This is the twenty-seventh update for the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief fund for the Lake Pontchartrain North Shore. This includes the Covington, Abita Springs, Mandeville, and Slidell, Louisiana area.

We have some additional pictures of the work performed by Grace Team 1 from Grace Community Chapel of St. Peters, MO as they ministered through Trinity Evangelical Free Church of Covington, LA.

We had previously published some pictures of a huge tree that was taken down from a home in Covington, LA here. These pictures are of the same home and gives a better indication of the size of the oak tree that was blown against the building during the hurricane.

Here is another tree down on that home but from a different angle.

The team members were extremely careful to take the (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

This is the twenty-eighth update for the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief fund for the Lake Pontchartrain North Shore. This includes the Covington, Abita Springs, Mandeville, and Slidell, Louisiana area.

Pastor Michael Sprague of Trinity Evangelical Free Church of Covington, LA, has sent some words of wisdom from the ministry on the North Shore.

“Friends,

A friend of mine wrote the following words to me:

“Gather in all that has happened since August – would the mighty wind of the Holy Spirit be seen like it is right now without the disaster? Would you have witnessed the mighty unstoppable Hand of God like you have without the hurricanes? Would Trinity Church have become ‘Jesus with skin on’ without a community desperately in need of His arms, His strength, His love? A community that suddenly had nothing but Him?”

“Nothing but Him” …. What a great statement (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

Main Stream Media as well as the blogosphere has been buzzing since President Bush announced his nominee to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court yesterday morning. Already more has been written and said than any normal person could possibly read or absorb.

We don’t claim to be the brightest bulb on the christmas tree, but we do try to apply some common sense when addressing issues such as a Supreme Court Nominee. You can read any article in our Saturday Evening Judicial Review Post category on your left and will soon discover how seriously we take this subject.

The stakes are high, and the nominee if confirmed, will sit on the court for the rest of her life. There are many conservatives who have raised questions and expressed doubts about whether Harriet Miers should be confirmed to the Supreme Court.

Rush Limbaugh stated yesterday that this (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

It has now been five days since President Bush nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court of the United States. Much has been written and said about his choice both for and against. Many on the right who are not pleased with his selection have pointed to her lack of a record on the major conservative issues of our day. Those who have chosen to defend his selection are accused of using the argument of trust to defend the President’s decision.

Thomas at Red State has written a compelling argument against Ms. Miers in his article, Thirty Pieces of Silver. Thomas cites three reasons for his support of the Republican Party during the past thirty years. Two of the reasons he has supported the party have already been shattered, fiscal responsibility, and less government regulation on all of our lives. The final reason for his support (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

This is the twenty-ninth update for the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief fund for the Lake Pontchartrain North Shore. This includes the Covington, Abita Springs, Mandeville, and Slidell, Louisiana area.

Pastor Michael Sprague of Trinity Evangelical Free Church of Covington, LA, has sent an E-Mail update on what God is doing in the North Shore area.

“Dear Friends,

Let me start with an offer to help you visually see what is going on here. Wayne Rogers, our worship pastor, has produced the first in a coming series of DVD’s to chronicle God’s work here. You can order a copy of it at Trinitychurchonline.net. The DVD will help you understand things that could never be communicated with words.

Tonight I just finished addressing a large group of our volunteers. We almost hit the 200 level! These are the best people you could (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

With all news about the Miers nomination to the Supreme Court, we fear there are many who are asleep at the switch about the United Nations Internet.

For those interested, there was an article written in August 2005 in Gulfnews.com asking, Who should control the internet?.

Their article was a preliminary for the bombshell in the Opinion Journal Online on Sunday, The World Wide Web (of Bureaucrats?). Here is a taste:

“Kofi Annan, Coming to a Computer Near You! The Internet’s long run as a global cyberzone of freedom–where governments take a “hands off” approach–is in jeopardy. Preparing for next month’s U.N.-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society (or WSIS) in Tunisia, the European Union and others are moving aggressively to set the stage for an as-yet unspecified U.N. body to assert control over Internet operations and policies now largely under the purview of the U.S. In recent meetings, for an example, an EU spokesman asserted that no single country should have final authority over this “global resource.”

