Today was our first Wednesday pastors’ gathering at Oak Park Baptist Church in the Algiers section of New Orleans. We began at 10 as advertised, but they straggled in for the first fifteen minutes, until our final number topped out in the early 40s. Bruce Nolan, religion editor for the Times-Picayune, sat among us today for the first time. Monday, it had occurred to me he might be interested in this meeting of pastors, particularly since it has meet weekly since last September and shows hardly any sign of slacking off.

Whoever shows up is the program. Today, that meant Freddie Arnold, Joe Williams, Gary Mitchell, Steve Gahagan, and the usual suspects. What makes it special is that it’s always different. What each one shares is never the same. I often think of the line from I Corinthians 14 that in the early church worship services, one would come with a song, another comes with a message from the Lord, another a testimony, and so on.

Freddie Arnold reported on his meeting last week with all disaster relief workers in Arlington, Texas, his “On Mission Celebration” in Cullman, Alabama, the week before, and another gathering or two along the way he’s attended. Freddie reports to outsiders that the SBC disaster relief teams which descended on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast after the hurricane established a high reputation here for integrity, that they helped to create a spiritual environment which enhanced the Billy & Franklin Graham crusades which were so well-attended and so fruitful, and that they provided a ray of hope in a dark, dark situation all across this area. He reported that in last week’s Arlington meeting, a representative of the Internation Mission Board presented a check for $800 from a small group of Muslims from Southeast Asia, men whose areas had been so hurt by the tsunami. For each of the men, their gift represented one month’s income. It is precious in the Lord’s sight and in ours.

In the Arlington meeting, Freddie Arnold was one of several to receive the Distinguished Service Award in DR work. He receives our vote for being awarded the whole shooting match.

Joe Williams continues holding his “Ministry Fatigue Seminars” for our ministers and spouses. “We’ve refined it now to 10 am to 2 pm, including lunch.” He is finding that one aspect of the fatigue of ministers is that they cannot free up large blocks of time to devote to these seminars. Joe said, “We are providing some material for workers with pre-school children in your church,” referring to a stack of books entitled “Helping Children Rebound.”

Gary Mitchell works with bi-vocational and small-church pastors for the Louisiana Baptist Convention. The denominational wide group of which he is a part had planned to hold their 2006 meeting on the campus of our local seminary. After the hurricane, they tried to move the meeting to Covington on the northshore where they found a meeting place, but no hotels. Finally, the Pearl River Baptist Association in McNeill, Mississippi, opened their camp to the group and they will be meeting there the end of this week, and driving down to see New Orleans. Gary said, “We took McKeever up on a recent invitation in his blog to ‘come and see.'” They will overflow the 128 beds the PRBA camp has available, spilling onto floors and into RVs.

Steve Gahagan is the newly-arrived construction manager for Project NOAH, the arm of our North American Mission Board that is setting up to organize the volunteer efforts of thousands over the next two years as they arrive to assist in the rebuilding of this city. Steve used to be a construction supervisor for Habitat for Humanity in South Carolina and his wife Dianne has great administrative skills. So Dianne will run the office for NOAH, in a building NAMB provided for their use at nearby Calvary Baptist Church. They’re living in one of the ministerial homes owned by Oak Park. We are so blessed to have NAMB’s direct involvement here, and particularly honored to have Steve and Dianne, workers whom the Lord seems to have prepared for just such leadership roles.

Joe Kay is the interim associate pastor and, as he says, “Minister of Miscellaneous,” at our host church, Oak Park. As he welcomed us and told of the lunch plans, he got everyone’s full attention when he said, “Our church has a 15 passenger 1996 Ford van to give to one of you. It needs a brake job. See me afterwards.” Someone said, “The line forms in the rear of the auditorium.” Sure enough, at lunch, three pastors came by to ask that their name be added to the “van lottery”. Joe took their information and said, “We have a committee on this. I’ll pass it along.”

