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When I imagined New Orleans and rotting homes amidst fresh, new-built ones, I never could have pictured what we actually found. Real people working in Burger Kings with Jonas Brothers posters on the walls. Kids riding bikes and weird drivers making random U-turns made it seem so Washingtonian that at times I'd look out the van window and expect to see my NE appear. Yet these same people come home and walk through their front doors after work - doors with X's and numbers on them. It's shocking how this insignificant-seeming work of graffiti can tell so much about these people. We were told that number at the bottom of the X stood for the amount of bodies found in the house. We see these everyday people bustling around the grocery store and the pizza parlor, and Iwonder what kind of front doors these people come home to, and whether the numbers on them mean something personal. It's painful to imagine how much these people have lost - their families, their homes - but it's also wonderful to see that though they carry this pain, God has given them the strength to endure, be happy even. By sending people like our mission team to help, we pray that God is giving them the opportunity to move on, and I'm thankful for that.

Blog post by Sarah Jeong