Saturday night, late, the saddest phone call in a long time.

For over 30 years, Buford Easley pastored the wonderful Williams Boulevard Baptist Church at the intersection of Interstate 10 and Williams in Kenner. After a lengthy fight with cancer and other ailments, he died about four years ago. In some respects, it seems like ten. The last couple of years of his life, Buford called me his pastor, an honor like few I’ve ever received. Toward the end, he held on to see the birth of his youngest daughter’s first child, a little girl he called “Tweety Bird.” Tweety Bird–her name was Haley–was four when she died Saturday.

Her mom had her and the baby in a swimming pool, and when she left to change the baby, asked the adults to watch the little girl. When she returned, the child was on the bottom of the pool. Every parent’s nightmare. Grandma Easley–Bonnie–is beside herself with grief as any of us would be. My heart breaks for them.

Sonya and her husband, her mother Bonnie, the whole family, need our prayers.

Early Sunday morning, the men of the First Baptist Church of Kenner held their monthly breakfast meeting. Missions committee chairman David Rhymes (a NAMB missionary presently assigned to the Brantley Homeless Shelter in downtown New Orleans) spoke of the group finding new goals and purposes. I recall some years ago when several of the men approached me (I was the pastor) about starting such a men’s group. I said, “No, if all you’re going to do is meet and eat.” They promised the organization would be about ministry, and they’ve lived up to that over the years. Lately, however, with Katrina shutting down the church’s trailer park ministry and some key leaders being relocated to other cities as an indirect result of the hurricane, it’s time to ask the Father, “What now?” David joked that the group should now go “Beyond Breakfast.” We laughed and someone said, “Going where no one has ever dined before!”

I preached for the New Covenant Community Church in Harvey for their 11:30 am service. This is a mission, pastored by Thomas Glover and wife Jill, which meets in Woodmere Baptist Church after they conclude their morning services. Today, a group of 80 or more from the First Baptist Church of Saledo, Texas, was present, perhaps 60 in their youth choir and 20 or more adults. This week, the adults will be building homes with Habitat for Humanity in the Baptist Crossroads Project and the youth will be working in day camp at the FBC of New Orleans and doing car wash ministry in the New Covenant neighborhood. They sang and added a great deal of joy and enthusiasm to the service.

Gwen Williams, a.k.a. Miss Chocolate, was in the New Covenant services. Gwen formerly served as worship leader for this church and over the past decade or more has had her own mission to inner city children, and belonged to the exciting Franklin Avenue Baptist Church. Thomas called her up and presented an offering they have taken for her, then handed her the microphone, “for a word.” Gwen said, “The word is RESTORE. God is restoring.”

She told of her home in the 9th Ward which was ruined by the floodwaters. “It was an ugly little house,” she said. “I always told God I wanted a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, brick house, but He gave me this little house that was next to a juke joint. I prettied it up and came to love it.” Pictures in her album showed massive black mold on the walls of the interior. It would appear that looters had cleaned out anything of value. The dining room table was still “set for company,” she said. When she went back inside the first time, her brother said, “Let’s just leave. It’s all gone.” But there was one thing Gwen wanted. She found a rose her mother had had made for her, made of 2 dollar bills that were shaped and glued into the form of a rose, now moldy and dirty. “This is still valuable,” she said.

These days, when Gwen has the opportunity to speak to church and youth groups, she tells them about that rose. “It’s like some of you,” she says. “Dirty. You know there are different kinds of dirt. Some of us have soiled ourselves pretty badly. But like my rose, you still have value. And God can restore it.”

She sold that little house to the highest bidder and walked away from it. The home she purchased (“The house God gave me,” is how she put it) is a three bedroom brick with two baths located on a spacious green lawn in Picayune, Mississippi, some 50 miles up the interstate. She told us that and added, “Young people, you have a dream. You want God to fulfill that dream. Obey Him. He gave me that little 9th Ward house first, and I was faithful. Then He gave me the home of my dreams.”

