When I was 18 I passed through with Jeremy and some friends on our way to Houston. We pulled into the city late at night and were told not to so much as look out of the window after dark. But the next morning, we got up at dawn to explore a little before we left. It was just a few days after Mardi Gras, and there were beads rolling all over the streets, hanging from the telephone wires and the balconies, swaying in the chilly March breeze. Garbage was piled in corners, and dozens of men and women were sleeping on benches, in alleyways, tucked into corners and doorways. I remember squinting through the half light of the morning, shivering partly with the cold and partly with the heaviness that settled on me.
We walked to the Café Du Monde on Decatur, and I saw a group of nuns sitting in their habits, sipping café au lait and eating beignets, powdered sugar showing stark white again their black robes. And that was it. I loved New Orleans (I've also loved nuns ever since that day, as well. Want to make me super happy? Send me pictures of Nuns Having Fun. Rabbit trail: Before we came to New Orleans I was telling all the other girls that I really wanted to see nuns again while we were there. At one point yesterday, Missy and I saw a priest walking around, and I said, "No, God! I said nuns. Not priests!" At the end of our day, we were heading out of the French Quarter looking for a Starbucks, and there, crossing the crosswalk, was a group of nuns... Just hanging out in New Orleans. Just chilling. Love them!)
My husband teased me yesterday when I posted on Facebook about it, saying "But we were only there for two hours!" It doesn't matter. Love at first sight isn't confined by time and space. A little piece of my heart broke off and stayed in New Orleans, right there with those nuns in the Café Du Monde, surrounded by the garbage and the broken people.
Yesterday I got to go back. We drove through streets where half the houses were still boarded up, faded red X's on the sides, a grim reminder of the havoc Katrina wreaked almost 10 years ago.
The city was a lot busier than it was at dawn 12 years ago when I was there, a smelly, sweating crush of humanity almost everywhere we went. Missy even said, "There are a lot of smells in this city. And not all of them are pleasant."
We wandered around for awhile, taking in the sights, loving the old architecture and gritty feel of the French Quarter. We stopped to watch some street performers, sitting on the marble steps, while pigeons flocked all around waiting for scraps.
After awhile we ended up just standing on Toulouse, semi-loitering, waiting for God to show us if there was anyone we could talk with.
That's how we met Big Tiny. At first it looked like he was hitting on Carol, but it turned out it was his job as a bouncer to try to get people through the doors of the bar he worked for. He told us he couldn't care less who came in or didn't, he just liked to talk to people. He stood out there for hours at a time, sweating, swearing, people watching. He said, "Watch this!", took his headband off and wrung it out onto the sidewalk. Sweat gushed from it and splashed all around my feet. Yeah. Gross.
Big Tiny is a huge man. I mean. HUGE. Covered in tattoos, bald head, and some of the nicest teeth I've ever seen. We stood on the sidewalk while he shifted back and forth on the street, making him seem about 3 inches shorter than he actually is. I didn't realize how tall he was until Carol stepped down into the street with him.
We ended up talking to him for almost a half hour out there on the hot streets. He told us about his experiences as a bouncer, how he ended up transplanting from Virginia, to Atlanta, to New Orleans, which he called "The A$$hole of America". He told us his mama was a little bitty praying woman, and told us about the man who had mentored him and gotten him out of a lot of trouble over the years, about the ministry he used to work with called "Princess Night", that went out the streets and brought prostitutes away from them, set them up in safe houses and helped them get back on their feet. Big Tiny went along to deal with the pimps, if they tried to "cause trouble".
Tiny is a good man. A really good man. It emanated from him whether he knew it or not, whether he wanted it to or not. He's forgotten his roots, maybe, but they haven't forgotten him. At one point, Lesa looked him right in the eyes and said, "You are a good man. A good. man. I feel like God wants you to know that." Tiny pursed his lips, tight, looked down at the ground, and nodded silently. You could see that he was fighting his emotions. How many people are out there? How many, beating themselves up for the choices they've made, living isolated lives because others don't think that they're worth living life with? How many that just need to be told that they're not as far off as they think, that God loves them- I mean, truly, deeply, madly loves them?
