Dancing with Katrina....April 9, 2006

Little by little, on a shoestring and with Faith, we are loving the battered and once-forgotten town of Pearlington, Mississippi back to life.

It is my fourth trip here and things have changed. The noise of hammers and saws are everywhere and there is a hopeful feeling in the air. Groups from all over North America roll in and out of town, Perfect Strangers walking their talk and putting their money where their mouths are. Young people and old alike clamber through houses, cleaning and mucking out, while roofs get repaired, studs de-moulded and dry wall floated. We are a long way from being finished, but the good people of Pearlington know we will not let them down and their tears wash over us and cleanse us in a way nothing else could.

It's a simple Dream really, to want four walls and a roof you can call your own. A safe place where your children are warm and dry, with a shelf to put the very few things Katrina spared. It's not an unreasonable thing to want, yet it has proven almost impossible for the very government organizations created to achieve it. The task has fallen to this wonderful team of Dream Builders, these ordinary men and women who flock to Pearlington from the safety of their own homes and families. They labour with love and are aware they are not changing the world, but they are - most assuredly - changing THEIR world. As they give, they are given more. As they love, they are loved more. As they serve, they are served as well.

And the Circle of Life turns, as God watches and smiles.

This is what Katrina invited us to become. This is what the people of the world can do when they are called to it. This is the group of Tsunami survivors from Indonesia who arrived last week to help the people of Pearlington rebuild. This is Baptists and Presbyterians, Mennonites and Methodists, whites and blacks standing together, shouldering the responsibility of something they did not create but that needs repair. This is Dream School, alive and vibrant, faithful and hopeful and singing "I Hope You Dance" while dancing. This is the sun on the bayou and Jambalaya and Banana Pudding. This is Life and Love and it has never been more worth living.

Yesterday we held a memorial for Dr. Sidney Strickland, an old and disabled man who died last week when his FEMA trailer burned to the ground. I fought hard to get him that trailer and out of the Red Cross shelter, never knowing my efforts would end this way. The normal cycles of life continue unabated; children are born and people die, made more real and poignant by the situation. This is the cost of opening oneself up and breaking your own heart on purpose. This is Faith incarnate.

The blog I created while managing the Recovery Centre in November has proven to be a remarkable tool for organizing the relief effort from afar and communicating between groups. Look at it, if you choose, at http://www.pearlington.blogspot.com . More than a thousand people do every week and are inspired to keep helping. They do it because they can and will. They do it because, like all Dream Builders, they are sowing the seeds of their own Dreams.

Dream School International will be making an important announcement after my return to Canada on the 18th. Stay tuned. Stay awake and ready to share in all the bounty this adventure has provided me.

I hope YOU dance.