“These are from the Baptists of North Carolina. And look–they put enough canned goods for a family in separate boxes, so all we have to do is hand it out.” Each box contained fifty dollars worth of groceries.

Pastor Todd Hallman of Luling’s First Baptist Church was showing me the storeroom where his people were handing out food and water to the people of St. Charles Parish. They’ve been on the job since only a few days after Katrina went through.

“Need a refrigerator?” he said. “I said, ‘Yes! Don’t tell me you’re giving those out too?” He said, “Look at this.” Stacks of motel-room-sized refrigerators lined a hallway. “Where did you ever get these?”

Todd said, “I found out through the Purpose-Driven network that a Hilton Hotel in California was upgrading, so we asked them what they planned to do with the old fridges. They sent us forty-two.” Since the one we ordered from Home Depot will not be delivered for another eight days, I took one. When we no longer need it, I promise to pass it along.

This morning after an abbreviated version of my morning walk on the Mississippi River levee, I spent an hour gathering up the roof shingles from my front and back yard. It was seven o’clock, but by the time I finished, I was dripping in sweat. The calendar says Autumn, but this is still New Orleans. (Someone asked yesterday about sending a truckload of winter clothes to Louisiana. I had to tell them we don’t wear winter clothes even in the winter.) My wife Margaret is hard at work trying to get the inside of the house straight and clean. She’s glad to be home.

My main assignment of the day was to check on the various disaster relief ministries going on at some of our Baptist churches. I called on Williams Boulevard, First-Kenner, Riverside, First-Luling, West St. Charles, First-Avondale, Bridge City, Celebration, and Parkview churches. Tomorrow, I’ll spend the day with Ed Jelks, a construction specialist with the Louisiana Baptist Convention, checking out our churches on the West Bank.

I guess I’m naive. I keep getting surprised by the way some people behave in situations like we all find ourselves in. I’m not surprised to find people doing well and agreeing and working with a servant heart. We expect that from God’s people, and there is a lot of that going on. Chuck Lowman of West St. Charles said, “Our people are taking care of Red Cross workers and disaster relief workers from out of state and even an independent insurance claims adjuster, and frankly, they’re loving it. I haven’t heard the first complaint. Of course, when they get here next Sunday and find their parking space taken, they may sing a different tune. But I doubt it,” he said with a smile.

What does surprise me is the negativism I’m hearing. The little pettiness here and there.

It started over a week ago when an evacuated pastor with a wife and two small children asked his returned educational minister to lead services back here for any of the membership able to come. “Who put you in charge?” one member asked the assistant. Another phoned the pastor to complain that he was not on the site. “Not everyone has power,” he said, “but they give out free MREs and water. You should be here.”

Today, a Red Cross worker expressed disgust with the plans to relocate to a different church. “That pastor fled the storm,” he said. Presumably, heeding the universal call to take your family and evacuate the city made that minister a second-class citizen, unfit to lead God’s people. Thankfully, that attitude is in the minority.

A pastor who is returning to his church this week called to say he’s under fire from his deacons over not returning earlier. “They met and voted a certain date, that any minister not back by then is out of a job.” As if that were not bad enough, he added, “They hired a contractor to do the work which volunteers are coming into our city to do for us. It’s going to cost the church a lot of money.” Sounds like the problem is more than just the pastor’s delay. Someone has control issues. The area where the church is located has been cleared for re-entry only today. Go figure.

“Pastor, who gave you the authority to turn our church into a distribution center?” The preacher smiled at his critic and said, “No one had to. This was a no-brainer.”

Just love your critics, I would counsel these pastors. And return to your pulpit with a plan to mobilize your members to caring for the needy of the congregation and the community. Announce plans to invite in mission groups from outside the area, get your people involved in hosting them and working alongside them. God’s people love to serve and get a kick out of helping the needy. God has opened a window of opportunity that will not remain in place long. We must move now.

Displaced citizens of our area will understand what I saw. As I came over the Huey P. Long Bridge and turned toward the city onto Airline Highway, suddenly I entered a dead zone. Lots of stores and restaurants open in Elmwood, plenty on Airline, but on Airline past Causeway looking toward New Orleans, nothing. Piles of sandbags in parking lots. McDonald’s boarded up. Nothing open. Traffic signals dark. This is the area of Celebration Church, one of our largest and most exciting congregations. I understand they took a lot of water inside their building.

David Crosby says First Baptist-New Orleans has lost much of the outside covering of the church, and replacing it should cost a half million dollars. They have not met in their building since the storm, as the power has still not been restored to that area of town.

Residents of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary are still not able to enter the campus to try to retrieve things from apartments and homes ruined by high water. Meanwhile, classes continue over the internet and in some cases, at various locations over the Southeast.

When I was eleven years old, my Dad was laid off from his job in the West Virginia coal mines and our family moved in with my grandmother on the farm in Alabama. Then Dad bought a bus ticket and rode from town to town, looking for work. In Toledo, Ohio, he was robbed at gunpoint of his last fifty dollars. He spent four days hitchhiking home, going without a bite to eat during that time. When he arrived home and we learned about it, the overwhelming sensation that flooded my soul was a sadness that I was not with him. Now think of that–an eleven year old kid was the last thing Dad needed with him.

I could not have analyzed my feeling at the time, but I know now that what I was experiencing was a deep need to share his suffering.

When we re-entered the city Saturday night and began to see the devastation–and in some cases, the high water that remains–I felt it all over again. Over the past four weeks, as I have grieved for New Orleans and her churches, it’s not that this 65 year old can make much of a difference in anyone’s situation. I just needed to share the suffering.

I’m not sure what all that wonderful verse means, but it brings to mind Paul’s soul hunger expressed in Philippians 3:10: “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings.”

If you know any of our displaced New Orleans Baptist pastors or ministerial staff members, remind them we’re meeting Wednesday at 9 am at the First Baptist Church of LaPlace, just west of New Orleans.