A funny thing: those most afflicted by the scourge of racism don’t have a clue.

The governing council of St. Bernard Parish has stirred up a hornet’s nest. Recently they voted 5-2 to limit a homeowner’s ability to rent out his single-family dwelling. He can let it only to someone he’s related to. The aim, the authorities said, is to preserve the integrity of the neighborhoods and maintain the same culture they had before. There will be no jokes here about “what culture?” in this parish which has long depicted itself as the poor relation of New Orleans.

Predictably, citizens inside and outside the parish are yelling “racism”. Having lived in the Deep South since the age of 11, and after watching local and state governments go through all kinds of legal maneuvering and verbal contortions in order to keep down racial minorities, I have to say that what St. Bernard Parish is doing looks mighty suspicious.

Letters to the editor in Wednesday’s paper take both sides on this issue. (I think I’ll spare you, if that’s all right.)

Parish councilman Craig Taffaro, who authored this regulation, said to a reporter, “What a tremendous burden it must be to believe that everything is motivated by race. Our motivation is simply to do what’s best for our recovery and to restore and maintain our pre-Katrina way of life.”

Hmm…let’s see…what was that expression we used to hear in Alabama throughout the 1950s…the “Southern way of life.” Elect this candidate because he wants to preserve it; oppose that guy because he wants to destroy it. As I recall, no one ever defined the term. It was just “understood.” By whites and blacks alike, I’ll wager.

As a pastor for over four decades, I suppose I’ve committed every social and etiquetical (is that a word?) breach there is. I’ve offended the handicapped, teased the hurting, and joked about the pain some walking wounded were experiencing. I’ve done all this and more, but never maliciously. I didn’t “mean” to hurt them. But I did.

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I haven’t mentioned it here, but Saturday was a big election day throughout Louisiana. In fact, we turned our association’s offices on Lakeshore Drive over to the electoral process. The “Baptist Center” became the voting place for nine precincts in the Gentilly area of New Orleans. Freddie Arnold hung around much of the day Saturday, to be on hand in case he was needed. He said the voting was light. I voted at my usual polling place–John Curtis Christian School’s elementary school library–here in River Ridge.

All of the 13 amendments on the ballot passed big, which was unusual. Several had to do with restoring the coastal wetlands and another with merging all the area levee boards into two, one for each side of the Mississippi River. We were assured that the federal government was watching to make certain the citizens were as concerned with flood protection as they were being told. The vote for levee consolidation was 81 percent in favor. Pretty strong.

The folks in back of the levee consolidation movement didn’t celebrate long. They promptly announced they’re now turning their attention to consolidating another bizarre local contraption–the seven tax assessors who reign over their tiny fiefdoms throughout Orleans Parish and who need to be merged into one central office, like is the case throughout the rest of creation.

Commander’s Palace restaurant opened for brunch Sunday for the first time since Katrina. The ancient building where they are located in the Garden District was severely damaged in the hurricane, then when they started making repairs, workers found major structural problems that had not been evident. It has taken this long to restore the facility. Like getting the Saints back in the Superdome, this is a symbol that the city treasures.

Macy’s in Kenner’s Esplanade Mall is not returning. That end of the mall is dark and empty and needs filling badly. We’ve talked previously here about the boarded-up historic Fairmont Hotel downtown, another sad sad thing.

But Memorial Hospital is back. The site where many patients died in the week following Katrina, this huge medical center, known for ages as Southern Baptist Hospital, was bought recently by Ochsner Foundation along with a couple of medical facilities. Ochsner is now the largest health care provider in the metro area. The headline in Monday’s paper reads “It’s official: ‘Baptist’ is back.”

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7:30 am. The monthly brotherhood breakfast at Kenner’s First Baptist Church provided some insights on life in metro New Orleans these days.

On the first Sunday of each month, some forty men and boys gather for their monthly allotment of cholesterol (thick bacon, sausage, eggs, sausage gravy, grits, huge biscuits–you get the idea) and the kind of fellowship only a men’s gathering provides: laughter, teasing, back-slapping, loving, affirming. Three men spoke in the meeting; only one was scheduled.

Johnny, the leader, said, “You’ve heard the old line about ‘I’m from the government; I’m here to help you.’ Today, one of our men is going to give his testimony along that line.” He introduced Scott who had lost his business to Katrina.

