One of the ways I know when the Lord is working overtime to get a message across to me is when He sends the same word by different means.

I’ve mentioned here about the time some months ago when I was driving to our associational offices along Elysian Fields Avenue and began to weep. I said, “Lord, it’s not just that drug store or that fast food place. It’s not this house or that house. It’s the whole thing. It’s just so overwhelming, and I don’t know what to do about it.” At that moment the Lord spoke to my heart: “This is not about you. It’s about me.”

I cannot put into words how liberating that was.

I mentioned here that last Saturday, Dr. Gary Frost of New York City brought a message to our conference at First Baptist Church-New Orleans entitled, “It Ain’t About You.” The very same point the Lord has been emphasizing to me.

Then Monday night, it came again. Dr. Wayne Barber, pastor of Albuquerque’s Hoffmantown Baptist Church, was bringing a Bible study to a group of our Gulf Coast pastors and spouses at the Riverview Plaza Hotel in Mobile. About 15 couples from our New Orleans association accepted the invitation for two nights, three days, and I went over for the first 24 hours. Tuesday, Freddie Arnold drove over and took my room and I returned home. I’ve known Wayne since he and I were staffers at neighboring churches in Jackson, Mississippi, in the early 1970s. He’s as fine as they come. We share one other thing in common. We both write (and I draw) for Pulpit Helps magazine, a pastors’ monthly, whose parent company, AMG International, co-sponsored this retreat.

Wayne took his text from Galatians 2:20. “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

“You can’t, but He can,” Wayne told the ministers and wives, most of whom had lost their churches and homes in Katrina, and are facing mammoth tasks of rebuilding homes, restoring churches, and reviving their communities. “You can’t, but He can–because He lives in you,” he said. “We lose heart and quit when we lose our focus.” The exact point Gary Frost made repeatedly Saturday.

We hear you, Heavenly Father. Loud and clear.

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Oops. Didn’t mean to do that.

Sunday morning very early I left the house and drove 200 miles to a church where I was to preach. Originally, they’d asked me to bring a message for their senior adult emphasis this weekend, but they called during the week to say everything had changed. The pastor resigned abruptly last Sunday and an unknown number of members were leaving with him–some church leaders too–to begin a new church, and the congregation was in a turmoil. They still wanted me to preach today but not on the senior adult theme.

I was glad to do so. One of the benefits of having gone through a lot of trouble in the last couple of churches I’ve served is that I’ve learned some things to say to congregations and church leaders who are hurting. The only people I know who would willingly volunteer to speak to a church in crisis like this is a veteran preacher. At such times you know beyond a doubt you are called by God.

I left early enough to leave myself a little wiggle room in case I had car trouble. That’s why I arrived in their city 45 minutes early. So, I pulled into a nearby hotel parking lot, the same inn where my wife and I stayed just two months ago when I spoke at another church in the area. They have a spacious lobby where a guy wearing a white shirt and tie can collapse in a comfortable chair for 15 minutes without appearing out of place or being questioned. That’s when I noticed the families coming in.

A small crowd was congregating in a conference room toward the rear of the lobby. This was obviously a church service. I sat there resting, my body still throbbing from over 3 hours on the interstate highway, and heard the pastor welcoming the people. He thanked this one and that one and then named someone I know who had made the arrangements for this location. That’s when I knew.

I had happened onto the first meeting of the group that was leaving the church where I would be preaching in half an hour. For no reason I can identify, I felt extremely uncomfortable and immensely out of place. Hoping no one recognized me, I got up and walked out and drove to the church.

And, wouldn’t you know, we had an incredible worship service. Three or four hundred people were present, the youth minister baptized a teenager, and the service throbbed with life. A large number of beautiful, alert teenagers occupied the first three center pews. No one introduced me, so I did it myself. I walked to the pulpit and said, “Good morning. I’m your new pastor. The bishop sent me.” They laughed–as I was hoping they would. “Oh that it were that easy,” I told them.

As usual, I began by giving a brief report on New Orleans and asked for their prayers for the rebuilding of this troubled city.

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The bad news is that Vince Marinello has been arrested and charged with murdering his wife.

A week or so ago, 45-year-old Mary Elizabeth Marinello was gunned down in front of her counselor’s office from which she had just emerged. Witnesses said a scruffy-looking bearded guy on a bike shot her twice in the face in what seemed to be a botched attempt at robbery and sped away. Not so quick, said the investigators.

