It's a miracle I was able to finish my oversized Po' Boy sandwich this afternoon at the Parkway Diner in New Orleans. It's even more of a miracle they were able to serve it. Like the entire neighborhood, the restaurant was flooded when the levees broke during Hurricane Katrina. But after being evacuated, owner Jay Nix and his sisters and nephew eventually fought their way back as have 288,000 others, about 63% of New Orleans pre-storm population.

On yet another Hinges of Hope trip we learned that the ratio above is mirrored in many aspects of life here. The Royal Sonesta Hotel has only 260 employees compared to the 450 once responsible for outstanding service. Only four of the city's nine hospitals are in operation. There are 5000 fewer registered nurses in the state than before. Emergency room visits average eight hours. Restaurants cannot find trained servers. Schools lack quality teachers.

But the ratio of smiles to tears has finally begun to improve. In contrast to previous trips we saw signs of more needs beginning to be met. I found it deeply satisfying to see how Share Our Strength efforts translate into progress for the children of this region, nearly two and one half years after the storm that forever changed their lives.

The Martin Luther King School, which we helped salvage and clean during the service day of our 2006 Conference of Leaders opened in August and has 650 students with the highest test scores in the system even though they still have no textbooks. At the Samuel L. Green charter school, kindergarten through eighth graders harvest carrots and broccoli in the sprawling Edible Schoolyard.

A medical clinic has been opened by two nurses provides high quality health care for those with diabetes, hypertension, asthma and depression. Patricia Berryhill, one of the co-founders, donated her own home to be refurbished for use as the clinic. The other, Alice Craft-Kerney, told us "It's been a very rewarding faithwalk."

The nurses couldn't be more different than the Parkway Diner's owner, or the principals of the two schools we visited. But all had one thing in common. Their gamble to return and rebuild was sustained not by money or government support, nor knowledge or certainty they could succeed against such long odds, but by the one thing more powerful: faith. Faith in themselves and faith in the power of community prevailed and will continue to prevail.

Everyone we met - whether nurse, principal, student, chef or hotel bellman - went out of their way to thank us for coming and to plead with us to continue to share their story.

Share Our Strength's grants serve as a timely and critical bridge for organizations like those above who wait for public funding to clear the bottlenecks of the bureaucracy. And by returning to New Orleans month after month, for more than two years, and bringing hundreds of leaders from other parts of the country to bear witness, we offered something just as valued to people scarred by broken promises: we did what we said we would do.

There's more to tell, and New Orleans still has a long way to go. I'll share further thoughts once I get home, regroup and reflect. But so far, it's been "a very rewarding faithwalk."