Voices
of Katrina: Calling on the Lord and
Living by Faith
by Larenda Lyles Roberts
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he first thing one notices is the eerie
quiet; empty streets, no people, no cars, not even a bird chirps to break the
stillness. House after house after empty
house stand, many leaning to the side, stripped of shingles and wood, like
wounded soldiers guarding the piles of debris scattered around them. The front of each house is spray painted with
a circle and an “X,” recording the date search and rescue teams came through
and wrote the number of persons and animals, if any, found inside. Close to the streets are piles of ruined
mattresses, furniture, and still-soggy household goods.
On one block, a dozen or so people wearing
surgical masks and heavy work gloves are “mucking out” a house—removing
everything down to the plywood. They are
volunteers from a church in
Under the nearby freeway, hundreds of
abandoned cars are stacked on top of each other, reflecting the despair evident
in faces of the few residents who remain living in this surreal landscape. Even now, almost one year after Hurricane
Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, relatively little progress has been made.
For ten weeks in the summer of 2006, they
came to Goodwood (
Each had stories to tell about the
devastation their congregations are facing from the killer hurricane that hit on
August 29, 2005. The Chalmette
The streets and neighborhoods of these
towns resemble areas struck by mas-sive tornado damage. Most structures that remained intact have
been ruined by the mud, muck, and mold the standing water left behind. Progress in finding contrac-tors, demolition
crews, building permits, and insurance claims has been very slow and
frustrating.
“Windows don’t seem like a big deal until
you have ply board up for several months, and then they seem like a nice
luxury,” Lance observes.
Harry Benjamin, formerly of Elysian Fields
(
“It was in terrible shape,” Benjamin says. “It took about one week to pump the water
out. It took another 2-3 weeks to get
the building gutted out because the men had to take this wet, dirty stuff from
the basement and haul it out of the build-ing.
It was a tremendous job they had to do.
Personally, I thought that the building and the condition that it was
in, we shouldn’t go back in.”
While some 80 members have re-mained and
seek to restore the building, many are scattered throughout the coun-try, and
Benjamin has moved to nearby
The sheer magnitude of the storm
devastation has been overwhelming to all those affected by Katrina. Bill Burchett of the
The DeGaulle church was relatively
lucky—their steeple was blown over, huge oak trees were demolished, and there
was some water damage. Burchett was not
so fortunate with his personal home, however.
Because of water damage and subsequent black mold, his entire house had
to be gutted. He and his family are
living with a member of their congregation who is a widow, while they wait for
a contractor to begin work on rebuilding their home.
In spite of his loss and current living
situation, Burchett reflects the feelings of all ten Voices of Katrina
ministers when he states: “We’re bruised, but we’re not flat-tened, we’re bent
but not broken, we’re down but we’re not out.
Because we know whose we are and we know the Lord Jesus is with us, and
He will provide, and so we are committed and we are optimistic about the growth
of the church in
The courage exhibited by these min-isters
of the gospel and their desire to use this opportunity to evangelize is evident
throughout their stories. Don Neyland of
Montegut (pronounced Mon-te-gu) com-pares his congregation’s situation to the
Dispersion spoken of in the book of James.
Attendance has dropped 60%. As in
most of the congregations, many members don’t have jobs or homes to come back
to.
“Hurricanes are simply one way in which the
reclusive church realizes there is a community around them,” Neyland ex-plains. “They have neighbors that they have driven by
every Wednesday and every Lord’s Day.
Hurricanes are a way to cause an apathetic church to get moving.”
Eric Dishongh of Hickory Knoll (
Neyland believes it will take 25 years before
the churches come back to pre-Katrina and pre-Rita (a second devastating 2005
hurricane) days. He emphasizes the need
for leaders and ministers of the gospel to come to the area.
“What brings people to Christ is some-one
with a sack of groceries or a blanket or someone with a hammer and nails going
and helping somebody and telling them about Jesus Christ while they are
helping,” Neyland says.
Joseph Alexander of
Through the Hurricane Disaster Relief Fund,
administered by Goodwood
Mark Lance refers to Psalms 130, verses 1
and 2. “’Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; O Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.’”
The psalmists called on the Lord, Lance reports. “We come here and tell you about Hurricane
Katrina, but in reality you’re facing problems, too. Call on the Lord, trust in Him.”
“Isn’t it amazing to think you are helping
me in support of my salary because we’re there at
“The
military was using the airport, there were helicopters flying over constant-ly,
and there was no one driving on the streets—it was freaky. We couldn’t wait to get out.”
Flakes reports that his house was
relatively undamaged, and it was used as a shelter for many other people who
had no place to go. But the church
building was another story.
“It was heartbreaking to see the
building. The whole neighborhood was
devastated by the storm. A lot of people
see it on TV, but it’s totally different to see it with your own eyes. We thought of not going back to that
building, maybe starting some place else.
We gathered with the elders and looked at the land, but it is very
expensive. The insurance companies are
hard to deal with. They change adjustors
every week, so every time you call you have to start over with someone
new. Now we’re on hold because we don’t
know what’s going to happen to that particular neighborhood. Building permits are not being given out for
our area yet.”
Flakes reports that the Louisa Street congregation
has about 25-30 members that are going to other congregations in New Orleans
and some of its members living in Atlanta, while others are in Houston,
Beaumont, or Mississippi.
Don Neyland refers to the 11th chapter of
Hebrews and the listing of the people of faith.
“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised;
they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance.”
“We need leadership, we need true
evangelism, we need ministers of the gospel, who are going to be here to under-stand
their communities. But I think the
biggest
problem that we’ve had in the
Lord’s
church in this area is that we need help with understanding this world is not
our home.”
“We must lead the Lord’s church in southern
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This article is dedicated to Joseph
Alexander, Harry Benjamin, Bill Burchett, Eric Dishongh, Vinson Flakes, John
Grantham, Mike Fox, Mark Lance, Don Neyland, and Dan Schillinger, the Voices of
Katrina.
For
additional information, please call the
13 These all died in faith, not having re-ceived the
promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were
strang-ers and pilgrims on the earth. 14 For those who
say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. 15
And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had
opportunity to return. 16 But now they desire a better,
that is, a heavenly country.
Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city
for them. Hebrews 11:13-16
New King James version