September 2005

Katrina: Our Better Angels
9/1/2005 6:43:29 AM
Stories of heroes saving hundreds/thousands of people swell the heart with hope for the city of New Orleans. Then comes the news of looting and shooting. Emergency workers are forced to stop their attempts to rescue the desperate in order to deal with the scavengers who are picking over the rotting body of New Orleans like so many crabs slinking through the shadowy, murky water for carrion. Such tragedies bring out the best and the worse in humanity. My prayer is that our better angels prevail.

Help!
9/1/2005 2:50:37 PM
When you see those images on CNN, remember something: Those angry, frustrated people are not a mob of bandits, lurking for an opportunity to steal, kill, and destroy. Those are moms, dads, brothers, and sisters who are hungry, afraid, and mourning. Some have loss family members; all have lost their home. These are not just people without a house; they are people without a community...without a city...without society. They have no government, no rule of law, no support or hope. They have loss their homes, their families, and their city: They have not loss their souls. They do not want to hurt anyone; they want food, water, and shelter. They want someone to take charge and tell them their lives matter...that things will soon be alright. Do not judge them by the action of a few who have descended into internal chaos from the disaster that has overtaken them. If it was your grandmother dying in her wheelchair, if it was your wife floating back in the attic at what was once your home, if it was your child asking for something to eat or drink, just how patient would you be? How orderly would you be? Please, God help put into the heart of someone to bring relief to these people! Show them grace and mercy this day. This day, Oh God! Now! No more planning. No more meetings in air-conditioned rooms over chinese take-out. No more waiting. Please! Somebody do something now! Help!

Katrina: An Untold Story
9/2/2005 8:13:11 AM
There is an untold story unfolding in this human crisis. First of all, let me state that the local churches and communities in Louisiana are stepping up to the plate in an unprecedented effort to take in the New Orleans refugees. However, it is quickly becoming evident that the scope of this effort is overwhelming. The cities, towns, and hamlets surrounding New Orleans have already doubled or tripled in population. Refugee shelters around the state, from Monroe to Lafayette, from Shreveport to Baton Rouge, are at capacity. We are not talking about hundreds or thousands or even tens of thousands of people. The entire city of New Orleans, a major U. S. city of over a million, three hundred thousand people, is being evacuated.

Neighboring states are already finding the overflow from our state borders filling their shelters, including the Houston Astrodome, which is presently turning away buses of refugees since they are at capacity as well. These refugees have no resources, no jobs, nothing to do, and no place to go. They wander around malls, gather in store parking lots, visit churches looking for help, and are trying to find some stability for the moment. They are desperately in need of the basics of life.

Although brotherly love is driving the people of Louisiana to reach out to the less fortunate from the devastated areas, many are beginning to question if we will be able to do enough for long enough to deal with their needs for months and months. Our nursing homes, our schools, our hospitals, and our churches are doing what they can, but already the logistics of dealing with the influx of humanity presently before us is taxing our resources. Many of our hospitals have already been placed in lockdown, our police departments are operating in emergency mode, and our social infrastructure is stretching to its limit.

Despite all of this, we are discovering that some things are just more important than momentary comfort and peace. Our brothers and sisters from New Orleans need us. And for as long as they need us, we will be there for them. Our civil organizations will provide what is needed. Our churches will give until there is nothing left to give. God will help us. If it takes a miracle then we will make miracles happen. Louisiana will survive this tragedy, or we will all go down together. In the past, there have been rifts between the big city of New Orleans and the smaller towns around the state concerning tax and appropriation issues. Today, there is one purpose: Rebuilding the lives of our fellow citizens in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Katrina: My Church's Response
9/5/2005 9:37:20 AM
I am so proud of the people of my little church. I asked them to bring more canned foods, pillows, and blankets for the refugees from Katrina. Their response was heart warming. They filled my pickup truck with food. They filled my office with pillows and blankets. I wept. These people are at least as poor as anyone who was displaced by the storm. Now, of course, they find themselves with more than those people, and they responded graciously. They always do. And they will need to for quite a while.

Katrina: Other Parishes
9/6/2005 5:55:01 PM
Despite what the media portays, New Orleans isn't the only place in Louisiana needing relief from the storm. Only today, long after the citizens of New Orleans, the squeaky wheel that got the grease, found their way to safe shelters across America, the forgotten people of Plaquamines, St. Bernard, and other parishes are finally being discovered by the media and by the government--a week later. These people are just as devastated, just as hungry and thirsty. This catastrophe is simply too large to comprehend. Don't stop praying. Don't stop sending help. While the media is leading people into a political free-for-all, America needs to remained focused on the refugees who still are awaiting their help. Too many people are dead and dying. This is like nothing we've ever seen before.