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Mayor Ray Nagin made all the national news programs Tuesday, touting his plan for the evacuation of New Orleans in case of the next hurricane. No shelters will be opened, everyone will be ordered out, buses will be provided. One newscast elaborated that the plan calls for city buses to pick up those without means of transportation and take them downtown where other buses will take them out of harm’s way. Amtrak will be used, they said, to carry away the hospitalized and otherwise infirmed. Planes to ferry the hordes of tourists who are presumably in the city at any given time. Anyone on the streets during the storm will be arrested.

The report says that Nagin assures everyone that we will not be relying on the federal government this time. Maybe not, but it sounds like he will be relying on the government’s railway system. And the FAA’s airlines. And another thing: once the buses and trains leave the city with our people, where will they go? Who will be hosting our citizens? Will everyone be Houston-bound? and has anyone asked the Texans how they feel about that?

A newsman introduced one local citizen. “The mayor has said every citizen needs his own individual plan for evacuation, to know exactly where he is going. Bob here has his plan already made. In the case of a hurricane, where are you going, Bob?” The New Orleanian said, “North. Up north.”

All of this reminds me of something Will Rogers said in the middle of the First World War when the German U-boats were creating havoc in the Atlantic. “I have a plan for getting rid of all those U-boats,” Rogers said. “You just bring the temperature of the Atlantic up to a boil. The submarines will get so hot they can’t take it and will have to come up. Our people will be waiting with guns and can pick them off.” When asked how he planned to bring the temperature of the Atlantic up to a boil, Rogers answered, “That’s a detail. I’m a policy man myself.”

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June 1 is the official kick-off for the six-months-long-hurricane-season. Not that the calendar notices. But everyone in this part of the world starts getting antsy along about then. Similar, I expect, to the way our Kansas neighbors do everytime a storm brews in the west and they start thinking ‘tornado.’ What makes our situation especially poignant is that in no way will this city be ready for another hurricane in one month. We’re far less prepared than one year ago, and you know what happened then.

“Brother Joe, we have no electricity.” That was the phone call from Lynn in our associational office this morning first thing. I was stuck in interstate traffic and told her and Ninfa to sit tight until I arrived. The power company workers behind our buildings informed me that they were working on some stuff, that they had shut off our lines, and that we might not even have electricity Tuesday. I asked the secretaries to go home and call all our pastors to remind them of our Wednesday meetings at Oak Park Baptist Church (10 to noon each Wednesday for the next 3 months). Later, I locked the doors and drove out to check on some of our churches.

Lakeview Baptist Church in the flooded subdivision of that name is now meeting in their fellowship hall, says veteran leader of that church and now interim pastor, Dick Randels. When I caught him on the cell phone, he said, “I’m in Lowe’s buying tile for our fellowship hall.” On Easter Sunday, they had their biggest crowd yet. I think he said 39.

We have three Southern Baptist churches on Alvar Street in the Upper Ninth Ward located within a mile (or less) of each other: New Salem, Christian Bible Fellowship, and Grace Baptist Church. Warren Jones, pastor of the New Salem church has been on the site every time I have driven by. “That little building across the street that we want to buy, the one you and I thought we could get for perhaps $15,000. She wants $65,000 for it. I’ve gone ahead and signed the papers,” Warren said, “because we need that location.”

“We’ve been having church here,” he said. The sanctuary is lovely, nice light fixtures hanging down from the ceiling, a far cry from the last time I saw the church. They might have had 25 folding chairs sitting in the center, each with a white towel across the seat. A thoughtful provision, I would say, in a dusty city. “On Easter, we had them standing around the room,” Warren said.

Christian Bible Fellowship is pastored by Eddie Scott, and still has lots of cleaning out and rebuilding to do before being usable again. At Grace Baptist Church, associate pastor Charlie Dale brought me up to date on their progress. They’re running in the 40s for church. Volunteer groups have slowed to a trickle now. The renovation work in their buildings is almost complete, although there is plenty of house gutting out to be done in the neighborhood.