Vince–a grade B local celebrity from his decades on New Orleans’ radio and TV as a sportscaster–claimed to have been in Jackson, Mississippi, viewing the Saints’ preseason game. Witnesses attest to that.

They were going through a messy divorce. Vince is 69 years old and they were married just two years ago after a quick and torrid romance. Later, Mary Elizabeth found out his divorce from wife number two was not final when they married and she was seeking an annulment. They were fighting over the big house in Harahan. Sheriff’s deputies had been out recently.

In arresting Vince, the sheriff’s office says all sorts of helpful people have come forward. A French Quarter guy who runs a costume shop says Vince bought a mustache from him recently. A gun shop dealer says Vince brought in a gun of the kind that killed his wife to be test fired, then bought the kind of ammo that the medical examiner says did the foul deed. Parking lot cameras record the murderer pacing the lot waiting for Mary Elizabeth to come out of the building, and witnesses saw the culprit ride off on a bike for two blocks, then stow it in the trunk of a white car and speed away. Marinello owns a white Taurus. Then, Vince’s Jackson friends came forward to admit he was late arriving at the Saints’ game that same evening. Finally, in raiding his FEMA trailer–yes, he had one too–the sheriff’s investigators found a list. A list of all the things he would have to do in order to kill his wife and get by with it.

I suppose, like Congressman Jefferson and O. J. Simpson and Whatsisname Peterson, he can provide a good explanation for all these coincidences.

The latest Reader’s Digest has a little article on dumb crooks. We enjoy reading those sometimes to remind ourselves that the bad guys in this world are not all rocket scientists. It would appear that Vince Marinello will make the dumb crooks hall of fame when this is all over. The sheriff’s office has him locked up and under suicide watch.

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Our pastors meeting at Good Shepherd Church started early when Pastor Michael Chance of New Jersey came by bringing doughnuts. He and some family members own the Southern Maid Donut Shop in Hammond, and as a native of this area, Michael was down to see the city and encourage our pastors. During his seminary years, he belonged to FBC Belle Chasse and was a staffer at Parkview Church. I’ll tell you one of his stories at the end of this report.

Freddie Arnold reported in after his and Elaine’s Alaskan cruise last week. A great trip, once in a lifetime, and from the motion sickness Elaine suffered, once will probably suffice. Freddie urged pastors to get their people to our Ridgecrest on the River taking place this Saturday at FBC-NO, with New York City’s Gary Frost as featured speaker. Presently, only 195 have registered, about a third of the registration in previous pre-Katrina years, and about half of what we need to break even this year.

Freddie reported that we are encountering people rebuilding their homes without adequately treating the wood with mold killer. In some cases, the houses have had to be stripped again so the studs could be treated. We have BoraCare at the associational offices, provided by one of our many friends who has agreed to continue providing it as long as needed.

Global Maritime sent word that they need volunteers, particularly on the days the cruise ships come into port. The volunteer base has decreased. Ann and Steve Corbin, MSC volunteers, work with Philip Vandercook in this ministry, and are living in a trailer located at the FBC of St. Rose.

Congressman Bobby Jindal is working with our Operation NOAH Rebuild folks on some permit issues (electrical, plumbing, etc). State Senator Julie Quinn is doing likewise on the state level. Steve Gahagan reports that our volunteer numbers are down this month but October is looking good. We’re still taking requests for homes to be rebuilt, but no more for gutting out (the deadline for this was August 29). Our volunteers are still doing gut-outs until our back-list is exhausted. We still have a lot of people waiting, and we don’t want to disappoint them. We’ve received about a hundred requests for rebuild.

We promoted the Katrina Retreat being offered our pastors by AMG International, Hoffmantown BC of Albuquerque, and FBC of Long Beach, Mississippi. To be held next Monday-Wednesday at the Riverview Plaza Hotel in Mobile. Several signed up today. (Pastors, call me!)

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Dave Walker, who writes on the entertainment industry for the Times-Picayune, this week is devoting four columns to the anchors of the Big-3 networks, plus Shepard Smith of Fox. Tuesday was Katie Couric. Wednesday–today–was Brian Williams. You don’t have to read far to see why this man Williams is so appreciated in our city.

Anchor for the NBC Nightly News since Tom Brokaw retired, Brian Williams was in New Orleans during and after Katrina. Ever since, he has almost single-handedly kept New Orleans and the Gulf Coast before the American people. For his troubles, he has received accolades from us and barbs from critics.