Katrina: Toll State-wide
9/7/2005 11:39:11 AM
Caring for the victims of Katrina is taking its toll on the parishes of Louisiana and many counties of surrounding states. It is difficult to assimilate over a million people into established societies. The attempt is taxing the rural communities of Louisiana. Rapides Parish parents are having to drive their children to school since their public buses are being used to bus refugees. Many of the poor of that parish have no vehicles themselves. Mail service and phone service is interrupted by the needs of those along the gulf coast. The city streets of the small communities are clogged with victims who need jobs, schools, and similar requirements to get a sense of normality back in their lives. Don't get me wrong: Nobody is complaining. I just think everyone needs to know how much love and patience the people of the Gulf Coast are demonstrating in this hour. Some parts of our local government may have started slowly, but as the magnitude of this crisis became clear, Louisiana is taking this most horrific hour in its history and turning it into its finest hour.

Katrina: The Blame Game
9/8/2005 8:11:21 AM
Already, politicians are lining up to gain an advantage by pointing the finger at their opponents. The media has its sights on President Bush. Some are calling it "an act of God:" Mostly atheists who can't seem to make up their minds if there is a God or not. There is a deep desire to always know the "why" about things. It's human nature. There is a simple, obvious answer, of course. Sometimes, poor planning and natural forces work together to bring about tragedy. Hurricanes are a fact of nature: Even Category 5 Hurricanes. Poor planning is a product of human nature. No single president, governor, or major caused the problems, and they could not have prevented the problems either. This is a result of generations of administrations. All of government is responsible. Spending tax money on long term projects that seem boring and useless ninety-nine percent of the time is not politically advantageous. Politicians would much rather spend money on eye-catching items like free college tuition, Medicare promises, useless pork-barrel projects, and other things that can get you short-term votes before the next election. Wisdom is simply too much to ask of those who are more determined to score political points than deliver protection to the people who elect them. Who�s to blame? Nobody. Everybody. But we will find somebody to take the fall for us. That�s also human nature.

Katrina: Football
9/12/2005 9:25:23 AM
It may not make sense to the rest of America, but a couple of football games over the weekend brought welcomed smiles to the faces of the people of Louisiana. I doubt that God is pleased with our obsession with sports in America. We are so engrossed in the pleasures of this world: entertainment, sports, etc. Yet this fact remains: people who have lost everything but the shirts on their backs were laughing and cheering for a couple of hours on Saturday night and Sunday evening as they watched both the LSU Tigers and The New Orleans Saints win last second victories. You would have to live here to understand it. Most people probably figure that silly games like these should have been called off due to the magnitude of the tragic nature of Hurricane Katrina. And they are probably right. But sometimes, I guess we need to escape. We love our sports--especially football, especially in the South. This game gave people a small sense of thing getting back to normal. It makes no sense that this child's game could accomplish that; but it did. It's not very spiritual, but it helped.

Non-Katrina Post
9/13/2005 4:20:56 PM
Since you can read the newspaper and watch television news yourself, I thought I'd spare you another blog about the Katrina aftermath. I've eating healthy and excercising for a month and 12 days now. So far, I have lost right at sixty pounds. I've been slowed some with an injured heal, too. Swimming has been my saving grace in the matter of excercise. Keep me in your prayers: I am determined to be released from this prison of flesh I've been trapped in for most of my life.

Katrina: Bush Visionary
9/16/2005 12:14:59 PM
Thursday night, the president delivered what will one day be considered an historic oratory which not only set the course for recovery along the Gulf Coast but will also be the touchstone for future programs and organization, both public and private, which will spark a renaissance for the underclass and displaced of our society. Such a visionary response to this natural disaster, encompassing not only the cost of rebuilding a society but also of repairing social injustice, could have only come from a conservative like George W. Bush. Had some liberal made that speech, it would have been dismissed as another attempt by the left at socialism. Only a conservative�s conservative could paint such a bold picture of what must happen and be taken seriously. The argument can be made that the Bush administration has always been big-spending, but the fact remains that if anyone can make such a renaissance happen along the Gulf Coast of our country, and perhaps spill over into the rest of America, it is the conservative president of the United States. Perhaps some of what Bush wanted as a legacy will materialize. He may yet be known as the �Compassionate Conservative.� If he can bring his party to the table with the liberals who have long called for social reform, maybe he will become �a Uniter, not a Divider.� History has opened a door for him. Being slow to respond to the unthinkable can be forgiven. Being slow to respond to fate�s call to lift an entire class of people out of a cycle of poverty and oppression cannot. My advice to President Bush: Ignore the carping and cat-calls of blind republicans, political liberals, gotcha media heads, and nay-Sayers of every stripe. Push forward with your proposals and be the visionary God intended you to be.

