indicating that the buidling was searched and the results of that search. I have seen none of either in the Lincoln Park community. Take a moment and let that set in. I told you JD’s story, the blind man riding out the storm floating on his love seat – I heard Landon talk about hearing the screams for help all night long, and the boy who clung to a stop sign all night till the neighbors found a boat to get him, or the families on the roofs in terror. I see the military helping gut houses in every community – but one. I hear the despair in voices and the hope fading in eyes. I am sick. Lord forgive us.
Brian McKeon. Isaiah 58:10”
Kourtney McKeone 617-780-7920 Employee-Myles Standish Hall
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