Just after completing the one-year anniversary of Katrina broadcast last Tuesday evening, he told Walker, “I’ve just gotten off the air, and there’s no question that if I check my computer, I’ll have a number of people already writing to complain, using very blunt language, promising not to watch anymore, saying, ‘I’m going to a network that isn’t Katrina-obsessed.'” Williams said, “I counter that by saying, ‘If you were in that Dome with that nice guy who was in charge of special-needs patients, if you saw what we saw in that Dome’–it’s almost as if we wear a tatto visible only to other members of our sect.”

He adds, “It welded me to this story and this city.”

Katrina fatigue assumes many manifestations. Those who live here under the oppression of a lethargic city government and amid neighborhoods that have died and need drastic help, we have one brand of Katrina fatigue. Those who work night and day gutting out houses and rebuilding them, sleeping on cots and eating whatever is handy, they have their unique strain of this fatigue. But the kind Brian Williams encounters is the carping, belly-aching, groaning of viewers who are tired of watching more scenes from our neighborhoods, more interviews with our politicians, and more in-their-own-words from our hurting, frustrated residents.

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August 29, 2006

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A year ago today, Labor Day 2005, one week exactly after the landing of Hurricane Katrina, 80 percent of New Orleans proper was still flooded, workers were still rescuing people, and the city was still shut down. The western half of the metro area, Jefferson Parish, was allowing residents to enter for a few hours to check on their property and pick up a few things for the lengthy evacuation. They had to be out by 6 pm.

Neil and Julie drove all night from North Mississippi where we had all landed and got in line on U.S. 51 just north of LaPlace in order to be among the first to re-enter. They ended up sitting for hours in a long line of traffic, then about daybreak the police removed the barriers and everyone began to move. I came in on Wednesday of that week for a few hours. No electricity anywhere, trees down everywhere, and a few neighbors who had stayed through the ordeal reflecting shell-shock on their faces.

Today, Monday, some residents are at work on their houses, some are having cookouts, some are out of town visiting mom and dad, and a few are involved in community celebrations. Mostly, things are quiet. Hardly a wave is stirring in the eastern Caribbean. We like it that way.

For three days next week–September 11-13–some friends of ours are staging a retreat for pastors and spouses of our worst-damaged churches. AMG International of Chattanooga, the missionary organization that publishes Pulpit Helps magazine, a monthly that has run my articles and cartoons for an entire generation, is working with Hoffmantown Baptist Church of Albuquerque and the First Baptist Church of Long Beach, Mississippi, in hosting a free recovery session at a hotel in Mobile. I’ve sent out an e-mail to our affected pastors locally (those with internet capability). If you know of someone this description fits (pastor of either destroyed or severely damaged churches), have them contact me if they’ve not received the invitation.

When John Barry speaks about the levee system, rivers, and wetlands of this area, pay attention. No one knows it better than he. “Rising Tide” was his history of the Mississippi River flood of 1927, a best-seller some 5 years ago, but more than that, the book recounted the ups and downs of attempts to control this great waterway over the centuries. Barry is Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Center for Bioenvironmental Research at Tulane and Xavier Universities.

An article John Barry published recently in USA Today was reprinted in Monday’s Times-Picayune. “Expensive, But Worth It: Years of man-made mistakes must be fixed to save New Orleans” is the lead. Briefly, Barry says the situation in our city is the result of three factors which benefited the rest of the nation but doomed New Orleans.

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The other day, Mark Morice, a hero of the storm–a resident of Uptown New Orleans who had commandeered a neighbor’s unused boat and rescued perhaps a hundred stranded citizens after Katrina’s floods–learned that he is being sued by the boatowner for not returning it. The owner said he didn’t mind Morice borrowing his boat and is glad he saved those lives, but he should have returned it to his house where he got it. The hero admitted that he left it elsewhere, but only so other people could use it to continue the rescue operation. The boat disappeared, the insurance company paid off, but a lot less than the boat was worth, and so the owner is suing the hero for $12,000. Residents are coming out of the woodwork to berate the boatowner who should have been honored that his dumb boat did something more worthwhile than haul his worthless carcass off to the lake on weekends.

