Hands and Feet - Reflections on a Weekend of Service

I will provide for you and I'll stand by your side

You'll need a good companion now for this part of the ride

Yeah, leave behind your sorrows, let this day be the last

Well, tomorrow there'll be sunshine and all this darkness past

- Land of Hope and Dreams, Bruce Spingsteen 

On the last Wednesday of summer, our group pulls out of the parking lot of Galilee United Methodist Church in Sterling, Virginia, towing a trailer full of tools, building supplies and luggage. Our mission is to help rebuild a home that was damaged by Hurricane Sandy in October of 2012. With six able bodies on board, our destination is Bethel United Methodist Church on the southern tip of Staten Island. Bethel will be our bunk house for the next four nights.

Galilee UMC Staten Island mission team, summer, 2014.

We will be working a few miles north of Bethel in the Midland Beach section of Staten Island. Midland Beach is part of what the New York City (NYC) Catholic Archdiocese considers the poorest parish on Staten Island and, Midland Beach was hit hard by Sandy. Nearly two years after the storm, this part of Staten Island is a mix of repaired homes with well-kept gardens alongside boarded up houses with overgrown yards.

The human costs of Sandy were higher than necessary because many people did not evacuate. Staten Island residents evacuated during Irene, which did little damage, only to have their homes looted while they were away. So, many residents decided to stay put during Sandy. According to the NY Times, Sandy took the lives of 43 people in New York City; 24 died on Staten Island with eight of those deaths in Midland Beach.

The people we met on Staten Island tell us of how rapidly their lives changed on October 29, 2012. Conditions went from heavy rain to waist-deep water pouring down the street in a matter of minutes. People ran for their lives. One person told us how the water rose from ankle deep to almost chest high in the short amount of time it took to reach her generator after her power went out. With water up to her car's windows, she and her elderly father made it out by backing out of their neighborhood, which somehow kept water from being sucked into their engine’s intake and stalling the car. We heard another story of a man who went to get his computer from his basement and was trapped when water held his basement door shut. He did not make it out alive. Yet another person we met tells us of how he had to quit his job because he suffers from PTSD due to the trauma of the storm. He has thrown himself into doing volunteer work to help with recovery from the storm. He hopes to someday to be able to go back to work.

When our group arrives at the project site, we find a 275 square foot house on a 40 foot by 81 foot family-lot. The house was built in 1931 when people came to this section of Staten Island for summer getaways. The house has three rooms plus two small bathrooms. What was once a summer cottage came to be home to an older woman and her nine-year-old granddaughter.

Our project house on the corner of Patterson Avenue.

The homeowner, we will call her Connie, meets us when we arrive. She has been next door at a slightly larger home that sits on the same lot as her house. She owns this home too. It has been restored to livable condition and one of Connie's grandchildren lives in the second home with her infant and the baby's father. We learn that Connie bought the two homes in 2001 when she decided it was time to move out of Brooklyn.

Connie and her family were displaced when Sandy's surge brought ashore enough water to almost cover the homes on their street. Since the storm, Connie has moved around from relative to relative while she waits for her home to be rebuilt. Connie's family consists of her daughter and five grandchildren. Connie's daughter lies in a NYC hospital suffering from the effects of a lifetime of drug abuse. She was recently taken off life support and we were told that she is probably only days away from dying. Connie has to choose between paying for her daughter's funeral and hiring a contractor to finish the work on her house. Without us here, it is unclear what work might be done, if any at all. A few days after we return to Northern Virginia, we learned that Connie's daughter has passed away. We can feel her and her grandchildren's pain and wish them peace and a brighter future.

The drugs not only shortened Connie's daughter's life; each of her children suffers from the effects of her drug use. Because of her daughter's condition, Connie looks after her five grandchildren, including her nine-year-old granddaughter who has rage issues. These complicated family issues make it impossible for the family to live together in the completed house on the family lot. So, until Connie and her granddaughter can move back into their house in Midland Beach, they sleep on the couches of one relative or another until they wear out their welcome and move on.

