I’m working in Gulfport Mississippi this week with a crew from our church. I’ve said that before, I know. We finished our first day and at 10:15, only three of us are still not in bed. Painting, hanging drywall and insulation, talking, and recovering from the 14 hour drive down here are taking their toll.
However, people are learning a bunch about each other and about the damage that remains in buildings and in hearts. Casinos are rebuilt and houses stand empty. Roofs are still covered with blue while homeowners try to figure out how to pay, and the Saints are in the Superdome.
And yet, and yet, there are people from Indiana who are finding out that the Body of Christ, a delightful metaphor God used to help us understand that we are connected to each other and to Him, that we can live out love, that we can turn love into sweat and drywall and houses.
The challenge is to take that awareness home, to have the different churches who have worked on this project, all pictured on a wall 10 feet from me as I’m writing, to have us talk with each other at home. And to work together on projects and on lives back home.
So why mention channels in the title? Because I’m posting writing here, but I’m also testing the idea of reporting by audio from here (thanks to Hipcast), and by putting pictures on flickr, and maybe, just maybe, by getting some video produced. I’m recording, but we’ll see about editing.
I’m about ready for bed, too. I used tools for hanging drywall today, running a drill (which we had to buy extras of so that we could get the work done without people standing around). I used tools for talking tonight, helping our team understand how patient God can be when we don’t understand by telling the story of Gideon. I am using the tools of technology to tell our story right now.
That’s a bunch of tools. Time to sleep i’m thinking.
Jon from the gulf.
technorati tags:gulfport, community, community+journalism, jon+swanson, hcrn, hope+city
