So we spent over a week at the perkins center with this construction crew from seattle, an old married couple, grandma perkins, some of the perkins kids, some real little kids (who liked to ask questions like "why you got a whole in your pants" "why you dirty" "why you wear that" "why you got a bandana on" A: "to pick boogas") and a hand full of other adults
it was good to be able to serve, and to be surrounded by a community of people trying to work towards having a more christ centered lifestyle. It was hard however to try to relate to and assure some of the workers that we were there too serve and learn, not anything else, when they just saw us as two dirty kids comin in off the street, one of which having weird eating habits.
Wayne, one of the Perkins, had called his friend when we first showed up sayin' "come over here and check these two out, you gots ta see this"
overall it was a good experience, dispite their apprehensions.
we ended up over at two of the old employees' artists space/now-living quarters and heard another perspective on the place. and after thinking it over, all places have their faults and their funny little things that make it somewhat weird but this place is making an effort to try to build a good community that supports itself through christ.
it was especially good to see the crew from seattle (some of them were almost like christian frat boys) and eugene (this 82 year old man that pastors two churches and comes down to the perkins center once a month for a week to do carpentry for the houses in the zekariah 8 community)
these people proved to me that if given the opportunity, people which you wouldnt expect, can do amazing things for a community, or in a community.
after viewing the arts district and walking through what the crew change says are "sketchy neighbor hoods", we caught a hot shot to new orleans. about 5 hours, a giant bayau, and 3 yards later we were stopped in the CN yard for new orleans, thinking we had another 20 miles before we had to get off. So we jump out of the 53, after passing by a tower that probably should have seen us, and after realizing that we were in the yard where they take inter-modules off the trains and put them on semis, and run behind some semis towards a white building and through a ditch and down to another ditch, over a bridge, through a satelite manufacturing area , through some shrubberry, under an overpass and then up on to a bridge with no side walk just to get out of the yard.
talked to a cop, realized we could ride the bus into downtown new orleans, got some free tea and honey buns, talked to some late night gas station-dwellers, passed out under a bridge, rode the bus and now were in new orleans trying to find my friends, hawk and ditto, or plan b bike shop.
after years of being neglected and poverty stricken, i hope new orleans has something good in store for us, and i hope we can find a way to serve it
-marcus