Sustenance
9/19/2005 12:51:58 PM
Last night, God used me in the prophetic gift to speak to several in my congregation. The tears that flowed during the course of the evening could have flooded New Orleans. I was very weak when all was over. I was spent physically and spiritually. I just collapsed on the front row. Physically, I've only been consuming about seven hundred calories a day. I am running out of energy at the end of my messages of late. Spiritually, any time I move in the gifts of the Holy Spirit the way I did last night I find my self feeling stangely empty. God usually comes very soon and refills me. But it is that moment of emptiness when I feel all sorts of emotions...think all sorts of thoughts. It is akin to the emptiness in my stomach when I do not eat enough. It is painful, but nothing I can't deal with for the moment as long as I know that, soon enough, sustenance is just a few moments away.

Here We Go Again
9/23/2005 8:22:59 AM
You have got to be kidding me! Another once in a life-time hurricane? First Katrina, now her evil twin sister Rita? Somebody needs to do something. Somebody needs to listen to what God is trying to say to us? Is it a sign of the end of days? Is it God's displeasure at the hedonism that thrives along the Gulf Coast? Is it this one particular guy who was living in New Orleans, then evacuated to Houston, who God keeps trying to get? Let�s just toss the guy overboard like they did to Jonah so the winds and waves will stop! Could it be global warming? Maybe it�s just the combination of natural environmental events culminating in the creation of these killer hurricanes. Whatever it is, I am not alone when I say, �Please, somebody do something! Everybody do something!� The first thing that comes to my mind in this circumstance is this: REPENT!

Can't Hurt Rurnt
9/23/2005 12:07:19 PM
Goodness! Rita hasn't even made landfall yet in Texas and already we are getting higher winds and rain from the massive storm in the Gulf. This is a monster storm. Hopefully, prayerfully, it will weaken before it makes landfall and weaken even more on land. Up where I live, we need the rain but we don't need the wind. We have tall trees in this part of the state, and already the winds are getting high enough to threaten our electric lines. The trees went down like wild when Hurricane Lilly came through three years ago. We were out of electricity for a week then. The potential is for far worse this time. I certainly don�t want to lose my air conditioning. The last four days have set all-time records for heat, too. Sigh. New Orleans really can�t take the wind or rain. One good thing, all that will be lost now down there is infrastructure. The people are all gone. The city is spoiled already. My mother-in-law has a saying: �Ya� can�t hurt rurnt {ruined}.� Meaning, it�s already messed up in New Orleans. This storm isn�t the wound�just the salt rubbed in.

Rita's Refugees
9/24/2005 6:30:59 PM
Well, I'm writing by candlelight. We haven't had electricity since the afternoon. Many others close to us do; so we keep wondering when our turn will come. We shared a meal by flickering lanterns--salad and canned chicken breast--and are beginning to really get on each other's nerves. Not really. But when these things happen, I am always shocked at how slowly time actually does go by. It makes me wonder just what has us so occuppied at the end of our days when we gripe about not having enough hours. I am having way too much time to think tonight. It is amazing how quickly one can solve the problems of the world with no distractions. I want to conserve my battery pack in case this runs on awhile. We are still getting very gusty winds and sheets of rain bands drenching us with wave after wave of Rita. Electricity may be a long way off. Thank God Rita weakened before moving onshore. Things are bad along the Gulf, from what I hear, but it certainly could have been worse. I was told earlier that there are twenty-six refugees in my church in Olla. Someone from the church is heading up the relief effort for them. If I don't get electricity soon, I will be a refugee too. In a way, I already am.

Thankful Today
9/26/2005 7:53:15 AM
We got electricity back. Thank God! I have no idea how people made it all those years without the creature comforts we enjoy. Several families from my church rode out the storm in the church because they either live in trailors or had already lost electricity. Some families from Lake Charles who were fleeing Rita saw the lights on and dropped in for shelter from the storm. South of us, the devastation is horrible once again. Where I live, we will be fine when everyone gets their lights back on. I want to thank everyone who lifted a prayer on our behalf.

Exhausted
9/27/2005 12:05:32 PM
Laura has a simple operation today to deal with a cyst that had burst in her elbow. Poor thing doesn't take pain too well, either. Between trying to take care of her, clean up from Hurricane Rita, and tending to my morning and evening workouts, I'm pretty exhausted. But the sun is out, people are busy getting their lives back to normal, and God is still on the throne. That's a pretty good day. I ask for prayer for my family in Southeastern Louisiana who lost their homes in Hurricane Rita. They are living in hotels for now, courtesy of FEMA. God have mercy on all the victims of these two hurricanes.

::: Made by J&C Greer :::