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!)

The long-awaited church library conference will be held November 3 and 4 at the FBC of Marrero on the West Bank. Hope Ferguson of FBC Natchitoches is putting this together, and we’re encouraging all our pastors to get their library/media people there. For those without church libraries, this is a great time to start one. When Hope was with us some months ago at LaPlace, she told how small churches could have a library with nothing more than the front pew in church or a rolling cart. An unused classroom is best, however. We encouraged the pastors to choose a couple of sharp people and get them committed to the conference–a Friday night and Saturday morning, we assume–and then see what the Lord does.

Hope Ferguson is in touch with churches and publishers planning to donate books to our libraries. The churches represented at Marrero in November will get the books.

With the influx of thousands of construction workers since Katrina, teaching English as a second language is a ministry we want to enter in a big way. On Saturdays, September 16 and 23, literacy workshops will be taught at FBC Kenner from 8:30 to 4 pm. Classes will be presented on adult reading and writing, tutoring children and youth, and ESL (Teaching English as a Second Language). (Call 504/466-5381)

David Rhymes manages the Volunteer Village for Operation NOAH Rebuild at the World Trade Center. He reported on their facilities, then introduced teenager Joe Waller who will be working with him this afternoon. Dave said we have no volunteers in the village at all this week, this being Labor Day week and the start of school for many.

Mark Joslin, New Vision: We finally poured a slab for the new church site in St. Rose yesterday. The church is experiencing wonderful growth pains. We meet at FBC Luling at 2 pm on Sundays, with over 100 in attendance. On Wednesdays, the adults meet in the Joslin home–with 40 attending last week. The youth pastor had 78 in attendance, and 8 were saved!

Keith Manuel, Calvary: Our school started today. Our goal was to have 160 students and we wound up with 150. Pray for our teachers. Pray for 10 more students so we can make our budget. (Keith told of their precious, precocious six-year-old daughter Hannah’s being saved one night recently in their home.)

David Crosby, FBC-NO: Our Sunday School is doing great. We are now running over 400, about a hundred more than I had led the staff to expect. We have 60 in the children’s division. All of this is with Franklin Avenue Church using five of our classrooms for their offices.

Emory Putman, Woodland: We recently voted to join with Celebration Church. We will be the LaPlace campus of Celebration. We’re gearing up for evangelism and starting home groups. It’s been a slow year, but we’re now seeing the buds on the trees.

Christoph Bajewski, FBC Gretna, shared about his motorcycle accident on the interstate last week. He is still severely scraped up and wearing bandages and pads on his leg and back, but nothing was broken. “That’s it for me and the motorcycle,” he said. He paused a moment and said, “At least for a while.” (His wife was not present or he would not have ventured that last comment, I’ll wager.)

Kevin Lee, Edgewater: We’re finishing our gut-out ministry. Jason Sampler helped gut out 150 homes. We have 20 to 25 members who are doing one-on-one ministry in the community. Soon, Joe Williams (NAMB) will do a seminar for our people and the community on dealing with fatigue. Several have come to Christ through the follow-up ministry. We’re beginning to feel like a local church again. Flooring is going in on the sanctuary this week. We’re meeting for church in the fellowship hall. We had around 180 people the last two Sundays and people are talking about going to two services. We want people to join our church and to serve as missionaries. Before someone joins we have them meet with our staff one on one. We tell them we are a high maintenance church in a high maintenance city. If they are thinking about joining Edgewater, they will be signing up as a missionary. We believe people want to get plugged in and to make a difference.

Kirk Strawbridge introduced himself. He and his wife have moved here from Knoxville. He was a seminary student here 1999-2000 and wants to pastor a local church.

Dick Randels, Lakeview, has just returned from vacation. I preached for him two of the three Sundays he was out, so he is dubious about anything being left of the congregation!! I assured him those good folks are doing great.

James “Boogie” Melerine, Delacroix Hope: “God is moving at Delacroix Hope. We look at all that has happened to us since the storm. The church is bigger and stronger and more spiritual–and we don’t even have a building! But it does not matter where we meet. God has supplied our needs. Everything we have received has come from the Lord and His people.”

Boogie said, “The money that was sent from the Federal Government will arrive in Baton Rouge in a box car. They’ll send some of it down here in a pickup truck. By the time it arrives at our church, it’ll be in a matchbox. But God is in control. We will get no more or less than God wants us to have. Trust in Him. People are saying our church might have to go to two services. Praise the Lord.”

Boogie had an interesting take on the Baptist-Catholic situation in lower St. Bernard where he ministers. (Okay, Boogie has interesting takes on everything, period.) He said a lot of people down there would never have come to a Baptist church, but “we were meeting in a shed, so they came.” Right now, they’re meeting in a house. It’s not a Baptist church, so they’re still coming. “They just call it Boogie’s church.” He said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen when we move to a real church building.” (We’re praying for the Melerine’s daughter Lona who is having a kidney removed next Monday, September 11.)

I told the group that I have already cautioned Boogie–as we need to do with some of our other churches–that once you move into a church sanctuary, you’re going to have to work to keep the same spirit and great fellowship you had in that tent or the citrus shed. Kevin Lee, whose congregation moved out of the tent and into the fellowship hall just 3 weeks ago, nodded in agreement. “Already I’m hearing some saying they’re missing the closeness we had in the tent.”

Charlie Dale, associate pastor of Grace: The church celebrated 102 years of ministry last Sunday. We invited those who have helped in the rebuild to come. We had 100 in attendance, which is up from the usual 30 or 40 we’ve been having. (The television stations covered their services Sunday and a number of us reported seeing it.) Pastor Bill Rogers said, “We did not get flooded the way others did. We’re reaching new people now. We feel like there are a lot of good things ahead.”

In December, 76-year-old Pastor Bill Rogers will receive his Doctor of Ministry degree from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. His focus was on church growth. What a role model this terrific gentleman is for us all.

All right, here’s the story…

Michael Chance’s wife taught school just across the river from New York City with the daughter of a beloved Christian gentleman named Al. I want to say his last name is Braca. That’s close, if not exact. Al worked for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 104th floor of the World Trade Tower. He was such a devout man, working in a huge office with mostly non-Christians, they nicknamed him “Rev”. Al had survived the 1993 bombing of the WTC, and the family just knew he would come through this time also. Days went by after September 11 and no reports came in from any hospital. The family posted his picture around town, and began to get phone calls from other Cantor Fitzgerald employees’ families. “My husband was in the office with your husband,” a caller would say. “Before we lost the connection, he said they were all joining hands and Rev was leading them in prayer.” Other callers said similar things. Al’s wife then knew why she never received a last phone call from her husband. He was too busy leading people to Christ before that building collapsed.

As we approach the fifth anniversary of 9-11, it’s a good time to pause and give thanks for the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ who were there, on the job, and who represented Christ well.

From time to time a believer will say to me, “I’m the only Christian in my office. It’s really tough. Pray for me to get a different job.” I tell them, “I will pray no such thing. God has you right where He wants you. Where else would you put a nice bright light except in a darkened room.”

Of course, He expects the believer to be faithful. That’s the kicker. That’s why they all turned to “Rev” Al Braca when the towers were hit. He lived the life, he put up with the teasing about his religion, and he was God’s man on the 104th floor when the moment came.

The Father expects no less faithfulness from you and me. High expectations.