It would be tempting to say that the first two churches (New Salem and Christian Bible) are African-American and that Grace is Anglo. That might have been true at one time. No more. In fact, the first time I met Charlie Dale, he was Eddie Scott’s assistant pastor at Christian Bible. And Grace made the front of the New Orleans paper a couple of months ago for its multi-racial, all inclusive membership. Why those three churches are located so close together is probably for the same reason a lot of churches sit where they do: we’re Baptists; we don’t plan these things; that’s where the church was when we bought it. Something to that effect.

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Everyone around here observes the 29th of each month as a Katrina anniversary. Not with parties, of course, but only marking one more month since life changed forever.

We’ve been under tornado watches since Saturday evening. Sunday morning, weathercasters were urging people in St. Bernard Parish to get into secure housing. I suppose that means leave your FEMA trailer and go into the gutted out, empty house next door for security from high winds or even tornadoes. We’re thankful for the needed rain.

Saturday, residents of Kenner ousted their mayor. Muniz won over Capitano, by something like 52% to 48%. Veteran police officer Steve Caraway was elected chief over P.J.Hahn, who was seen as an administrator. Everyone agrees the voters in this New Orleans suburb are tired of the constant bickering between council and mayor, chief and mayor, and other groups.

Next Sunday, May 7 and then Monday the 8th, I’ll be accomplishing a personal first: preaching in a Methodist Church. After the Saturday night high school reunion at Double Springs, Alabama, the next morning I’ll preach at the local Methodist church for their 11 am service, their 6 pm service that night, and the next evening at 6 pm. And later in the month, I’ll be preaching in a United Methodist church in another part of Alabama. So, this is my year, I guess.

My mom says, “How did this happen?” I tell her that our high school class team leader Sally Moody recommended me to the Pastor Albert Rivera of the Double Springs church. And my college roommate, George Gravitte, who lives across the county at Haleyville, now retired from pastoring UMC churches, added his recommendation. Presumably, what they said is that “Joe’s safe.” (We’ll see.)

Pastor Joseph Blanchard of the (New Orleans) First Haitian Baptist Church came by our associational offices one day this week. He’s bivocational and drives a taxi in the week. Anyway, that church is having a week of revival services the week of June 4 with a different preacher each night, and he invited me to preach that Sunday night. He said, “Our theme is Ezra 10:13.” I could not remember what that verse was and even after looking it up, had no clue how that suggested a revival theme. The first half of the verse reads: “But there are many people, and it is the rainy season. We don’t have the stamina to stay out in the open.” Joseph said, “Our theme is: ‘It’s Time to Come Inside.'” He smiled and added, “It’s bad outside. Time to come in to Christ.” I love it.

The annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention this June will be in Greensboro, North Carolina, a first for that medium-sized city. When attendance dropped back to manageable numbers a decade ago, our leaders decided it was time to gather in some places we haven’t been lately, if at all. Last year, Nashville. I was impressed to see that two of our local leaders will be on the program. Lonnie Wascom is the director of missions (my counterpart) on the Northshore, which includes everything from Slidell to Covington to Hammond. He will be speaking at the meeting of the SBC Associational Directors of Missions. Then, David Crosby of the FBC of New Orleans has been given a slot on the SBC program itself, to talk about the rebuilding of New Orleans with particular slant on the Cooperative Program, our denomination’s instrument for receiving and channeling offerings throughout the world. Both men are highly articulate and outstanding in every way and will represent us well. I’ve already begun praying for them.

In July, I’ll be speaking at the great Central Baptist Church-Bearden of Knoxville, down the street from the University of Tennessee, where my friend of nearly 4 decades Larry Fields has labored so faithfully for over 20 years. Larry and Sandy will be enjoying a sabbatical in Oxford (yes, England, not Mississippi. Or Alabama either, for that matter). I have to tell you what Larry did the other day.

April 8, Larry and Sandy’s son John married a lovely young lady named Allie in their church. They rave about their new daughter-in-law and are greatly impressed by their son’s choice of a life-mate. At the wedding, Larry told something that happened on their first date. As John and Allie drove down Deane Hill Parkway, he pointed out the imposing church structure on his right and said, “Have you ever been there?” Allie said, “I went once, but the pastor was boring.” John knew immediately he liked this girl. He smiled and said, “See the name on the sign?” Dr. Larry Fields, Senior Pastor. Something clicked in her and she got it. She said, “Oh, is he your grandfather?” And Larry told this in the middle of their wedding. The congregation is still laughing.

