I spent all day Thursday with three good friends and it was one of the worst days of my life.<\/p>\n
We were finally able to get into New Orleans and begin the process of checking on our churches. Freddie Arnold from our associational office had secured a pass that got us past police checkpoints, and with Ed Jelks and his wife Glenda (I told you previously he is a church builder for the state convention), we spent the day visiting over twenty churches.<\/p>\n
I’ve been worrying about how to tell this. We confined our visits to Orleans Parish, the portion of our city which is officially New Orleans. We drove down deserted streets with no traffic lights, with destruction on both sides, downed trees everywhere, homes boarded up, every store and every business closed. Not some and not most. Every last one. From the time we entered New Orleans at 9:30 am until we moved into Metairie over 7 hours later, we did not see one place to buy a coke or go to the rest room.<\/p>\n
No birds were singing. One or two stray cats showed up and ran away. We saw an occasional worker cutting trees or stringing electrical lines. I think we saw a homeowner or two working in their yards, but nothing more. The silence was eerie. This is a major city populated by hundreds of thousands of people, but none were around.<\/p>\n
Every house and business wore racing stripes, lines to indicate where the water had risen and stopped, then lingered. Lines placed there by the filth and ugliness carried in the water. The fortunate homes wore their lines low; most sported them like belts, at mid-level or even higher.<\/p>\n
Boats were scattered everywhere. The water was gone, but the boats remained. Good boats, many with motors in place and supplies lying on the floor, just sitting there, by the side of the street or under the interstate. I suppose anyone who wanted one could hitch up to it and drive away. We saw life vests discarded, and debris and refuse washed into corners by the fences. And the libraries. Have you ever seen a library after a flood? Not a pretty sight. Books that have been mutilated and desecrated and muddied and ruined forever, scattered across the floor. Mildew and mold on the loyal volumes still holding their position on the shelves. Dark, dank, depressing.<\/p>\n
And now the churches. You wanted to know about the churches, and I have stalled too long.<\/p>\n
\nSome of the churches we saw appeared to be in good shape. As Ed Jelks wrote in his notes, NAD. No appreciable damage. Those were the rare ones. Like Beacon Baptist Church behind the French Quarter.<\/p>\n
Most had some damage–missing shingles or a couple of windows out, and many had taken a few inches of water inside.<\/p>\n
Then there were the catastrophes. The churches with two or three feet or more of water, ugly toxic water that washed in and stayed for days or weeks. Franklin Avenue, Elysian Fields Avenue, Carrollton Avenue, First United, Lakeview, and Gentilly. They were so sad, I want to cry even now just thinking of it. Freddie and Ed wore their boots and explored the buildings and took pictures and made notes. I hovered around the edges and ventured a few feet inside before retreating into the sunlight.<\/p>\n
The last two we saw were the ones that tore my heart worst. Edgewater and Pontchartrain churches were the most depressing examples of what standing floodwater can do. Edgewater Baptist Church on Paris Avenue has a congregation made up primarily, I’m told, of seminary students and faculty, all of whom have now departed and will not be back until next fall. But the church. Dear God, the church. Mud several inches thick in the sanctuary, windows blown out. Standing at the front door, the stench was unbearable. Lift your head now, and above the door, several inches above, you notice the water level. It got that high, and remained there for days. All the grass and shrubbery is brown from the deadly effects of the salt water. In the median of the boulevard in front of the church, people had parked their cars on what was surely the highest spot and safest place. The water covered their cars. A fine silt blankets each car; they are ruined forever.<\/p>\n
I stood on the sidewalk in front of Edgewater and phoned Gary Richardson, who pastored that church in the 1990s while in seminary. I caught him on vacation in Orange Beach, Alabama. Describing what had happened to the church, I said, “I am well aware I’m ruining your day. But I just felt that at the death of this fine lady, someone who loved her ought to know.” He said, “You called the right person.”<\/p>\n
And Pontchartrain Baptist Church. Margaret and I were members of this little church in 1964 when we first came to seminary. Classmate Vaughan Pruitt was pastor and I led the singing and taught a class. Little has changed about it since then, including the size of the membership. The canal that “blew,” sending mountains of water into New Orleans and ruining entire neighborhoods, runs right beside the church property. In fact, one side of the sanctuary is bent inward where the wall of water impacted. Inside, it was the same story–awful stench, blackened carpet, jumbled chairs, deadness. You wanted to cry.<\/p>\n
We saw the beloved and bedraggled New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, locked down and guarded by a company of police. Professor Endel Lee, just returned from six months of marine chaplain duty in Iraq, was there with the black-shirted law enforcement corps. What has he been doing? “I’m working with the Coast Guard, and will be for the next several weeks.” Where was he living? “In that green car over there.” Kathy and the boys are evacuated, living in another state.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Jelks wanted us to drive by the Gentilly Apartments, a complex which the seminary bought twenty years ago as living space for married students. She has friends back at home, seminarians who left their apartment just ahead of the storm and wanted us to check. Standing on the front sidewalk, she called them. “Honey, you don’t want to come back here. There’s nothing left. The insulation is hanging out of ceilings, mud is everywhere, furniture is destroyed, everything is jumbled. It’s gone, dear.” At their request, Ed Jelks took the license plate off their ruined pickup truck in the parking lot to convince State Farm the vehicle no longer needed to be insured.<\/p>\n