A day or so later, the letters to the editors sounded off on this matter. One fellow said his name is almost identical to the boat-owner’s lawyer’s name, which had been listed in the paper, and his phone has rung off with mean-spirited callers which is pointless because he himself supports the hero’s actions. Someone else wrote that the owner at least got some compensation for his boat which is more than most people who did not have their boats–or even their homes–insured.

Police arrested Bryan Perrilloux, 20, of Reserve (a suburb a few miles upriver), late Monday night. He had walked down Airline Highway to LaPlace in the middle of the night and broken into a closed convenience store. Six minutes after he broke the plate glass window the cops showed up. They were probably surprised to find he was not robbing the store. He said he just had a craving for some pastries. His bond has been set at $15,000.

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This morning the pastors were in great spirits. “I’m still glowing from last night,” one said, referring to the wonderful prayer rally at the First Baptist Church of New Orleans. Fred Luter was being congratulated on his incredible sermon. David Crosby was also basking in compliments for putting together that outstanding program.

At the beginning of the morning session, I told the pastors, “I’m going to list five biblical men. Tell me the characteristic that comes to your mind about each one.” Moses, Samuel, Noah, Daniel, and Job. Courageous and faithful, bold, prayerful, and persevering were mentioned. I said, “Turn to Jeremiah 15:1. God names the two best prayer intercessors He knows: Moses and Samuel. The question is why?”

We thought of the way Moses stood between Israel and God and refused to turn loose of either. And how Samuel (whose name means “Heard by God”) told Israel, “God forbid that I sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you” (I Samuel 12:23).

Next, I asked them to go to Ezekiel 14:14. God names the three most righteous men He can think of (and He ought to know them all!)–Noah, Daniel, and Job. In words reminiscent of Abraham interceding for Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18, God warns His people that when He sends judgment, it does not matter who is within their walls. “Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were there, they could only deliver themselves and no one else!” He says.

Five of the greatest people God knows, each one worth meditating upon.

Our guests almost outnumbered the regulars. (Total attendance: 48) From the Louisiana Baptist Convention, we welcomed David and Patti Hankins, Wayne Jenkins, Mike Canady, Gibbie McMillan, and Ed Jelks. From the North American Mission Board, we recognized Jim Burton, Bill Taylor, and Richard Leach. The Baptist Message was represented by Managing Editor Karen Willoughby, who brought stacks of copies of this week’s “Katrina” issue.

David Hankins (Executive Director, LBC): I have three things to say to you: thank you; we know it’s not over; and we’re with you for the long haul. (Since I had given the pastors a sermon starter earlier, David gave one also. “How do we move on from here?” Philippians 3:12-14 1. Formulate a healthy perspective 2. forget a hurtful past. 3. find a heavenly purpose. 4. focus on a hearty performance.)

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Let me say it officially here: we appreciate the nation’s turning its eyes in our direction for these few hours this week. Every news program on television seemed to be doing recaps on Katrina-land today. We appreciate it. Mostly. But as with the rest of the nation, this is one anniversary we’re glad to get behind us.

Someone said, “The President is coming to a church service tonight. It might be ours,” referring to the Prayer Rally at the First Baptist Church of New Orleans Tuesday night at 7 pm. It wasn’t, but that’s all right too. The nature of meetings change when the president is there, and honestly, our meeting tonight did not need him. It needed nothing. What we had was two power-packed hours of praise and prayer, of rejoicing and loving. I don’t know when I’ve been more blessed.

The day started too early for me. I knew Scott and Lorri on FamilyNet Radio’s early morning talk show would be calling at 7:05 for a half-hour interview, so–groan–I woke up at 4 o’clock and could not get back to sleep. So, I did some Bible study and other things, some exercises and then my usual walk/prayer-time on the levee, then a shower and it was time for their phone call.

I spent a couple of hours in the office this morning, then drove to the seminary to get in on the last of their disaster relief training for students and faculty before the 11 am worship service. I stood in back of the Leavell Chapel and marveled at what I saw–nearly a thousand young adults crowding the building, adorned in the obligatory yellow t-shirt, taking in this training before fanning out into the community for some of the hardest work any of them will ever do, gutting out houses. During the worship service which followed, Jay Adkins and Byron Townsend shared their Katrina testimonies–both were spectacular–and I told a couple of stories illustrating how God not only knew this hurricane was coming but had put certain people in place in preparation. After the service, the students ate a lunch provided by the Louisiana Baptist Convention’s Disaster Relief team, on the front lawn.

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