Today, April 30, I’m preaching in the 11 am service at the FBC of St. Rose, a residential community a few miles west of the New Orleans airport. My subject is prayer. I thought I would tell them about the four questions the Lord asked me once when I was doing my (then) nightly prayer walking. These came with such clarity, I wrote them down and have never doubted that they were directly from the Father. (One way you can be that certain is when they arrive with such relevancy to your particular situation.) The four questions were:

1. What would it take to stop you from praying? (Not much for many of us, apparently. But what if the government decreed–as they did in Daniel’s day–that no prayers toward the living God should be offered?)

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Today, Thursday, we’re having a long-awaited dedication for the widening of the infamous Huey P. Long Bridge. Built in the 1930s when cars must have been one-third the width they are today, this bridge has put the fear of the Lord into more people than hundreds of the best sermons.

Amazingly, this all began in 1892 with a proposal from the Southern Pacific Railroad that a bridge across the river be built. In 1916, the Public Belt Railroad Commission got the state constitution changed to allow New Orleans to erect such a bridge. In 1928, Governor Huey P. Long pushed through a constitutional amendment allowing bonds to be issued. Construction began in 1932. In 1935, the year Huey Long was murdered in our state capitol building, the bridge was finished and was named for him. It cost $13 million dollars, this in the middle of the Depression when a dollar was ten.

In 1988, they started studying widening the bridge. !989, voters approve $60 million to widen it. 1996, they found what it would really cost to fix this bridge and stopped. 1998, Governor Mike Foster signs a bill setting aside $220 million for the project. 2002, Mayor Marc Morial offers to sell the bridge to the state for at least $300 million. Hearing that the Brooklyn Bridge might be for sale, the state rejects the offer. Today, April 27, 2006, ground-breaking for the widening and reconfiguring.

Don’t hold your breath. It will take five years and will cost–you ready for this?–$600 million. Meanwhile, traffic problems will be the order of the day.

Phil Mickelson, in town to play in the Zurich Classic this weekend, announced last night that whatever winnings he receives from this golf tournament he will donate to some Katrina charity. The winner of the recent Masters tournament in Augusta says he will do this for the next 8 or 10 years, “however long it takes to rebuild this city.” I know who I’m pulling for.

For the first time since the hurricane, nearly 8 months ago, my Newsweek arrived. All third class mail has been shut out from the city’s 701 zip codes until now. So, last night, I flipped through to see what I’ve been missing. Bear in mind, I’ve been a Newsweek subscriber–never “Time”–since the 1960s when that publication offered great rates to seminary students. After I finished, the only thing that lingered from my reading was a correction Newsweek had made.

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Recently, in telling of my brother Charlie’s death, I told of the tragic death of our home pastor’s teenage son some years back. I had asked him if in the “comfort” of friends anyone said anything truly unusual. He told how a lady said to him, “I know exactly how you feel because when my son went off to college, I cried and cried.”

A friend who read that wrote me about the time her little daughter died. I’ve changed the names, but otherwise, this is the letter verbatim.

“When our three-year-old daughter died suddenly, I heard some strange comments. I know these friends meant well, but these comments were less than comforting.

“3. ‘You can have another baby.’ We didn’t WANT another baby–we wanted Kathy!

“2. ‘You still have Joan.’ (Referring to our six-year-old in first grade.) Wonderful! Of course we adored Joan and we were thankful–but Kathy died!

“1. ‘You are so brave. I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to my child.’ This number one, top of my list of horrors,is ‘You are so brave, Mary Lou.’ BRAVE???? Who, ME? With a wrinkled raisin where my heart used to be and a Humvee on my chest, I felt anything but brave! I just went through the motions of life, trying to help my husband and my mother who were devastated by Kathy’s death. So much for comforting comments. (signed) Mary Lou”

I am well aware that people often do not know what to say in a time of tragedy and great loss. That’s why many people avoid funerals and wakes. My pointing out mistakes that some people make could actually increase the tension and make some more determined to do even less. I hope not.