All four of us fell in love with Big Tiny's good heart- a huge, burly bouncer covered in tattoos, literally pouring sweat and blood onto the streets of the French Quarter, whose job it is to lure people into the bar and then kick them out when they've had enough. We loved him.
We prayed with him right there, for him to feel God loving on him, to understand his worth in Christ. We thanked God over and over for the chance to meet Big Tiny. As we were leaving, he told us to make sure we were out of the city by nightfall. He said his break was from 7 to 7:30 and that if we found ourselves still in the city by then, to come back and get him and he would walk us to our car. Do you see it? The good, good man shining its way out of the cracks in that tough exterior. Do you love him? That good man covered by the lost man. I'm crying as I type this.
We met a few other people that day: Donna outside the Café Du Monde, a homeless woman who had only recently come to the city because she felt like she needed to minister to it. She walks around the French Quarter, pushing a baby stroller full of stuffed animals she's found and cleaned up, using them to show people that God can clean up old, lost things. The stroller is topped with a cardboard cross with John 3:16 written in Sharpie on it. She writes encouraging words on balloons and hands them to strangers or leaves them in places where she wants people to find them. We bought Donna a burger and fries from Jax Brewery down the road, as she said she was "beignet-ed out", even though I don't see how that's possible.
We met Hezekiah, our server in the Café, who radiates joy and faith in God. He also has a sense of humor. When he brought us our order he brought an extra glass of water for himself and stood there sipping it while we talked. His compassionate heart for his coworkers shone through. We could see he really loved them and hurt over their hurts. He gave us all their names, asking us to pray for them along our way. He told us the thing he wanted most for himself, when we asked if we could pray for him, was a woman. He wants a good woman, THE woman, he called her, to marry and take care of and cook for. Hello! Ladies, as of yesterday, he was still single! We prayed that Hezekiah would find his woman. That he would live up to his kingly name, and that he would be a light in the darkness of his city. He said over and over, "Just think! God sent you all the way from Virginia just to talk to me! He sure is always doin' somethin'!"
New Orleans is a city that clashes against itself. Heavy with death, heavy with life. There is darkness there. But there is also light. There is music, and art, and culture, and history. There are broken, broken people, just waiting for some hope. And then there's me, loving it, loving it, loving it. Wanting to wrap it in my arms, garbage and all, from the nuns to the junkie on the corner of Bourbon. I want to love them all, Big Tiny, Donna, Hezekiah. I want God's best for them. I want hope and restoration for them. I want New Orleans.
-M
Yesterday I got to go back. We drove through streets where half the houses were still boarded up, faded red X's on the sides, a grim reminder of the havoc Katrina wreaked almost 10 years ago.
The city was a lot busier than it was at dawn 12 years ago when I was there, a smelly, sweating crush of humanity almost everywhere we went. Missy even said, "There are a lot of smells in this city. And not all of them are pleasant."
We wandered around for awhile, taking in the sights, loving the old architecture and gritty feel of the French Quarter. We stopped to watch some street performers, sitting on the marble steps, while pigeons flocked all around waiting for scraps.
After awhile we ended up just standing on Toulouse, semi-loitering, waiting for God to show us if there was anyone we could talk with.
That's how we met Big Tiny. At first it looked like he was hitting on Carol, but it turned out it was his job as a bouncer to try to get people through the doors of the bar he worked for. He told us he couldn't care less who came in or didn't, he just liked to talk to people. He stood out there for hours at a time, sweating, swearing, people watching. He said, "Watch this!", took his headband off and wrung it out onto the sidewalk. Sweat gushed from it and splashed all around my feet. Yeah. Gross.