To his credit, the U.S. State Department’s David Gross bristled back: “We will not agree to the U.N. taking over management of the Internet.” That stands to reason. The Internet was developed in the U.S. (as are upgrades like Internet 2) and is not a collective “global resource.” It is an evolving technology, largely privately owned and operated, and it should stay that way.”

You have got to read it, or you wouldn’t believe it!

It may be time to pay a little more attention to the rest of the world, while watching the Supreme Court nomination battles.

This is the thirtieth update for the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief fund for the Lake Pontchartrain North Shore. This includes the Covington, Abita Springs, Mandeville, and Slidell, Louisiana area.

Pastor Michael Sprague of Trinity Evangelical Free Church of Covington, LA, has sent an E-Mail update on the Sunday Services October 9, 2005.

“Stories:

I have marveled for a long time at how the book of John ends:

“And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books which were written.” ~John 21:25

Wow! What are those stories? What a life well lived. There is no one like Jesus and I’m finding He is still creating story after story in the lives of people. In the service yesterday at Trinity Church, you couldn’t help but (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

We received our National Republican Senate Campaign Leadership Survey in the mail today. We filled it out. We marked our choices. In the box where you put your campaign donation, we marked it, and put nine cents in the blank for the amount of the donation. We then put a nickel and four pennys onto a blank piece of paper and taped them to it, to prevent them from sliding around in the envelope. We put everything in the return envelope, and mailed it off.

Some might say that we are grandstanding, or are trying to be a smart aleck, such is not the case. We are simply trying to prove the point we made here, here, and here.

We would not be in the position today with stealth nominees to the Supreme Court if Senate Republicans had held their ground and destroyed the Democrats un-constitutional use of filibustering judicial nominees. The gang of fourteen is as much to blame for this situation as well. There were seven Republicans on that gang who should be remembered when their election comes around again.

For now all we can do is try and put some backbone into the Republican Leadership to destroy the act of filibustering judicial nominees. The best way to accomplish that is by withholding monetary support. Sooner or later they will get the message.

We would encourage everyone who gets the survey to do exactly as we have done. The message will be loud and clear.

This is the thirty-first update for the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief fund for the Lake Pontchartrain North Shore. This includes the Covington, Abita Springs, Mandeville, and Slidell, Louisiana area.

Pastor Michael Sprague of Trinity Evangelical Free Church of Covington, LA, has sent an E-Mail update on the ministry in the North Shore area.

“New Mercies:

This morning fifteen staff, (Trinity and Katrina) joined together for a couple of hours to plan for ministry that is sustainable over the next year or two. The structures we have now cannot accommodate the size of the project so we are seeking God on how to super-size everything, (offices, phones, communication, transportation, equipment, staff, computers, etc). Pray! We all need to pull together for the next few weeks to make this work, and after that, we hope to have additional staff, equipment and structures to get past “organized chaos” (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

This is the thirty-second update for the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief fund for the Lake Pontchartrain North Shore. This includes the Covington, Abita Springs, Mandeville, and Slidell, Louisiana area.

The following is an audio message from Pastor Michael Sprague of Trinity Evangelical Free Church of Covington, LA., which he delivered to the Church on Sunday Morning October 2, 2005.

To listen to the message you will need the free Real Player to hear it which can be downloaded from here, (at the bottom of the page) for your operating system.

One cannot listen to this message and the testimonies of God’s faithfulness and not be moved.

The message is entitled, What I Have Learned.

If you are using Internet Explorer, please click here.

If you are using Mozilla or Mozilla-Firefox, please click here.

If you haven’t yet contributed to the combined efforts of this blog and Grace Community Chapel of St. Peters, MO, in raising money for Trinity Evangelical Free Church in Covington, LA, to be distributed locally to the Lake Pontchartrain North Shore area, you will find detailed donation information by clicking here.

If you have been out of touch over the last couple of weeks, much has been written about President Bush’s choice to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court. Conservatives have banged away at each other with verbal volleys, one side for, the other side against Bush’s pick.

In Fact so much has been written, Howard Fineman wrote an article a few days ago entitled, Conservative Crackup, where he states:

“The “movement” —that began 50 years ago with the founding of Bill Buckley’s National Review; that had its coming of age in the Reagan Years; that reached its zenith with Bush’s victory in 2000—is falling apart at the seams.”