But I do have suggestions on what to do when your friend has a death in his/her family.

1. Your presence is the biggest gift; you don’t have to say anything. You’ll realize this when you experience the loss and you’re on the receiving end of the comfort. All someone has to do to touch your deep hurt is walk up and hug you. No words required. Just a hug. Human touch has such power to comfort. If you’re not a hugger or the recipient isn’t, a handshake, a hand on the shoulder, or some other touch will work equally fine.

2. If you want to say something comforting, whether in person or in a note, here are three simple suggestions.

“I’m so sorry.” (You don’t have to say ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ Just ‘I’m so sorry’ works just fine.)

“I love you.” (That’s the best, so long as it’s real and appropriate.)

“I’m praying for you.” (If you are, say this. If you haven’t been praying already, perhaps you shouldn’t say it.)

That’s all. You thought this was going to be complex? In a typical situation, after you have given a hug and simply said, “I’m so sorry,” the grieving friend will want to talk. There is no way to predict what he or she will say. However, it’s crucial for you to remember that your assignment is to listen. Do not tell your friend of the time you lost your father or mother or brother or whoever. Do not give advice. Do not tell a story. This is not the time. Just listen, and ask the Holy Spirit to help you to respond appropriately.

Last August 29, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and the levees broke in our city, devastating much of New Orleans. Over a thousand people died here, and in a sense, the city as we had known it ceased to be.

And just as when a death occurs, people gather to comfort and mourn with you, we’ve received friends and visitors from all over the nation. Some have come to grieve, to weep, to see how it looks and decide how to help. Some have worn work clothes, rolled up their sleeves, and jumped right in. But, as with other deaths, some came to give advice.

I recall one visitor who stood at our weekly pastors’ gathering and preached us all a young sermon on Romans 8:28, how God was going to use this in our lives and that we should be thankful. He did not say one word that was wrong, as I recall. The problem is, he was not qualified to offer such counsel. He had just arrived. He had not shed a tear with us or ministered to a single person. He just came and preached and left.

You will remember that after Job’s incredible losses, his friends arrived and sat with him for 7 days and nights, speaking not a single word. “They saw that his pain was very great” (Job 2:13), and he felt comforted by their presence. Then they started talking and undid all the good they had accomplished. When they finished, Job said, “Miserable comforters are you all.” (Job 16:2)

I love you. I’m sorry. I’m praying for you. Great sounds of healing comfort.

Boogie Melerine said, “We had 61 Sunday, with three professions of faith and one rededication.” Lots of ‘amens’ went up. He said, “Pray for us. We’re still talking with the Presbyterian Church down there about purchasing their property.” They only have 5 or 6 members, and I think they’ve started coming over to Boogie’s church-in-the-carport. As I understand it, the members and the governing body of their denomination are disputing as to who owns the building and property.

Hong Fu Liu of the Chinese Church said, “We baptized fourteen Sunday. And have one who will be baptized soon.” Amens again. All of them saved during the recent Billy/Franklin Graham meeting.

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(This was written on national secretaries’ day in 2005, and we decided to hold it back for this year. The events mentioned are dated, but the points are timeless.)

Today is the one day every pastor in our city wants to be a church secretary. On this day each year, our association provides a luncheon for all secretaries of Baptist churches in metro New Orleans, and today’s will be held in Commander’s Palace, only one of the greatest restaurants in the world. To be exact, we pay half and the churches pay the other half of the cost of thirty dollars each, not bad for where we’re going. The room holds 85 people; we had no trouble with slackers not getting their reservations in.

Dr. Rhonda Kelley, professor, author of a number of books, and wife of the president of our beloved New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, will be the featured speaker. She is an ideal speaker but she will carry another positive when she stands up to speak today. Rhonda knows what it is to live in the shadow of big persons and to labor to make someone else successful–which of course, sounds like a church secretary’s job description. Her growing up years, she was known as the daughter of Bob Harrington, the chaplain of Bourbon Street. For almost all her adult life, she’s been known as the wife of Chuck Kelley, the president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Yet, she is really somebody, well worth knowing, an accomplished individual, a godly woman.

