My trip to Louisiana....

So much still going through my brain...not sure how to let it escape. I'll begin here.....

I didn't know much about the trip before I got there. I arrived at the airport in the mercy of my team...I'll go where you tell me...and go I did. The day began with "making groceries." What does that mean? To get into town where there are grocery stores, it is over an hour drive. You must pack a cooler filled with ice to keep cold things cold. It wasn't always this way. But since the hurricane, stores have not rebuilt. It is called "making groceries" because it is such a task.

The hurricane is referred to as "the storm."

They are still recovering from this storm. We were in BURAS which is where the eye of the storm first hit Louisiana. Neighborhoods were completely wiped out. Homes had more than 12 feet of standing water in them. Buras is in essence a bath tub. It has the Gulf of Mexico on one side and the Mississippi River on the other. What Katrina didn't ruin, Hurricane Rita came in from the Gulf and wiped everything else out.

Some have rebuilt. Many have not. Many will never return. There are still FEMA trailers all over town. People can't afford to rebuild. So they are staying in their formaldehyde infested trailers where they are getting sick and discouraged. The poor and the old remain in town. Most of the young families left. I wonder what I would have done...

Boats are still being repaired. I saw chairs, generators, and debris still hanging from trees. I suppose that is better than the cattle and horse that were in the trees for several months after the storm. Bridges are still out. Roads are still rough. There are stairs that once led up to a house sitting alone in the grass. No house...no nothing....just stairs.



People were so frustrated at the government. The lack of help, the money that got tied up in red tape. One lady said, "Now, I will know where to give money in the next disaster." "Where is that?" I ask... "Churches...they are the only ones who helped." One lady had FEMA call her just last week telling her they lost the paperwork she sent in for the 3rd time. She told them to take her information and shred it...she could care less about the money even though she needed it.


These people love their town...love their state. They say, "BELIEVE in BURAS." They don't want it to die. But they accept it will never again be as it was. Their love for this town runs so deep, that they came back to washed-away homes...lived in FEMA trailers, cars, or ship containers, and had no electricity for 6 months after the storm.

But they have joy. They lost so much, but they have learned to depend on God and to lean in even deeper to who he is. I wonder how I would feel?

The thoughts will keep coming....