how do i keep my hope alive?

[trytryagain]

my trip was amazing...i spent an entire week on my hands and knees in the lower 9th ward in new orleans, cutting, laying and grouting tile floors. i met some really amazing people that go to my church here in DC, and really let me be me around them, instead of holding back like i usually do. i really felt like myself, and i felt very comfortable around these total strangers. my legs and arms are bruised and battered, but every day i got up at 6 am thinking, i'm doing something today that is going to make a difference to someone. i'm going to lay the floor in a house that a family can come back to after 5 years of being away, and they will walk on that floor every single day, and probably never even think of me, but all the same...i will be there, i will be a part of their home and their family. and that was an amazing feeling.

the spirit of the people of new orleans is undeniable. there are houses that stand empty near where the levees broke, but they still stand, defiant to the floodwaters, and FEMA, and everything else that should have brought them down. if those houses can stand, if those families can keep it together in the face of what they have been through, i can surely make it through this in one piece, and come out for the better on the other side.