After Connie finishes showing us around the property, we begin to take stock of the condition of the house. Our first glance into the front bathroom raises doubt that this house is anywhere close to being in a livable condition. The bathroom is dark and there are openings in the floor that give a clear view of the crawl space beneath the house. There is missing dry wall. There is no flooring, no toilet, no sink, no running water and no electricity.

Once we get past the front bath, we find things in a bit better shape but covered with building supplies and lawn furniture. Once we clear out the rooms, we get a clearer picture of what needs to be done. It is a lot of work, but it is the kind of work we came to do. We know we can help; we just are not sure how much we can get done in the few days we are here. Undaunted, we divide into teams and get to work.

The living room covered with building supplies and lawn furniture.

Over the course of the next three days, we install two windows; case out half a dozen windows; drywall a roughed-in doorway; install kitchen cabinets, counter tops, and sink; and install two floors. We spend over 30 hours on the job site. Outside of one or two small items, we do almost all that is asked of us. In addition to this, one of our team members spends a couple of hours at a second house doing some tile work. We are told that the elderly homeowner feels abandoned and neglected by his community and church. He has lost faith and lost hope. For this brief time, while a stranger tiles his bathroom, the normally withdrawn and reticent man becomes talkative and shows a glimmer of happiness. For a moment, his faith is restored.

The garden window installed in the kitchen.

The completed kitchen. Our team installed the cabinets, counter tops and new garden window.

The new floor our team installed in the bedroom.

Around midday on Saturday, Connie shows up at her home. She is clearly pleased with our progress and comments more than once about how she wants to get in her kitchen and start cooking. We made enough progress for her to be able to start imagining moving back into her home and restarting her life on Staten Island. Her spirits are clearly high and she goes out of her way to thank us for all that we have done. As the sun begins to set and we work to finish a few last things, Connie asks if she can buy us dinner. We accept her offer and a bit later dive into to a small feast of local Italian and Chinese food under the light of a nearby streetlight. Connie and her brother, who helped her pick up the food, beam as they give us each a box of fresh baked Italian cookies.

After dinner, we clean up the work site and pack away our tools one last time. With the glow of Brooklyn and Manhattan behind us, we pull away from the Connie's house and head south to Bethel UMC for one last night in the fellowship hall. We feel good that we accomplished what we came to do, but at the same time, we wish we could have done more. Connie's front bath still needs to be finished. Her entry way floor needs to be installed. A couple of doors need to be installed. One last window needs to go in. And, licensed plumbers and electricians have to finish their respective pieces of work. The foundation that originally committed to funding this work has run out of money. It is unclear if they will do the work or not. And the next volunteer group is not scheduled to arrive until the second weekend in November. Despite all our progress, no one can give Connie a move-in date. We wish we could do more to get her off her relative's couch and back into her own home

Sunday morning, we gather for bagels and muffins in the kitchen of Bethel. We are all tired and ready to go home. What will happen next and how Connie will get her house finished gnaws at us all. We talk about what it will take to get her into her home and what more we can do to help her and others on the island. Judging by the boarded up houses, there is much to do, and the foundation that was supposed to handle much of the rebuilding is out of money.  What our small team has accomplished and can accomplish seems inadequate in the context of the task at hand.

Eventually, it all comes into focus for us. We came as the hands and feet of Christ to provide our labor and use our skills to help rebuild a stranger's house. We did this, but more importantly, we delivered hope. Hope to a grandmother that one day soon she will be back in her home with her granddaughter. Hope to those who toil to rebuild. Hope that they are not alone and that the help their community needs will be provided. Hope to an elderly man that he is not forgotten and that he can rely on his faith despite what his local church has not done for him. And hope to everyone affected by Sandy that we are all in this together and that when any of them are weary, someone will be there to be a good companion. And yes, we will stand by their side and provide for them because this is what our faith calls us to do.