The Prayer Link

Today, I would like to share three Baptist Press articles with you. I hope you benefit from reading them.

Baptists Help Feed Gustav-Battered City
By Adam Miller

HOUMA, La. (BP)–The small side roads running from Baton Rouge to Houma began to tell the story of Hurricane Gustav as power line poles bowed toward the pavement like loose fingers.

Houma is one of the towns hardest hit by the Category 3 hurricane that churned along the western Louisiana coast unabated by much-diminished marshland that once slowed the onslaught of devastating winds and storm surge.

As the sun began to burn a long orange descent and Houma came closer, the sharper, thicker stars in the sky reminded one of a world without electricity.

“No city lights,” one volunteer said later. “You can see the stars better.”

No electricity, no hotels. And the tap water was unsafe to drink, said Bob Roberts, a leader of the Arkansas Southern Baptist disaster relief feeding, shower and communications units stationed at Christ Baptist Church in Houma. “Use our water. Our water filters can take the most polluted water and make it drinkable,” he said. The filters are what international missionaries use in Third World countries. The closer to the impact zone of a hurricane, the closer these primitive conditions things become.

Near the heart of Houma, local police set up a roadblock to enforce an 8 o’clock curfew. Blue lights flashed distantly throughout the evening, a welcome though ominous show of life in a city that had only three days before been beaten around by the largest show of strength in the Gulf since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

“The doves would try to fly this way and the wind would push them back,” said Werlien Prosperie, owner of the Jolly Inn, a Cajun dance hall in Houma. “I stood at my window. That sign came down, then the power lines.”

“But the really amazing thing,” his daughter interjected, “was how the [cooling] coils from the power company went flying. Then the roof came off of that.”

“So what’d you do?” a reporter asked.

“Wait. Nothing to do but wait.”

Prosperie had housed five families in his establishment and they all watched from windows of the 60-year-old structure as Gustav wreaked havoc along Tunnel Boulevard.

“Katie Couric was down here a couple of days ago. CNN and USA Today came too,” he said. “They asked me why I stayed. ‘That’s how Cajuns are,’ I told them. I was concerned for family and the people around here, but I’m too stupid to be scared. We’ve been through stuff like this before. It comes then it passes and you move on and get ready for the next one. We had a business to care for and, besides, it just costs too much to evacuate and takes too long to get back home.

“I’ve not seen that much wind since Betsy,” Prosperie added, recounting his experience with the 1965 Hurricane he witnessed from an oil rig out in the Gulf. “[With Gustav] we had winds 110 to 120 mph. Gusts of 130. Tin and sheet metal flying around. That night [the wind] lifted this porch up three or four inches and set it back down.”

By Thursday, Sept. 4, North Carolina Baptist disaster relief units had rolled in with six 18-wheelers filled with meal supplies. By Friday they were in position to cook 30,000 meals a day for delivery to residents by the Salvation Army’s fleet of disaster response trucks.

Earlier in the week Arkansas Baptist disaster relief had set up at Christ Baptist Church to provide meals and showers to National Guardsmen, law enforcement officers, other emergency workers and fellow Baptist relief units, including a 3 a.m.-arriving North Carolina feeding unit and a Tennessee unit.

“We have those Cambros ready to feed the National Guard,” said Roberts, pointing to large red insulating containers that had been filled with grilled chicken, pinto beans and canned peach wedges.

By 8 a.m. Friday, residents started mile-long car lines leading into the local civic center where National Guard troops distributed meals ready to eat (MREs) and bags of ice. North Carolina feeding unit volunteers were putting final touches on their cooking area, gathering supplies, putting a line of command into place and by 10 a.m. were filling yellow Cambros with breaded chicken and green beans for delivery by the Salvation Army.

About 67 Southern Baptist disaster relief (SBDR) units from 16 state conventions are serving in Louisiana. Many of those units will have to be moved in order to seek protection from Hurricane Ike’s fury as it looms over the Gulf.

Southern Baptist disaster relief leaders at the North American Mission Board’s Atlanta-area offices are working quickly to ready a relief response once Hurricane Ike makes landfall at week’s end.

“People ask, ‘Why do you need these guys?'” said a Houma reporter and photographer named Kilm Liretta, pointing toward North Carolina’s feeding operation. “You know what I tell them? Without these guys, we’d be lost.”

“I grew up half-Catholic and half-Baptist,” added Liretta. “It’s made a pretty good impact on me.”

In Florida, where the state Baptist convention has a partnership with Haitian and Cuban Baptists, disaster relief director Fritz Wilson noted, “Cuba and Haiti again seem to be taking the brunt of everything this year,” after Hurricane Ike continued the string of hurricanes that have struck the Caribbean nations.

Craig Culbreth, Florida Baptists’ director of partnership ministries, will return to Haiti Sept. 10 where many have died as a result of massive flooding, and most of the gardens have washed away.

“The country has been cut off from north to south because of several bridges that have washed out,” said Culbreth, who returned from Haiti Sept. 4. “Their major need is food.”

Adam Miller is associate editor of On Mission magazine published by the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board. With reporting by Joni B. Hannigan, managing editor of the Florida Baptist Witness. To make a donation to Southern Baptist disaster relief ministries, call toll-free 866-407-6262 or visit http://www.namb.net.

Seminary’s Power Restored, Classes Resume
By Gary D. Myers

NEW ORLEANS (BP)–Early Saturday morning, Sept. 6, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary announced that power had been restored to all campus housing units. The news, delivered via text message and the Internet, cleared the way for all members of the seminary family to return to campus.