Great restaurant, excellent speaker, good food, impressive atmosphere. However, you might be surprised to know the star of these luncheons is the fellowship.

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Sunday morning on my drive downriver to Port Sulphur, as I often do, I phoned my mom for a brief chat before she heads to church. To my surprise, Dad answered the phone. I said, “What are you doing up? You sleep til noon!” He said, “I’m getting ready for church. I feel fine. I even have my hearing aids in!” Then he said, “Here’s your mom.”

I know how privileged I am being able to have this conversation with my parents at my age (66) and at theirs (almost 90 and 94). Some of us Alabamians treasure a television commercial the legendary football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant made at the U of A campus over 20 years ago for a phone company. He was telling how he makes all the Bama players call their mamas on Sunday afternoon. At the end of the commercial, thinking the camera was off, he added something that just popped into his mind. “I sure wish I could call mine.” That comment was so poignant, they left it in.

Believe me, I know I’m blessed. And I’m grateful.

Mom said, “Last night, Pop was trying on some new clothes, and I told him, ‘You look so good, you ought to wear that to church tomorrow morning.’ So he is.” She described what he was wearing. Keep in mind, he’s 94 years old and has a shock of white hair and a white mustache. “A black shirt with a black leather vest, and a red bow tie.” I laughed and she said, “And a gold watch chain hanging from the vest.” I said, “All he needs now is a straw hat.” She said, “He has one.”

Monday she said he didn’t wear the straw hat. One of his great-grandsons told Pop and Mom they were the best-looking couple at church.

I related this to a couple of friends, and one of them, our distinguished president emeritus of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Landrum Leavell, who also knows about shocks of white hair, said, “Your dad sounds like a dude!” Oh, he is that. Grandson Neil said, “All Pop needs with that outfit is a six-shooter and holster.”

They threw away the mold when they made him.

Talking to another dude the other day–Joe Williams, our FBI chaplain and NAMB counselor assigned to Katrinaland for an indefinite period–we were discussing the ministry fatigue that everyone down here is experiencing. Joe is leading daylong seminars for pastors and wives to help them combat that fatigue and showing them how to help their members through it. It’s not just the ministers; it’s everyone in this part of the world.

I said to Joe, “Over the years, I’ve given some thought to fatigue. You might be interested in this.” I drew it off on a post-it note and handed it to him for future reference.

We know what MINISTRY FATIGUE is: You’re tired from serving. And we know what COMPASSION FATIGUE is: You’re tired from caring. Everyone in this hurricane-ravaged part of the world is dealing with those on an everyday basis, and these are the targets for Joe and wife Linda Williams’ seminars.

But I’ve identified a couple of other kinds of fatigue. There is what I call CUMULATIVE FATIGUE. This kind just keeps on building up. You can walk away from it and take a vacation, but when you come back, it’s like it has been sitting there waiting on you. It’s still huge and heavy. You start to work again and immediately you’re tired and grow moreso by the moment.

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Gentilly Baptist Church met Sunday morning. Pastor David Arceneaux has turned in his resignation and will be moving to Houston. He wanted to assemble as many of his people as possible to meet, worship, fellowship, and make some decisions about the property. They met in our associational office building and Freddie Arnold from our staff attended. Some 10 or 12 Gentilly members were present. Pastor Dave preached and the members formed a board of directors to make future decisions about their buildings, with Freddie and me as members.

Originally, I had planned to make that meeting, but when we discovered that Port Sulphur Baptist Church in Plaquemines Parish was meeting in a tent on their property, I wanted to be there. Pastor Lynn Rodrigue says this is their third Sunday for worship. “We packed out our tent the other Sundays,” he said, “but we lost some when the Catholic church down the street re-opened.” They had 35 or 40 for church this morning at ten o’clock.