Before Scott got started, Barry stood up. “If he’s going to tell about getting a Small Business Administration loan, I can give you some sad stories along that line. Applying for an SBA loan was absolutely the hardest thing I have ever done. It took 9 months, and there must have been a hundred steps involved. Finally, they sent us the money, then took it back. They sent it again and then took it back. We’ve got it now and I expect them to ask for it back any day now.” Your government in action.

Scott told of the frame-shop business he and his wife had purchased in 1999 from another church member. “This was our livelihood,” he said. During their Katrina evacuation into Belleville, Illinois–“some people call it Mayberry”–he went on line and found an aerial post-hurricane shot of the West Esplanade location of their shop. “There was this giant hole in the roof where you could see all the way through. That’s not good.” They had lost everything.

“The question was what to do now.” Some people suggested bankruptcy. “We didn’t want to do that.” Someone suggested he file for unemployment. “We did, and got $90 a week. That’s for a family of four. You know about how much good that did.” His parents in Boston called and said his room was still available; he could come back home. “I said, ‘Mom, Dad, I’m married now with two children.” Laughter.

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The other day, Freddie Arnold was telling the pastors about the iron bell his wife had bought at an antiques store years ago and how it was the only thing he had salvaged from his flooded East New Orleans home. When he finished, I told my “bell” story.

My parents used to have this large cast iron bell mounted on a post behind their farmhouse. About 15 minutes before time for lunch, someone would go outside and pull the rope and ring it. The sound carried a mile in every direction, so my mule and I could hear it way down in the bottomland we were plowing. Now Toby, my mule, knew what the bell meant. His ears perked up and he wasn’t worth shooting after that. As long as he was pulling the plow toward the exit, he made double time. But if I was trying to complete this section and still had a few rows to go before knocking off for lunch, he resisted all attempts to turn him.

Finally, when I pulled his harness off and whopped him across the backside, he literally ran up the long hill toward home, displaying more energy in a few minutes than he had expended all morning. By the time I arrived at the house, Toby would have eaten the nubbins in the trough which someone had laid for him and was rolling in the dust.

In Isaiah 1, God said, “The ox knows his owner, and the donkey knows his master’s crib, but Israel does not know. My people do not understand.”

Some people are dumber than a mule. They’ve gotten themselves lost and do not know how to get to the Father. It’s our job to find them and show them the way. The Lord Jesus said, “I have come to seek and to save those who are lost.” And, “As the Father hath sent me, so send I you.”

After the meeting, Tobey Pitman approached me. “So you had a mule named Toby.” I laughed and said, “Yes, but you spell yours T-o-b-e-y and my mule spelled his T-o-b-y.”

Tobey Pitman is a career NAMB missionary who has directed the work of the Brantley Center–sheltering, feeding, and discipling the homeless of this city–for several decades. These days with so few homeless in the city and due to the low water pressure downtown, the center is closed and Tobey is overseeing Operation NOAH Rebuild for the North American Mission Board. And for the Lord, of course. And for us. He’s a great guy and we are all so indebted to him.

Last night my phone rang. “Hi Joe. This is Toby.” I paused. “Toby?” “Yep.” “Toby Wood?” I thought I recognized that voice. “Of course, how many Toby’s do you know?” I said, “Oh, three or four.”

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Updated 9/29/06: Please note the correction at the bottom of this article.

Wednesday morning at our weekly pastors meeting, we began with a question: Who’s not sleeping at night? Or, Who keeps waking up in the middle of the night?

We handed the microphone to the half dozen who raised their hands. “Family problems,” one said. A daughter with medical needs and a son who needs to get his life right with the Lord, then marry the mother of his child. “The world situation,” another said. A third said, “I’m lonely.” His wife is in Heaven and he lives alone. “I lie awake thinking about Heaven,” he said, eager to be there.

I didn’t go into my reasons for waking up in the middle of the night, but I expect they are typical. I lie there thinking of what I need to do the next day, of tasks I did not complete the day before. Sometimes I get up and make a list of people to call and work to do, and it seems to settle my mind. This morning, I rose and wrote two letters and drew a cartoon that was on my mind–is there anyone else on the planet, I wonder, who wakes up with a cartoon bugging him?–and by then, it was time to get up anyway.

The cartoon? I had been half awake praying for the meetings we’d scheduled for today, one at 8:30, the pastors at 10, and another session after lunch. I asked the Lord to give me good recall for names, and this came to mind. A group of people are sitting around a boardroom table. One fellow is saying, “I’ve been on vacation for two weeks, so tell me again: who are you people, what are we doing here, and why does it matter?”