“It is time for all NOBTS saints to make plans for marching in,” NOBTS President Chuck Kelley wrote on the seminary’s website. “We had a great day on campus today. As of 7 a.m. Saturday morning, all students, staff, and faculty, including those in temporary housing, are invited to return at your convenience.”

Returning students encountered a campus with little evidence of a storm. The operations staff had cleared much of the debris and repaired the slight roof damage on campus buildings. The only visible signs of the storm were two broken shutters on Leavell Chapel and a pile of tree limbs and trunks near the back of campus.

As residents returned Saturday and Sunday, impromptu meetings began throughout campus. Neighbors greeted returning neighbors and shared their evacuation experiences.

The mood of returning residents was tempered by the presence of Hurricane Ike in the Caribbean. Kelley began working to reassure campus residents. Kelley’s first online post regarding Ike came Sunday, Sept. 7.

“Hurricane Ike appears to be moving on a track farther and farther to the west of New Orleans. It is still too early to know with certainty, but most models now show it making landfall south and west of Houston, Texas,” Kelley wrote. “We will continue watching it carefully.”

By Monday, the National Weather Service had moved the official forecast track of Hurricane Ike well south of Houston.

In his second and last post regarding Ike, Kelley called on students to pray for people in Louisiana, South Florida, Haiti, Cuba and Texas who have been affected by tropical storms this year and the ones who are facing an impending evacuation. Kelley also encouraged students to trust God even in the midst of trials.

“It is in the fire of life that God does most of the shaping of our souls. Jeremiah tells us that God is like a potter shaping and reshaping our lives (Jeremiah 18:1-10),” Kelley wrote. “It is the choice of trust in the fire of doubt that roots the habit of trust in our soul.

“The touch of our Potter can feel heavy and rough at times, but He assures us the vessel that emerges will be beautiful (Psalm 143),” Kelley wrote.

Seminary officials moved computer operations back to the main campus on Monday, Sept. 8. Offices reopened and classes restarted Tuesday, Sept. 9.

Gary D. Myers is director of public relations at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

FIRST-PERSON:
Raw and Re-Opened Wounds
By Keith Manuel

ALEXANDRIA, La. (BP)–My long-healed wounds are now raw and oozing again. Post-traumatic stress is kicking me in the ribs making every breath short. The tightness in my chest is as strong as if Hurricane Katrina made landfall yesterday, not three years ago. Instead, the storm’s name is Gustav.

I’m awake at 1:30 a.m., having an anxiety attack, feeling as if I need to save someone, help someone, do something. I’m having the same guilt-laden, yet exuberant, feeling of survival after this storm as when my family survived with minimal damage after Katrina. My mother lives less than a mile from the beach on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and my in-laws are farther south in Louisiana than New Orleans. Both have all utilities restored. Amazing.

Yet I sit here, three days post storm, 100 miles inland, listening to the endless hum, no roar, of generators up and down my street. They have a strange, rhythmic beat like the sound of distant, but menacing, war drums. Always there to remind us, “You’re in the dark, if we choose to attack.”

The pictures on the local news and the homes I now drive past are reminiscent of many trips into the flooded neighborhoods of New Orleans. The only difference is, here people can start the clean up in a few hours instead of a few weeks. The water is different, too. Instead of saltwater — at least inland — the residents are dealing with freshwater. However, the mud and the mold smell the same. My nostrils and eyes are burning. It won’t go away.

There are moments of levity. Before the storm came rolling in, I was feeling the beginning effects of my plight, shortness of breath and probably temper. Some of our ministry assistants laughed with me as I realized I am a Ph.D. with ADD suffering from PTSD Can I put that on a plaque?

The effects of Katrina, not really Gustav, are much more searing when I see it affect my children. When we evacuated New Orleans before Katrina struck, my daughter Hannah, then barely five years old, forgot her favorite stuffed animal. She cried herself to sleep every night, worried that “Rainbow Bear” was “hurt.” Hannah, now eight, didn’t let Rainbow Bear out of her sight until Gustav passed over our new home in Pineville, La.

As the winds began to increase to hurricane strength during Gustav, my middle son, Jeremy, who is 12, hid his most valuable possessions in what he called a “very safe place.” His valuables include an autographed football by New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, a New Orleans Saints football jersey signed by former receiver Joe Horn, and a Jackie Robinson baseball card. Jeremy wasn’t saving them for himself. He told my wife, “Mom, we can sell these to get back on our feet after the storm.” I am weeping as I type. Pride and pain are a weird combination.

Our oldest son, Keith Jr., is a rock. Like his dad, his desire to help kicks in during and after a storm. But, for all his internal strength, I know what he is suppressing inside.

Even our ugly, red door on our house reminds me of Katrina. The nearly 20 inches of rain has caused our door to swell, making it almost impossible to open. My mind races back to two groups of people I met following Katrina. The first group was a family trying to check on items in their home. The second was a group of volunteers from Florida in yellow Southern Baptist Disaster Relief shirts. The Floridians and I came across this family standing in the street. Stopping to talk, we found they couldn’t even open their door because it was swollen shut. A lock has yet to be invented that can seal a door as secure. So they stood, helpless, only guessing what it was like inside, not wanting to break a window out of fear that what they might return and salvage, would be stolen. We held hands in the street and prayed.

Though the circumstances of your life’s storms may be different, our family is a living testimony of the grace of God. We may be scarred and scared, but — praise God — we survived Hurricane Gustav.

Keith Manuel is an evangelism associate on the Louisiana Baptist Convention’s evangelism & church growth team.