In our visits on the West Bank Tuesday, Ed and I saw churches that were up and running and ministering to their communities. Today, we saw church buildings that are almost out of business. No one lives in their neighborhoods, nor will they for some time. Some houses can be gutted and rebuilt, others will be bull-dozed. Same for the churches. I’m a preacher and not a builder, and cannot tell you which of these sad cases can be salvaged. I hope they all can, but I’ll be greatly surprised if Lakeview and Gentilly and Franklin Avenue are able to save their present buildings.<\/p>\n
Wednesday when the ministers were meeting in LaPlace, the rest rooms were also used by children and workers at the day care. In the men’s room, a poster featured Noah and the ark with a lovely rainbow in the background. It read: “A rainbow is God’s promise He will never flood the world.” I know the Scripture and know what it means and I’m grateful for the promise. But right now, try telling that to a lot of people in New Orleans, people whose world was their neighborhood and whose world is now flooded.<\/p>\n
We have so many reasons to pray.<\/p>\n
I’m going back to school these days. It’s a student body of one with Freddie Arnold as my teacher. Before, when he would announce a two day training session for volunteers for future disaster relief missions, I would beg off because I had no intention of going on these excursions. “Let the younger ones do it; I’ll stay here and hold the ropes.” Uh huh. But the Lord and a lady named Katrina had other ideas. The disaster came to us.<\/p>\n
Now when people call or email me asking when they can send crews into our area and what are our greatest needs, or when they call saying, “We need a gutting crew at our church today,” I turn to my teacher and say, “Tell me the right way to go about this.” Thankfully, he’s understanding and patient.<\/p>\n
I said to a deacon this morning, “If you want a Bible study on Luke, I can do that before breakfast. But for a crew to help dry out your church and put on a new roof, I’ll need Freddie to give us direction.”<\/p>\n
Next Sunday afternoon after church, Freddie is meeting with the deacons of one of our churches to fill them in on the process of hosting church teams and doing the work on their buildings. I’ll be there among the deacons, listening and taking notes.<\/p>\n
I ran by Memorial Baptist Church in Metairie today, Friday. They lost their roof and the water damage messed up the sanctuary and church offices. Thankfully, the insurance company had a team beginning the process of replacing the roof. Meanwhile, the church will have Sunday services in the fellowship hall.<\/p>\n
Driving down Interstate 10 in Metairie, you can’t help but notice the sparkling new roofs on the Crescent City Baptist Church buildings. Mother church Celebration Church has brought in a great team of volunteers who moved into CCBC and immediately put an entire new roof on all the buildings. Impressive.<\/p>\n
No church that I’m aware of has done more post-Katrina ministry than Williams Boulevard Church in Kenner. From the start, they’ve opened their facilities to the state troopers whose district headquarters is next door, feeding and housing hundreds of them. The Red Cross has camped out there, and they’ve fed many thousands of meals to the neighborhood. They’ve hosted a large crew of volunteers from–I think–Arkansas, and their own members have done incredible service, under the direction of incredible Pastor John Faull.<\/p>\n
I’m trying to learn. I’m learning that before a work crew can begin to attack the problems at your house, you need to fill out a “work request form,” authorizing the work and releasing the crew from liability. I’ve learned that those going into dangerous work or scary areas should get shots for tetanus and hepatitis A and B in advance. I’m learning that it’s a good idea to wear masks, the kind that protect the wearer from harmful substances and mean odors. And protective suits and rubber boots are a great idea too, particularly for crews that will be entering churches where floodwater sat for days or weeks.<\/p>\n
I’m learning that teams coming to help us should have your own insurance. And that they should be self-supporting, at least for the time being. The sign on David Drive where the National Guard has been giving out free water and ice and MREs announces that supplies are running low, that today is the last day. It took me 30 minutes to get through the long line this morning. The fast food places are still on limited hours and most are open only at the drive-through. The diner where Freddie and I had breakfast today, locked the doors when they hit capacity, and let in new diners only as some left. And to make matters worse…or better, depending on how you look at it…<\/p>\n
Today was the first day for parts of New Orleans to open to residents. So the streets, which were already jammed, are now beyond crowded.<\/p>\n
If you know of someone who drove into the city today to look at their property, when they return give them a big hug and do not ask what they saw. What they saw was a corpse, death itself lying all over their property. What they felt is beyond words. Just hug them and say “Welcome back.” When they feel up to it, they’ll talk. And cry. And soon, they’ll decide what to do. But today, they just don’t feel up to it.<\/p>\n
Try to understand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I spent all day Thursday with three good friends and it was one of the worst days of my life. We were finally able to get into New Orleans and begin the process of checking on our churches. Freddie Arnold … Continue reading