Okay, I was gone only one week, but it felt like a month.

Anxiety and worry are types of fears. And we know what the Word says about fear, don’t we. “God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind.” I call that the PLUS of Christian living: Power, Love, Sound mind. II Timothy 1:7.

We’re not to fear the forces of darkness; He has given us power.

We’re not to fear other people; He has given us love.

We’re not to fear the unknown; He has given us a sound mind.

How many times in Scripture do we read the command, “Fear not”? You’d think we’d get the idea.

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Margaret and I returned home from New Mexico Monday evening about suppertime after two of the smoothest flights on record. Julie and the three grand-kids met us at the airport with the kind of welcome every human on the planet should experience at least once. On the streets, I noticed gasoline had dropped by ten to twenty cents. Several stations were advertising $2.05 for regular, which I never expected to see again.

While we were out, elves came in and transformed our house. It’s mostly brick, but there’s plenty of wood trim which needed painting badly. It was a soft green, now it’s bright white and the front door a dark burgundy. These elves, known in life as my brother Ron of Birmingham and his terrific son-in-law J.P. Hollingsworth of Warrior, Alabama, had made repairs all over the house and replaced the fold-down attic door. They even painted the patio swing. It’s like a new house. Best of all, we did not have to endure any of the clutter. Our “helpers” arrived a few hours before we left last Monday and departed the following Saturday before our return Monday.

The weather was cool. The house is wonderful. Later that evening, the Saints blew the Atlanta Falcons away in the “brand new” Superdome. Gas is affordable again.

The grandchildren watched as I opened a week’s worth of mail. “Let’s see if anyone sent me any money,” I said. That drew them in closer. Money they know about. “Ah, here’s a check for…four hundred dollars.” They clamored, “Let me see,” and started reaching. To my amazement, below it was another for seven hundred. And another for three hundred. And more after that. This little windfall was actually refunds from our health insurer and I’d been expecting it. But it was sure nice to see.

Quite the welcome home. We may go out and come in again.

In New Mexico, I spoke at a pastors conference hosted by WordSearch, the computer software company serving ministers. These had to have been some of the nicest people on the planet. When old friends–such as Nashville’s Windy Rich–heard I was bound for Glorieta, the envy was palpable. Anyone who has ever spent a week at this incredible conference center has vivid memories of its mountains, wooded hillsides, cool air, worship services in the huge chapel, and lasting friendships formed.

While we were there, another conference was being held on the grounds at the same time. ARMM is a ministry of the Nazarene Church for their retirees. As I recall, it comes out to “Association of Retired Ministers and Missionaries.” In the large dining hall, we shared meals with veteran missionaries to Iran and American Samoa. I suggested tongue-in-cheek that they begin an organization called “Ladies Elegantly and Gladly Glorified,” which would give their denomination an ARMM and a LEGG.

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Ruth Hernandez of our Louisiana Baptist Convention office in Alexandria sends this along:

Rewriting the History of August 29th: A Prayer

Thank you for letting me understand homelessness, living without power, without television, without cool air in the heat;

Thank you for letting me understand hunger, the leisure of dry clean clothes and the relief of a place to sleep.

Thank you for letting me understand the deep and overwhelming sadness when forces, beyond our personal control, take the loved, the familiar, the usual.

Thank you for my needfulness and for my newfound empathy for those homeless before the storm and homeless now and for those hungry anywhere, for those in need everywhere.

Thank you for the opportunity you provided to help my neighbor, to be my brother’s keeper, to serve food, to patch roofs, to clean yards, and to start mending that which was broken.

Thank you for the chance to change ourselves,

for a reprieve from the normal, commercial day,

for teaching us to make do,

to get by,

to improvise,

for drowning our conceit,

complacency,

callousness,

for silencing the noise,

for stopping the clock,

and for the chance to act our best

when the worst occurred.

Thank you for the people who reached in, pulled out the living, cradled the dead, comforted the broken and torn apart, wept for the splintered and uprooted. Thank you for the people who didn’t wait to come right away, who opened their homes, who emptied their shelves, their closets, who cleaned, fed, healed, held us, who told us our spirit was amazing, and who keep on coming.

Thank you for the people who measure their faith by their actions, and measure their actions by its consistency with their faith.

Thank you for all the people we have met, who are new friends, new Loved ones, new brothers and sisters, new neighbors.

Thank you, KATRINA.