She is a prize, our Miss Chocolate. She bills herself as a Story Teller. If I were a pastor needing a mission speaker no one will ever forget, I’d invite her, then sit back and smile as people compliment me on the smartest choice I’ve made in years.

Saturday the residents of the St. Bernard Housing Development converged on the site of their former residence, but did not tear down any fences. Instead, they reasonably set up tents and shelters across the street and vowed to remain there for one month, and if the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) has not come up with a plan for them to return, they will then storm the facility. Sunday morning’s paper says the city’s lawyers are checking to see if their squatting on city property violates any laws. Stay tuned.

The First Haitian Baptist Church of New Orleans, located on Hancock Street in Gretna, is unlike any other in our Baptist association. Their night service began at 7 pm and ended at 9:30. My, how they sang. They began promptly at 7 pm when perhaps 25 people were in the building and no musicians at all. As they continued singing, more worshipers entered, the drummer–12 years old at least but certainly no more–went to his place, then a keyboard player, and eventually three guitarists. Pastor Joseph Blanchard played the accordian. One soloist after another stood at the pulpit and sang. Their language is Creole French, although their Scripture and other readings are traditional French. Although I understand very little of what was said, I recognized most of the songs. Someone sang, “Nothing but the Blood,” and another “Blessed Assurance,” both Baptist standards, but in this case, they found a rhythmic pattern to these songs I would not have thought existed. After 30 minutes of singing, the drummer was in a zone of his own and the building, now filled with perhaps 150 singers and dancers, literally rocked. When I got up to speak, after 8:30, I told the people my body will be throbbing for the next two weeks. Everything about it was a sheer delight.

I know enough from visiting our other ethnic Baptist churches to know that the second generation Haitians–meaning the teenage children of parents who came here from Haiti–are purely American kids exactly like every other teenager in their schools. No doubt some are embarrassed over their parents’ culture and refuse to learn the “old” language. It’s an old story, it’s as normal as it can be, and it is a crying shame. Their culture is special and unique, unlike any other in the city, and it needs to be preserved. I hope they will resist the tendency to become like us.

I wonder how it feels to be a Haitian in New Orleans. Outside in the parking lot, I noticed that an unusual number drive taxis. We have one more smaller Haitian Baptist mission in the city. I imagine they feel lonely. One of the men told me they’re getting up a mission trip to Haiti this summer. I told the church about my friend Dr. Cathy Pate in Charlotte NC who goes with a church group to Haiti every year, and that she grieved last fall over the trip’s cancellation due to the political unrest. When I told them she will be spending the Fourth of July weekend with us, they insisted I bring her to church there. (Brush up on your Creole, Cathy. This is not your high school French!)

The Southern Baptist Convention meets in Greensboro, NC, in 10 days. Dr. David Crosby of FBC-NO plans to introduce a motion that the SBC meeting for June of 2008 be held in New Orleans. I think they are scheduled to be in Indianapolis that year and Louisville in 09, so some leaders are suggesting that 2010 would work best. But David believes God has opened such a door of opportunity in this city for ministry and evangelism, that to delay 2 additional years could make all the difference. Part of the discussion with convention leaders revolves around the cost, perhaps $200,000, of cancelling our contracts in Indianapolis. On the other hand, we were in Indianapolis only in 2004, which is like yesterday, and to follow Indianapolis in ’08 with Louisville in ’09–which is what, 120 miles away?–seems like a little much for that section of the country.

The only thing everyone is agreed upon, I suppose, is that God is certainly opening doors of opportunity and witness here, and we are so grateful for the myriads of Southern Baptists, not to say other groups, who are coming to New Orleans to share Christ’s love. If having 10,000 or more Baptists here at one time in ’08 would further that movement to Christ, let’s do it. This city has never had a great evangelistic revival, we’re told. This may be the time.

Freddie Arnold attended the early worship service at FBC-NO of the Franklin Avenue Baptist Church and had trouble finding first a parking space and then a seat. Later, he worshiped with the Edgewater Church meeting in their restored fellowship hall. Big church, little church, sedate church, rocking/throbbing church–they’re all the Lord’s and we are so privileged to belong to their number.