I just returned from a third world country a mere twelve hours ago, and the irony is that I never left the United States. My trip to Lumberton, Miss., with a group of almost 100 other people from Andrews University was an earth-shattering experience to say the least. Now I struggle to adjust back into my everyday life of studies and work. The world has not changed in the least since I left for the Gulf State on Thurs., the first day of September—I have. My outlook on life has been altered. I owe this to Hurricane Katrina and the five-day mission trip at Bass Memorial Academy.

While serving hot meals in Purvis, Mississippi, it occurred to me how we, as Americans, have everything we need. We isolate ourselves from our neighbors because we don’t have any source of dependency on them. The crisis at hand seemed to change this for the people of this community.

I was so blessed to see a reaction to desperation in a totally different way than the rioting, car jacking, and looting that is all too common in the news in New Orleans right now. We were warned by the skilled workers of the Adventist Community Services and the Adventist Community Teams Services to always be mindful of our safety. However, no one warned me that I was about to see Americans interact in a way so foreign to our culture. People collecting their hot meals would request extra meals for their neighbor with no gasoline or an elderly neighbor. I was expecting a "cut throat" environment, but instead I witnessed neighbors looking out for the needs of one another.

What made the biggest impact on me was the simple realization that these people in cars lined up, eagerly waiting to receive canned goods and hygienic supplies every morning, were people like me. They weren’t all poverty stricken families. They were individuals who were living a normal life just a week before I met them. But, in just a matter of one day, their lives had been turned upside down.

Civilized, everyday people told me stories, from inside their newer-model sedans, of bathing in the creek behind their homes due to lack of running water. They broke down in tears at the promise of having food to eat. They described to me the massive pine tree now resting in their living room where the wall once stood. They bounced a baby wearing only a diaper in temperatures reaching the upper 90s as they waited in line for food. They cried as they recounted the seven hours they endured 100-mile-per-hour winds. They sat in the nursing home across the street from the academy, in the sweltering heat, watching their elderly friends be taken away by ambulance due to the conditions, sometimes four or five times a day.

This could be my grandmother, my parents, or people from my home church. This could even be me. I can muster up some thankfulness when I pump gas into my car now, regardless of the price, because I did not have to stand in a line with 100 other people just to put the three gallons of gas or so in my tank that is allowed. My home is air-conditioned. I have never once worried about having enough water to make it through tomorrow. I am truly blessed.

Erica Slikkers, senior public relations major at Andrews University.