Nola Day No. 1

This is May 23rd, my name is Eric Petzschke and today I gutted a house. I believe the location of the gutting was located in a surrounding city of New Orleans, but do not take me one-hundred percent on the surety of the location. The importance is the feeling of the area. It felt like what would be expected to be felt gutting a house of any hurricane wrecked area in the New Orleans area, or so my colleagues told me of their other experiences when gutting the houses of New Orleans during spring break. I did not realize that the gutting was as demoliting as it was. I also did not know of the full process. I believed to not make any expectations of what was to come today, and in the end concluded a few noteworthy gutting principles here. I learned such things as the difficulty of tearing down ceilings, though I did not dare doing so today. On of our Hamline student said while he was trying to tear down ceiling, plaster hit him in the noise and he thought it may have led to a sprain. I also learned the fact of the way in which huge piles were created of the "guts" of the gutted house. I thought it was interesting that, though Hands On was working with the people of New Orleans with the gutting, our surrounding neighborhood at Hands On is predominantly black while Hands On is predominantly white. It seems clear that even among those at Hands On, there is work possible towards intergration. I thought of the idea of welcoming many of those surrounding us into the church. I remembered one of my friends telling me of the situation at his church in southern minnesota. The church leaders only wanted a few younger adults to play community basketball games. But the this desire came out when my friend invited a few younger adults to the game. And I wondered, in the light of Nola, would I be stopped from allowing an equal disportion of african americans into Hands On activities? I am not coming to any conclusions, but simply, wondering.

-Eric Petzschke