Lionel Roberts pastors the mission across the street from the locked-down and ruined St. Bernard Housing Development. With the assistance of several adoptive churches, his church has been restored and Lionel began holding worship services there on Easter Sunday. Problem is, he never knows who’s going to be in church. Attendance ranges from 20 to 50. Last Sunday, when church time came, eight people sat in the sanctuary and most of them were the pastor’s family. They waited a few minutes, then got underway anyway. That’s when something happened outside.

I’ve told here about the unhappy, ousted residents of St. Bernard who threatened to break through the fence last Saturday in order to return to their homes, and decided instead to set up tents across the street and remain there until the city relents and opens the gates. Sunday morning, as Lionel’s worship service began, the loudspeakers which he erected some time ago on the corner of his building in order to reach the project began to sound out the praises of the Lord. The next time Lionel looked around, his little sanctuary was filling up. The tent-dwellers were coming down the street and filing into his church. All told, he ended up with 60 or 70 present. “Our little building is crowded with a hundred,” the pastor says, “so we know how to estimate pretty closely.”

Bob Adams of Youth on Mission attended our Wednesday pastors meeting at Oak Park Baptist Church with Chris and Katie, a young married couple who are students at our seminary, who will be working with YOM this summer, overseeing the hundreds of youth coming to work and witness in New Orleans. “Where are they staying?” I asked. Bob said, “We’ve taken over the Landmark Hotel in Metairie.”

Craig Ratliff, former student minister at FBC Arabi, soon to be the pastor of a start-up church on the site of the Arabi church which has been demolished, told of an unusual blessing this week. A terrific group of adults and youth from Philippi Baptist Church in Union, SC, arrived on the northshore Monday, ready to go to work. Their host, a minister in that area, had had to be hospitalized for some reason, so he called Craig to see if he could direct the group. Craig brought them to the site of his former church and they set up their cooking equipment to prepare a meal for the neighborhood. While the adults were setting up, the youth blanketed the neighborhood to invite residents to come for supper and enjoy the choir program. Within two hours, they had led three residents to Christ. Craig said, “This is the strongest group of evangelistic teens I’ve ever seen.” He said, “These young people are really something. They are smart, they are confident, they are fun. They engage older people in conversation, and get them laughing, and having a great time, and so naturally they begin witnessing to them.

That evening, they had 25 neighbors to come to the church site for the cookout and stay for the singers’ program. Craig interjected, “And most were Catholic. Before Katrina, we’d have to pay a Catholic to get them to come to our church and even then, they wouldn’t get past the parking lot!”

Next day, Tuesday, they were looking for FEMA trailers to hold a similar program. They found a site near the Chalmette Middle School, so Craig went in to ask for permission. The board deliberated for 10 minutes, then voted unanimously to grant them the use of the space. They even said if you want to use it longer, return and sign an insurance release. That night, they had 40 or 50 present, and one saved. Several attending wanted more information. One of them asked, “Is this (the gospel message) in writing somewhere?” They gave him a Bible.

Then, they went to a FEMA park where hundreds of the little cracker box trailers cover a large tract of land. The authorities told Craig, “If you’ll do this program as a community service, we’ll let you in every park we’ve got.” They emphasized there could be no bartering (“eat our supper but you’ll have to stay for our program”), no selling, and no attempts to make the residents members of any particular church. That suited the group fine. They knew what most Christian witnesses do: serve people first, then share Christ one-on-one, and the rest will take care of itself.

I asked Craig to tell the group about the construction worker who was saved the other night. “He was an older, burly fellow. The young people were doing their musical and halfway through, he bursts out sobbing. Afterwards the kids talked with him. I think his wife had left him. He told the kids, ‘I’ve got a void in my life and I don’t know how to fill it.’ They said, ‘We can help with that.’ He was saved that night.”

Craig commented on the spirit of cooperation in St. Bernard Parish. “I’ll be standing on our church property,” he said, “surrounded by trash and debris, and a guy with a truck will stop and offer to haul it off for us. He probably makes a little off the scrap metal, but it’s worth it to us.”

Chris Lange is with an organization called “Love Never Fails” based in Fort Worth, TX. He’s spending several weeks in New Orleans, planning for a summer-long event in 2007 in which he will bring in hundreds of youth groups from Texas to work all over New Orleans. He’s visiting our churches and talking with pastors and youth leaders to get them on board with the plan. For three weeks following July 4 of next year, the groups will descend on our area, staying in hotels and churches, working in the daytime and worshiping in the evenings. Chris has secured the UNO Keifer Arena for the nightly meetings. It holds many thousands and will be throbbing with believers’ praise each evening from July 9 through 28, five nights a week (which excepts Sundays and Wednesdays). Lange has already lined up an all-star group of preachers and youth speakers to teach the young people each evening.

Ever heard of Jay Chevalier? I hadn’t either. But a lot of people have. The Louisiana state legislature named him the office state troubador and his song “Come Back to Louisiana” the official recovery song. Jay was with us today, the guest of Pastor David Lema. A member of the Louisiana Country Music Hall of Fame, he challenged and entertained the group (“New Orleans is going to be bigger and better; it’s already been baptized!”) and sang his signature song.

