Sunday morning at Metairie Baptist Church, some members of Lakeview Church–inundated by high levels of polluted floodwater following Katrina–told me they are at work cleaning out the bottom floor of their sanctuary and expect to bring the church building back to normal. “That is a well-built church structure,” one said.

Paul Gregoire, longtime pastor of St. Bernard Baptist Church in Chalmette says the same thing about his church. “We’ll be back,” he told me, even though as Director of Admissions, Paul has had to relocate temporarily to Atlanta with the seminary administration. Meanwhile, Pastor John Galey of Poydras Church and Pastor John Jeffries of First Baptist Chalmette have teams working on rescuing their buildings. The Missouri Baptist Convention has adopted St. Bernard Parish’s Baptist churches, for which we are more grateful than I can ever find words to express.

Pastor John Faull gave me time in the morning worship service of Williams Boulevard Baptist Church in Kenner to thank the congregation for their great service. To my knowledge, this was the first church of any denomination in the immediate area to be up and running, ministering and serving. Hundreds of state troopers from all over America converged on New Orleans to restore law and order. They worked out of the Troop B headquarters, next door to Williams Boulevard, and hundreds slept and ate in the church’s gymnasium. Even now, WBBC continues to serve hundreds of meals a day to law enforcement officers still on the job.

Brother John read several letters he has received recently, some from family members of troopers thanking the church for “taking care of my daddy.” One letter came from some children in Taiwan who held a bake sale in their yard and raised twenty dollars for hurricane relief, then sent the money along with drawings they had done.

I attended WBBC and Metairie Church Sunday morning, thanking them both for their faithful service, then drove to St. Charles Avenue Presbyterian Church where Faith Baptist Church was holding its worship service at 12:30 pm; they’d asked me to preach. They’re going to work out an arrangement with the Presbyterian leadership to rent their chapel and a few classrooms on Sunday afternoons as their worship center for the foreseeable future. I could not help but notice the last few weeks when Faith has met in River Ridge near my home, we all wore sport shirts. But with today’s meeting on St. Charles Avenue, almost every man present wore a suit with white shirt and tie. Something about one’s environment, I suppose.

When I got home, Margaret told me she had been unable to find a parking space within several blocks of our church in Kenner, due to the Red Cross and Salvation Army trailers occupying every inch of our spacious parking lots. One of the ministers told me recently, “The Red Cross doesn’t ask; they tell you.” I assured my wife that it shouldn’t be too much longer before these trucks are gone. For the congregation’s sake, I hope so. If my wife of all people left without finding a place to park, I wonder how many others did also.

The Louisiana legislature begins it special session today, dealing with hurricane related matters and other things. Our leaders are being applauded for their round-the-clock labors to help New Orleans, and at the same time being ridiculed for wasteful spending when the budget is in trouble and the southern part of the state is on life support. Depending on who is speaking, Governor Kathleen Blanco is doing everything anyone could expect or she is living on valium and in over her head. From here, it’s impossible to know. But she’s our governor, so we pray for her and support her.

I was delighted today’s Sunday PARADE magazine put the “bridge to nowhere” fiasco on its front cover. I heard of this boondoggle on NPR radio a couple of weeks ago and have been upset about it ever since. The article by David Wallenchinsky tells how the Senate voted recently to spend $223 million for a bridge connecting Ketchikan, Alaska, with the tiny island of Gravina. The population of Gravina is 50. Fifty. A quarter of a billion dollar bridge for fifty people. A senator who was trying to shoot the project down fumed, “We could buy every one of those people Lear jets, and have money left.” But enter Alaska’s Senator Ted Stevens. “Why should my state have to pay for the hurricane relief effort?” he wanted to know. How’s that? Stevens claimed that to take away the bridge in order to rebuild the Gulf Coast would be forcing the citizens of Ketchikan to sacrifice for the sake of New Orleans. It would be punishing Alaskans for the hurricane. But the crowning blow came when Senator Stevens launched into a tirade, telling the other senators what he would do if they dared to take away that money. He had a right to it. After all, he’s old, he’s been there a long time, he has seniority, he’s somebody, he’s powerful, he earned it. “I’ll shut this place down,” he threatened. Finally, he said, “Cancel this bridge and I’ll resign.” Driving down the street, I called out, “Yes, please resign. You sir are part of the problem with this country.” The reporter announced at the end of the program that our senators voted to give the selfish senator his bridge, lest they too should be held to similar high standards. Dear Lord, I thought, give us courageous congressional leadership. We can’t stand much more of this kind of senility and cowardice.

Tellingly, David Wallechinsky writes, “On the streets of Ketchikan, I found few locals who were passionately in favor of the bridge.”

You watch now. In time, another Alaskan senator will come asking the U.S. Senate to spend a sackful of money to erect some kind of statue to Senator Ted Stevens. Because that’s how things are done in our country. God help us.

Contrast that with the phone call I took Saturday night. “Our church wants to help one of the New Orleans churches rebuild,” said a deacon in another part of Louisiana. He explained, “We took up an offering of some $35,000 and spent several thousand of it helping the people we sheltered here. Then, a lady in our church died and left her entire house to this fund. It sold for $120,000.” He and some of the church leaders will be coming down soon to see the city and to prayerfully decide where they can make the most difference.

Freddie Arnold from our office and Lonnie Wascom from the Northshore Associations will be in Little Rock Monday and Tuesday, attending the annual meeting of the Arkansas Baptists. They will be thanking that great group for their terrific support and encouraging pastors to bring teams down to help.

Thank God for those who have their priorities straight.