Journey to Healing

My 'Adopt a Family' project...

Posted by Lola Teigland:

Some of you who are my close friends already know about this.  But to those that don't... I want to tell you!

For the last ten years or so just after Thanksgiving I get the idea to adopt a family with less for Christmas -- buy them presents, a tree, a turkey...  But time does this trippy thing around this time of year where somehow you wake up one day and bam -- it's Christmas. 

Well I got the idea this year right on schedule.  Only this year I had this additional yearning.  I've been writing a ghost story set in the aftermath of Katrina, and in order to be true to that world, I have immersed myself in, reading every possible piece of anything I could get my hands on.  And what I have encountered... it breaks my heart.

So efficient me combined my two impinging passions.  I connected with Margaret Saizan, the author of this blog and I've started a web page to connect families in need with the sweet souls willing to give them a little piece of magic.  It really doesn't take much to do that.  Magic is born in good will, presents are just the manifestation of that.

Anyway... I just finished the web design yesterday, which was a trip, because I'm really only an eyelash away from being considered computer illiterate. Anyway, I hope the letters will come pouring in. 

Here's the address -- www.PostSanta.com  Obviously it's a content driven site, so until the letters are there it's not really much to look at.  But I'm very proud of it, so I thought I'd share. 

Once I get some letters, I'll post a bulletin that I hope will get passed on from my friends to your friends to their friends...  I plan to adopt at least one family, so anyone that wants to do that with me, let me know!

Lola

Adopt A Hurricane Impacted Family for Christmas

Beyond Katrina community member Lola Teigland is launching a new bulletin board  for matching hurricane impacted families with donors who want to adopt them this Christmas. If you are a family in need or a donor who is willing to help, please go to Post Santa, www.postsanta.com.   Last year's bulletin board was very successful in helping to match donors and donees thanks to the efforts of many of our readers -  we hope this year's effort will be as fruitful!

Blessings This Holiday Season,

Margaret Saizan
Publisher, Beyond Katrina

Greetings & Welcome!

Hope for the Future

My name is Margaret Saizan and I live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  I have started this weblog as an online community & place to offer inspiration, encouragement & support for survivors of Gulf Coast Hurricanes. Please submit your favorite healing quotes, inspirational sayings, poems, scriptures, photographs, your own words of encouragement - anything that you feel would be healing, helpful, supportive.

Please only submit photographs that you have taken yourself, or that are in the public domain, or that you have permissions to post - and please provide proper photo credits when appropriate. You may submit these to surviving-hurricane-katrina@hotmail.com and I will gladly post them to the blog.

Please stop by and visit me at my other weblogs:

Hurricane Wilma - Currently tracking the storm's landfall, approach & aftermath. 

Hurricane Katrina: A Bloggers Personal Journal - this blog started as a storm journal on the eve of Katrina but has since morphed. There is little bit of everything there - personal insights, forwards from friends, helpful resources & news updates.

Hurricane Rita: Tracking the Storm's Approach, Landfall, & Aftermath

margaretsaizan.com - A portal to all of my projects on the web

Blessings for Your Journey,

Margaret Saizan

Tim, a "nameless" blogger from New Orleans posted some very kind comments here and at the Hurricane Katrina Blog. He is the author of a very poignant blog which in my estimation totally captures the depth of feeling that encircles New Orleans right now.

Stevie Wonder: Shelter In the Rain Video Commemorating Katrina Victims

To view this  very moving piece  by Stevie  Wonder go here.

Hurricane Relief Ornament

Need A Last Minute Christmas Gift?

• Target and HARVEY LEWIS will donate 50% of the retail price of this ornament to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund
• The luxe silver-plated ornament features green-blue enamel and is studded with crystals
• Made of zinc alloy with silver plating
• A HARVEY LEWIS ornament accented with Swarovski crystals
• The Swarovski trademark is used by HARVEY LEWIS DESIGNS, LLC under license from Swarovski

Program Provides Chrismas Gifts for katrina Kids

A little Christmas cheer came to the FEMA trailer park in Baker Thursday.  Evacuees living at the trailer park on Groom Road lined up for some early Christmas presents, trucked in by the "Feed the Children" organization for more than 800 needy families.

Families received food, clothing, toys, and even small televisions.  Evacuee James Waller said, "It makes me feel wonderful... makes me feel wonderful.  It makes me feel like Santa Claus came through my house.  It just feels good to have it."

"Feed the Children" president Larry Jones says corporate outpouring to Katrina victims is the highest he's seen in the organization's 26-year history. 

The "Feed the Children" organization will make a stop Friday in Baton Rouge at 10:00 a.m. at the Governor's Mansion.  They will then head to New Orleans Saturday to deliver presents to more than 3,000 families.  That will happen at 10:00 a.m. at the Gretna City Hall.