Not for the wind,

not for the water,

but for the appreciation of the things no storm can shatter,

no water can wash away,

no wind can move.

Written by Tom Teel and Reilly Morse

Tom Teel and Reilly Morse are local attorneys in Gulfport, MS.

Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.

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Steve and Ann Corbin are MSC (to Southern Baptists, that means “Mission Service Corps”, self-supporting) missionaries, natives of South Carolina, working with Global Maritime Ministries in New Orleans. They are such an inspiration to us all.

This is their most recent newsletter to their friends and supporters — Joe

It’s a God thing!!

Had to tell this story. Steve and I have been praying about how to reach the port workers with the gospel. Seafarers are one thing. They generally want to come to the center and hang out and therefore we can talk with them about Christ. However, the port workers are a different story. We generally only see them when we check in at the front gate and their schedules are rarely the same each week. It may be a couple of weeks or more when you can see them again. In other words it is hard to establish any type of relationship. Our church has just started the study, “The Purpose Driven Life” and it dawned us that this would be a great tool to reach out to them. The book speaks to life isues and very plainly presents the gospel in an easy and understanding way. The guards(who we mostly come in contact with) have a lot of dead time, especially at night, when they would be more willing to read and ponder the questions at the end of the book.

Now to the good stuff!

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Gilbert Taeger is pastor of the Morningside Baptist Church in Yuma, Arizona. Recently, he and several members of his church spent a week in New Orleans on a mission trip, working with Pastor Marshall Truehill and the First United Baptist Church. After their return home, he wrote up a report and shared it with their congregation. I thought you’d be inspired by it as I was — Joe

God’s Call to Serve the First United Baptist Church, New Orleans, LA

Henry Blackaby says, “You can’t join God where He is working and stay where you are at spiritually in your life and mindset.” Certainly for Morningside Baptist Church we could not join God where He was working and where He had called us to join Him, and remain spiritually and geographically where we were. So August 21-28 our second mission team traveled to New Orleans, LA to serve the people and community close to First United Baptist Church.

Shortly after hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005, Morningside received an offering for our Disaster Relief effort as a result of Katrina. The folks gave $4,300.00 to send on to help our Disaster Relief teams have food and needed supplies to help the hurting people. We, with determination, said yes to our North American Mission Board to adopt a church suffering from Katrina’s destruction. This was on October 2, 2005 our church made this most important decision. Our giving and generous people, even before we knew the name of our church’s assignment, pledged $1,000.00 each month for the next year above our budget and other offerings we normally receive.

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People who’ve been to New Orleans to help and some headed this way shortly read this blog to keep up with the local situation. Which makes me want to say two things: 1) what you read here is a tiny sliver of the way things are here. Sorry. So much is going on all the time. And 2) I try to sift through everything and report the most important.

The headline in Monday morning’s paper reads, “Need for house gutting seems endless in N.O.” I’ve reported here that Steve Gahagan and Tim Agee of NAMB’s Operation NOAH Rebuild are no longer taking requests for house gutting. They say we have a backlog of hundreds and finishing them with volunteers will take months. Steve adds, “We don’t want to promise something we don’t do. If we agree to gut your house, we want to be faithful.”

Stephen Bradberry of a community activist organization called ACORN was on radio recently offering their free house-gutting services. Since then, they have received a thousand requests, on top of the thousand or so homes already on their waiting list. A thousand homes is a full year’s work, he said. But they’re still accepting applications.

Reporter Valerie Faciane writes, “Phones are ringing at other agencies offering the same services, but many have had to close their waiting lists for lack of volunteers, raising the specter that ruined housing is going to be a feature of the New Orleans landscape for some time to come.”

Bradberry says he is convinced that a lot of displaced residents learned for the first time by his radio broadcast that the city had imposed an August 29 deadline for homeowners to start the process of rebuilding their homes or risk having them demolished.

At the moment, volunteers are almost non-existent in the city. The United Methodist agency here has gutted 185 homes and has 994 on a waiting list, but does not have a single volunteer scheduled for September. They say at the current rate, completing the houses on their list would take 3 to 4 years. The good news is that 20 volunteer teams have signed up from October through December. More are needed.

A spokesman for Operation Blessing, the relief agency of Pat Robertson’s Virginia Beach ministry, blames mainstream media for distorting the situation on the Gulf Coast. People throughout America think no progress is being made because the media does not report the success stories. Some are led to believe people in the affected areas do not deserve help because they’re not helping themselves.

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