Big Tiny is a huge man. I mean. HUGE. Covered in tattoos, bald head, and some of the nicest teeth I've ever seen. We stood on the sidewalk while he shifted back and forth on the street, making him seem about 3 inches shorter than he actually is. I didn't realize how tall he was until Carol stepped down into the street with him.
We ended up talking to him for almost a half hour out there on the hot streets. He told us about his experiences as a bouncer, how he ended up transplanting from Virginia, to Atlanta, to New Orleans, which he called "The A$$hole of America". He told us his mama was a little bitty praying woman, and told us about the man who had mentored him and gotten him out of a lot of trouble over the years, about the ministry he used to work with called "Princess Night", that went out the streets and brought prostitutes away from them, set them up in safe houses and helped them get back on their feet. Big Tiny went along to deal with the pimps, if they tried to "cause trouble".
Tiny is a good man. A really good man. It emanated from him whether he knew it or not, whether he wanted it to or not. He's forgotten his roots, maybe, but they haven't forgotten him. At one point, Lesa looked him right in the eyes and said, "You are a good man. A good. man. I feel like God wants you to know that." Tiny pursed his lips, tight, looked down at the ground, and nodded silently. You could see that he was fighting his emotions. How many people are out there? How many, beating themselves up for the choices they've made, living isolated lives because others don't think that they're worth living life with? How many that just need to be told that they're not as far off as they think, that God loves them- I mean, truly, deeply, madly loves them?
All four of us fell in love with Big Tiny's good heart- a huge, burly bouncer covered in tattoos, literally pouring sweat and blood onto the streets of the French Quarter, whose job it is to lure people into the bar and then kick them out when they've had enough. We loved him.
We prayed with him right there, for him to feel God loving on him, to understand his worth in Christ. We thanked God over and over for the chance to meet Big Tiny. As we were leaving, he told us to make sure we were out of the city by nightfall. He said his break was from 7 to 7:30 and that if we found ourselves still in the city by then, to come back and get him and he would walk us to our car. Do you see it? The good, good man shining its way out of the cracks in that tough exterior. Do you love him? That good man covered by the lost man. I'm crying as I type this.
We met a few other people that day: Donna outside the Café Du Monde, a homeless woman who had only recently come to the city because she felt like she needed to minister to it. She walks around the French Quarter, pushing a baby stroller full of stuffed animals she's found and cleaned up, using them to show people that God can clean up old, lost things. The stroller is topped with a cardboard cross with John 3:16 written in Sharpie on it. She writes encouraging words on balloons and hands them to strangers or leaves them in places where she wants people to find them. We bought Donna a burger and fries from Jax Brewery down the road, as she said she was "beignet-ed out", even though I don't see how that's possible.
We met Hezekiah, our server in the Café, who radiates joy and faith in God. He also has a sense of humor. When he brought us our order he brought an extra glass of water for himself and stood there sipping it while we talked. His compassionate heart for his coworkers shone through. We could see he really loved them and hurt over their hurts. He gave us all their names, asking us to pray for them along our way. He told us the thing he wanted most for himself, when we asked if we could pray for him, was a woman. He wants a good woman, THE woman, he called her, to marry and take care of and cook for. Hello! Ladies, as of yesterday, he was still single! We prayed that Hezekiah would find his woman. That he would live up to his kingly name, and that he would be a light in the darkness of his city. He said over and over, "Just think! God sent you all the way from Virginia just to talk to me! He sure is always doin' somethin'!"
New Orleans is a city that clashes against itself. Heavy with death, heavy with life. There is darkness there. But there is also light. There is music, and art, and culture, and history. There are broken, broken people, just waiting for some hope. And then there's me, loving it, loving it, loving it. Wanting to wrap it in my arms, garbage and all, from the nuns to the junkie on the corner of Bourbon. I want to love them all, Big Tiny, Donna, Hezekiah. I want God's best for them. I want hope and restoration for them. I want New Orleans.
-M
{{Day 6 Photo Dump}}
Hezekiah
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