Reporter:  Matt Clough

Video of St. Bernard Aftermath

Very moving video of St. Bernard Parish and Randy Newman's song "Louisiana, 1927", sung by New Orleanian Aaron Neville...

http://southcypressspeedway.com/images/video/Katrina.wmv

Gulf Restoration Network

Join me in sending messages to restore levees and better protect our Louisiana coastline. Take a moment, when you can, to send an e-mail.  It's a gift to ourselves and to our neighbors. If you send the email petition to President Bush and Congress or take any other action, I would love to hear back from you via the comment section of this post. Thank you, Margaret Saizan, (author of this blog)

The interactive letter (accessible from  http://healthygulf.org/) is as follows:

Dear President Bush and Members of Congress

In the three months since Hurricane Katrina, and then Hurricane Rita, ravaged New Orleans and coastal Louisiana, Americans have opened their hearts to those displaced and affected by the greatest natural disaster in our nation’s history.  Their charitable and humanitarian outpouring reflects the very best in our country’s character.  But more is necessary. 

You requested that the citizens of Louisiana lead the way by creating and offering ideas for rebuilding that the Federal government can support.  Through task forces, commissions, and community meetings, Louisiana is doing its part.  Now, it is time for Washington to act.   

To revitalize New Orleans and other affected communities will take a genuine commitment to the future.  To secure the natural bounty of coastal Louisiana—America’s Wetland—as part of our legacy to future generations will take a commitment to protecting and restoring America’s greatest wetland treasure.  This Administration and this Congress have a responsibility to act to save these treasures and the time to make that commitment is now.

At the heart of the revitalization effort and at the heart of your responsibility is a commitment to two things:

1. Honest and effective storm protection, up to a Category 5 level, for New Orleans and other population centers, and
2. Coastal restoration and conservation.

These two pieces are inextricably tied together, and are key responsibilities of the federal government.  Each day that passes without a commitment to the survival and prosperity of New Orleans, south Louisiana and America’s Wetland compounds and prolongs this tragedy.  This is not just about a storm or Louisiana.  It is about whether America answers the call of stewardship and responsibility.  The time to act is now.

Your Signature!

 

Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem

By Dr. Maya Angelou

Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes
And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses.
Flood waters await us in our avenues.

Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche
Over unprotected villages.
The sky slips low and grey and threatening.

We question ourselves.
What have we done to so affront nature?
We worry God.
Are you there? Are you there really?
Does the covenant you made with us still hold?

Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters,
Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope
And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air.
The world is encouraged to come away from rancor,
Come the way of friendship.

It is the Glad Season.
Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner.
Flood waters recede into memory.
Snow becomes a yielding cushion to aid us
As we make our way to higher ground.

Hope is born again in the faces of children
It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets.
Hope spreads around the earth. Brightening all things,
Even hate which crouches breeding in dark corridors.

In our joy, we think we hear a whisper.
At first it is too soft. Then only half heard.
We listen carefully as it gathers strength.
We hear a sweetness.
The word is Peace.
It is loud now. It is louder.
Louder than the explosion of bombs.

We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled by its presence.
It is what we have hungered for.
Not just the absence of war. But, true Peace.
A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesies.
Security for our beloveds and their beloveds.

We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas.
We beckon this good season to wait a while with us.
We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come.
Peace.
Come and fill us and our world with your majesty.
We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian,
Implore you, to stay a while with us.
So we may learn by your shimmering light
How to look beyond complexion and see community.

It is Christmas time, a halting of hate time.

On this platform of peace, we can create a language
To translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.

At this Holy Instant, we celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ
Into the great religions of the world.
We jubilate the precious advent of trust.
We shout with glorious tongues at the coming of hope.
All the earth's tribes loosen their voices
To celebrate the promise of Peace.

We, Angels and Mortal's, Believers and Non-Believers,
Look heavenward and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves
And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation.

Peace, My Brother.
Peace, My Sister.
Peace, My Soul.

Hurricane Relief: Operation Cajun Christmas

A reader has submitted information on Operation Cajun Christmas. The project's mission is to bring joy and hope this holiday season to hundreds or perhaps thousands of families who are so devastated by the recent U.S. Hurricanes, Katrina and Rita.

A Convoy of Compassion filled with a Cajun Christmas
A convoy of trucks from communities around the country filled with toys, books, and gifts for children, teens and families will travel to Louisiana this December bringing joy to so many!

December 16th Operation: A Cajun Christmas will travel to Vermilion Parish Abbeville, Louisiana to help kick off their annual Christmas Festival - now named "A Cajun Christmas Festival" and distribute the gifts collected over these next few months.

The website also has a discussion board and lots of good Hurricane related resources...

The web address is: http://www.cajunchristmas.org/