Things I Will Miss

When I leave Southern Louisiana on Saturday, I will miss:

1. The friendliness and greetings that come with living in a small Southern town, like being called Baby, Sugar, Sweet, and even Miss Karen. People I've never seen before wave and smile, even calling from their cars, "How y'all doin'?"

2. The response of Baldwin and surrounding communities to staff and volunteers at this place. For example, voices at the other end of the phone immediately soften and become happily engaged when I say, "This is Karen Peter, calling from the Outreach Office at UMCOR Sager Brown."

3. Church Baldwin-style. What better option do you have on a Sunday morning than church, church and more church. Parishoners must feel cheated if the service is any less than two to three hours. The prayers are pleading, the music is soaring, the sermons are insistent, everything is punctuated by congregational commentary. I will never feel the same way about worship again. Yes, yes Lord!

4. Mardi Gras Trees. When I arrived in town on Epiphany eve, January 5, the Wal-Mart in Morgan City was off-loading what I thought were Christmas trees. I had to think for a moment before I remembered from a previous trip that they were for Mardi Gras. Most folks simply
take their Christmas deco off their trees and break out the purple, green and gold. There are colored foil strips and rolls, feathers, masks, hats and, of course, beads. Mickey Mouse Head Start has a Mardi Gras tree. Raintree Elementary has one decorated with masks made by its students. Chez Hope has an elaborate one, done by staff, residents and volunteers. Festive, gaudy Mardi Gras trees are everywhere.

5. Fellow volunteers from many places, each with interesting expertise of their own, interrupting their lives to be in service to this community and to the world on this sacred ground.

6. The seemingly endless trains, reassuring in the daytime, then crooning lullabies at night.

It has surely been good to be busy in Baldwin.