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Scott Yi, Brown Medical Student
 Trying to think of anecdotes to mention about New Orleans, I think that this little story is one of the first things that happened on our trip that really gave me pause--
The day we flew into NO, it took a while for us to get our 4 rented vans and pack everything in. It was nightfall by the time we started the drive to Light City, where the Campus Crusade headquarters was at. It was only supposed to be like a 20 minute drive, but we got seriously lost as we turned off the highway. We eventually found ourselves in what must be the richest part of NO. It was a wide, secluded street, probably about 6 cars wide, dotted by some of the most beautifully designed houses I'd ever seen. Front doors were guarded by pillars set in small pools. You could see chandeliers through the big windows, and smell some amazing food wafting in the air from a nearby dinner party. This is the street where we all stopped to figure out how to get back on route. So the bunch of us just stood there, amazed that a section of NO could be this much intact and this high-class. It was almost surreal. Some car honked behind us as it rolled into the driveway of the big house that was hosting a dinner party. There were well-dressed people at their front door looking at us from behind their lavish gate, wondering what the heck was going on in their nice, quiet neighborhood.
In the days to follow, I kept this small incident in the back of my mind and occasionally came back to it. I don't think that accidental turn was actually supposed to be all that accidental. Perhaps God was trying to show us what it's REALLY like it New Orleans ... not just that there's ravished communities and poor people ... not just that there's people without food and basic needs ... but that's there's rich, affluent people too in New Orleans--and that makes the situation just all the more horrible. Because they're not doing a thing about helping this city. The corruption in the city government, for another thing, is staggering.
Well, maybe I'm being too harsh. Maybe those wealthy people living in those million dollar houses did make big donations to the relief effort. Who can know. But, smelling that amazing barbecue dinner, and then arriving in Light City some time later that night to eat brittle pieces of fried steak with a serving of cold, salty gravy and runny vegetables (the same food they serve for free to all the workers and the homeless), I was just overwhelmed with the reality of life at the bottom. How, especially in New Orleans, the rich seem richer because the poor are ALWAYS getting poorer. That reality only increased as we met the people and heard their stories in the coming days. The dichotomy in society that I witnessed just that first night in NO only widened as we saw more and more of the devastation later on in the week.
I pray to God I never become the type of person who hosts a nice, fancy dinner with his other rich friends while the rest of the city scrounges for food. I hope to always be that person who can be humble enough to eat dinner with the needy because it was Christ who first fulfilled all my needs.
"You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. For there will never cease to be poor in the land." - Deuteronomy 15:10-11
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