Steve Gahagan, construction manager for Operation NOAH Rebuild, told the group he’s seeing God moving on many sides. “We call all homeowners to tell them when we’re starting to work on their house. Sometimes they will come by. This man came by the other day and our work crew led him to Christ.” Steve said, “I tell the volunteers, ‘That’s why you came.’ Some people criticize that we’re just building houses and nothing else. I tell them, ‘Yes, but we’re building the Kingdom.’ People are so open right now. Every day I hear more and more evidence of it. God keeps convincing me that ‘you’re in the right place.'”

Having given all that good news, Steve then told us he’s running into barriers in St. Bernard Parish and needs a lot of prayers that God will intervene. “We get a house gutted out and ready to be rewired,” he said, “but St. Bernard is requiring local contractors to do the installation. And these contractors are charging high fees. It angers me. Many homeowners can’t afford it. To make matters worse, I get phone calls from qualified engineers around the country who want to come and help. But I can’t let them do it in St. Bernard. They’ve tied our hands with their regulations.”

The question was asked whether an outsider could install the wiring and a local contractor check off on it and sign the papers. “Problem is,” said Steve, “whoever signs it is responsible for it. If there’s a house fire in the next few years and it’s determined that it was faulty wiring, that guy is responsible and that’s a big thing.”

Steve said, “Some organizations have quit taking applications to have homes gutted out, and are referring them to us. Everyone is concerned about the August 29 deadline. (To have homes gutted out and at least partially restored by then or face demolition.) I’m not too worried. The parish doesn’t have enough manpower to go around and demolish all the houses. They don’t even have enough right now to go out and put stickers on the houses.”

“My office is being so blessed by the homeowners,” Steve said. “We are amazed that with all they’ve been through and all they’re facing, that they’re coping so well. They are humble and so grateful and patient. We are so inspired.”

Travis Scruggs, the disaster pastor of FBC-NO, added, “We have many who call us and want to come wire houses and charge half price. But the government regulations are so discouraging.” Then Travis told the kind of story that encourages him. “We were in New Orleans east gutting out this fellow’s home. He pointed at a man across the street and said, ‘See that man? He has had nothing to do with white people all his life. And yet, nobody has helped him with his house. He’s just sitting there.” Travis took a team over and went to work on his house. The man was so thrilled, he cried for two days. He’d been driving in from Texas to work on his house with no one to help, and it was a group of white folks who stepped up. Travis said, “A salvation story is the best. But this is the next best, the wonderful partnerships that are bonding.”

Travis asked for prayer. “In the last two weeks, we’ve had six church groups back out from coming. They said it was just too hot for them in New Orleans.” I told the group of the church team from Salado, Texas, that is staying in this church (Oak Park). I had commented off-handedly that Texans know about hot weather, so they don’t mind working in our heat. One of the men answered, “Yes, but this is humid heat and it’s something else.”

Travis said, “We’re building new homes in the Ninth Ward in our Baptist Crossroads Project. This week we sent 28 youth into the neighborhood to do lawn care. These kids just walk down the street with their mowers and weedeaters and boy, do people flow out to meet them. You think no one is in this neighborhood until someone shows up wanting to cut their grass for free. Even our young people are making a difference for Christ.”

Travis concluded, “Go by North Alvar and Roman in the Upper Ninth Ward and see. We’ve got ten new homes almost finished. For the rest of the summer, we’ll be completing 10 new homes every two weeks.”

We invited Randy Capote, former pastor of our Woodmere Baptist Church and now serving in Grand Prairie, Texas, to pray for Steve Gahagan and Travis Scruggs, that the Lord will send the workers and cut the red tape. He prayed that we will stay the course, and that our churches will emerge stronger, refined, and purified.

Jeff Box of Suburban Church in East New Orleans told how he is working with Jeffrey Friend, dislocated pastor of Hopeview Church in St. Bernard Parish, and some men have driven a truck to Michigan to load up his belongings and bring him home. “People in the east are so open to us,” he said, “including people who would never open their door to us. There’s lot going on. The harvest is ripe.” Before Katrina, the population within a 3 mile radius of Suburban was 72,000. Now, it’s probably one-fifth of that. “As the water flooded our land before,” Jeff said, “God is flooding our neighborhood with opportunity.”

Scott Smith had the last word before the benediction and lunch. With all the youth groups, World Changers, etc., in town to work on the new homes with Baptist Crossroads, we need some help in hosting them, particularly on Sundays. “I need you to take a youth group in your church for the next five Sundays. Have them in your service–they’ll bless you, I promise–and then feed them lunch.” Scott does not like to take no for an answer and said, “I’ll be at the back door to sign you up.” I volunteered my buddy Jim Caldwell and the Riverside Baptist Church in River Ridge. I’d chatted with Jim on my drive in this morning, and know what a heart he has for this kind of ministry. Plus, the Worldchanger kids are staying in the John Curtis Christian School across the street from his church. Seems like a natural fit to me.

Tuesday night, I spent a couple or three hours at Oak Park with the terrific youth and adults from the FBC of Salado, Texas, drawing their sketches, giving them a little memento of their visit to our city. In between all the other things this week, I’ve run by to call on the Easley family as they prepare to lay little four year old Haylee Mazzella to rest Thursday, funeral service at 11 am in the Williams Boulevard Baptist Church, with Lee Rutledge of Crossroads Community the preacher. All our ministers are lifting Lee to the Father in prayer; this is an assignment we all dread, yet for which each of us was called.

Some opportunities are wonderful, some are terrible. Each must be seized.