It’s exactly 60 miles from my driveway to Port Sulphur Baptist Church. You cross the Mississippi River over the Huey P. Long Bridge, then on the West Bank Expressway take the LaFayette exit and drive south to the town of Belle Chasse. Keep going; drive another 40 miles or so downriver. On your atlas, you will see that state highway 23 mimics every turn of the Mississippi River downstream, all the way to the gulf. My map shows it as a scenic drive, which these days is a cruel joke.

The devastation from Katrina is still so evident beginning a few miles below Belle Chasse. Skeletons of houses and businesses still stand, gaunt, lifeless. Piles of trash, wrecked buildings, abandoned cars. Debris. Sadness. No stores open. Nothing but FEMA trailers.

Power company trucks and crews were out. The storm had wrecked the poles and lines, all of them leaning and twisted and useless, so crews have installed an entire new set of poles and lines on the other side of the road. Electrical power is gradually moving south.

“We are giving away food and water and materials here at the church,” Pastor Lynn Rodrigue said. “We’ve got the names of 3,000 people who’ve been by for help.” Where are they living? “In FEMA trailers.” On the drive south, I had noticed those little boxes in half the driveways, alongside mansions and shacks, and most incongruous of all, beside larger house trailers. “And we have a refrigerated trailer for the food we’re giving away.”

“We have a trailer now,” Lynn said, pointing to the little FEMA offspring in back of the ruined church buildings. “We stayed there last night for the first time.” Lynn and wife Nicole and their four small children, living in something like 240 square feet. “I’ve been commuting from where we’re living in Baton Rouge,” he said, “but now we’ll be down here so we can really minister to the people.”

The church at Port Sulphur was one of our two strongest Baptist churches in lower Plaquemines. They had nice buildings and a school which enrolled 95 students. Everything is ruined now. “A church in Virginia adopted us. They sent a team down to see our situation, including a structural engineer.” I’ll be surprised if anyone thinks these buildings are salvageable. The steel building’s girders are bent and twisted.

Looking over the congregation, I said, “Are all these your regular members?” “Yes,” he said, “except for two or three who were teachers in our school, they’re all ours.”

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Voters piled into New Orleans from every direction. Buses brought displaced New Orleanians from as far away as Atlanta. Why did you ride the bus down here when you could have voted absentee? Anthony and Frances Tasker answered that the questions being asked in the ballot application were “too personal to risk anyone getting their hands on.” Neighbors who had not seen each other since August 29 were greeting and hugging. Tears were flowing, according to those who were there.

The headline of Sunday’s paper blares out: NAGIN and underneath LANDRIEU. Subtitle: “Forman runs distant third; runoff set for May 20.”

The returns began coming in soon after polls closed at 8 pm, and the lead seesawed for a while between the top three. Then Nagin and Landrieu pulled away and Forman was never close again.

Analysts use computers these days and can tell you almost instantly who is voting for each candidate. For instance, Mayor Nagin received almost all the votes of displaced voters who had lost their homes, and he and Landrieu split the votes of African-Americans in the city. Forman’s support came almost exclusively from the “white” precincts. Even with the population of the city being less than half its normal 450,000, the turnout of registered voters was 36%, compared with 45% in the last election when life was normal and everyone was at home.

As the paper reported, Nagin received 41,489 votes for 38%, Mitch Landrieu 31,499 (29%), Ron Forman 18,734 (17%), and Rob Couhig 10,287 (10%).

You have to be a little stunned at the small number of votes some of the candidates thought to be among the top tier received. When the media would select the top one-third of the twenty-something candidates, they brought together Rev. Tom Watson, Virginia Boulet, and Peggy Wilson. For all their trouble, the votes they garnered were: Watson 1,264 (1%), Boulet 2,367 (2%), and Wilson 772 (1%).

And Clerk of Criminal Court Kimberly Williamson Butler, she of “martyrdom” fame, how did she do? She received 793 votes, or 1%. James Arey is a familiar and pleasant voice on our NPR station in New Orleans, based at the University of New Orleans. He resigned his job to run for mayor. Poor guy. He shoulda kept his day job. Only 99 votes.

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