Trip to Pascagoula
I spent Wed - Fri of last week in Pascagoula and Moss Point Mississippi with a group of over 100 volunteers from Lakeview Baptist Church. This was a work trip to help the residents of the Kreole community in Moss Point.
All I can say is that I was absolutely overwhelmed by what I saw and smelled. Almost 4 weeks after hurricane Katrina flooded this neighborhood there are still houses with soaking wet carpet and mold everywhere.
I told our pastor that at first I felt so overwhelmed. There was no way that we could make a difference. But we did make a difference to 8 or 10 homes, getting all of the wet stuff out, cleaning up yards, mowing grass, etc. This was a very small dent in the overwhelming task ahead of this community.
I read the following story on one of the photograpy forums that I frequent and thought it applied here:
One fine warm day, an old man was walking down a sandy, tropical beach. He noticed as he was walking that the tide had brought in a lot of starfish. He started looking at the starfish and admiring their pretty colors as he walked.
He noticed a little boy in the distance was walking towards him, but at a very slow pace.
The reason for the slow pace of the little boy became apparant the closer the old man came. The little boy was also looking at the starfish, but he was doing more. He was picking up those he found and throwing them back out to sea.
"Why are you throwing the starfish back into the sea?" asked the old man. "Starfish die if they're out of their sea water for too long." replied the little boy.
Ever the practical man, he said, "It's a good thing to do, but do you know how many starfish there must be washed up on this beach every day? You can't possibly make a dent in that. What difference can you make in an effort to save starfish?"
The little boy bent down, picked up another starfish, threw it out into the sea, turned towards the old man, and said, "It made a difference to that one."
I challenge you to find a way to make a difference. If you would like to see the photos from this trip, here are the links:
Click here to see Joel's album Moss Point
Click here to see Joel's album Pascagoula
Click here to see Joel's album the McMichael's Studio in Pascagoula
Entered by Joel on 09.27.05 @ 07:31 PM