Unfortunately for Mr. Fineman, Rush Limbaugh has dissected his piece, and wrote on Monday in the Opinion Journal Online, There’s a crackdown over Miers, not a “crackup.”. Using logic and reasoning against (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

This is the thirty-third update for the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief fund for the Lake Pontchartrain North Shore. This includes the Covington, Abita Springs, Mandeville, and Slidell, Louisiana area.

Pastor Michael Sprague of Trinity Evangelical Free Church of Covington, LA, has sent an E-Mail update discussing the Church with a new name.

“The Church of the Stained Carpet

A perplexing phenomenon is happening over and over with our work teams at Trinity that has me absolutely dumfounded, not knowing quite what to think. As the groups leave, many profusely thank me for the opportunity they have had to serve, and for the impact Trinity has had in blessing their lives. This seems so backwards. After all, we are the ones limping, crushed, hurting, desperate, and the recipients of their help. It seems to me that we should be thanking the teams one hundred fold (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

This is the thirty-fourth update for the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief fund for the Lake Pontchartrain North Shore. This includes the Covington, Abita Springs, Mandeville, and Slidell, Louisiana area.

Pastor Michael Sprague of Trinity Evangelical Free Church of Covington, LA, has sent an E-Mail update about the ministry on the North Shore.

“The Fellowship of the Burning Hearts

Two years ago Trinity Church went through “40 Days of Purpose.” It was excellent and many grew, but that time doesn’t compare to “50 Days of Katrina.” Christian pollsters have asked believers to look back on their lives and identify what has caused them to grow the most. The number one response was “suffering.” We might not want to hear that, but it is often true. It’s amazing how this crisis has created simplicity and purity of devotion to Jesus in me.

The Jesus I (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

This is the thirty-fifth update for the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief fund for the Lake Pontchartrain North Shore. This includes the Covington, Abita Springs, Mandeville, and Slidell, Louisiana area.

The following two audio messages are from Pastor Michael Sprague of Trinity Evangelical Free Church of Covington, LA., which he delivered to the Church on Sunday Mornings October 9, and 16th, 2005.

To listen to the messages you will need “Real Player”, which can be downloaded free of charge from here, (at the bottom of the page), for your operating system.

These recorded testimonies and messages are insights into how people survive catastrophic disasters. These audio files are not sermons in the usual sense of the word. They are interactions between Pastor Sprague and his congregaton which is made up of church members, visitors, and survivors of hurricane Katrina.

These Real Media files are between 15 and (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

Fox News, and CNN are reporting that Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination to become a Supreme Court Justice.

Here is a copy of her resignation letter on National Review.

As we stated here, we have a process, God is watching, and we trust in Him.

This is the thirty-sixth update for the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief fund for the Lake Pontchartrain North Shore. This includes the Covington, Abita Springs, Mandeville, and Slidell, Louisiana area.

Pastor Michael Sprague of Trinity Evangelical Free Church of Covington, LA, continues to update about the ministry on the North Shore.

“The Backside of the Hurricane

This week one of the team members told me about one of the families that were helped a few days ago on the Pearl River near Slidell. The family decided to ride out Katrina in their sturdy, raised home. Despite the ferocity of the hurricane, they thought that they had thankfully survived. The violence of the storm subsided and they went outside to enjoy the calm and survey the damage. For a few moments they experienced euphoria but that soon gave way to fear. They realized that they were in (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

This morning President Bush nominated Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to be the next Associate Justice to the Supreme Court.

This is an outstanding choice, and we congratulate the President on his choice. He has kept his promise to appoint justices in the mold of Scalia and Thomas. His nominee deserves an up or down vote by the Senate, and the nominee deserves to be treated with the respect he has earned.

The extreme left has already begun their attack. The best way to insure that Judge Alito is confirmed quickly and decisively is to insure that a Democrat filibuster never see the light of day.

The following is the contact information for the Republican members of the gang of fourteen:

Senator McCain E-mail Contact
(202) 224-2235

Senator Warner E-Mail Contact
(202) 224-2023

Senator DeWine Senator DeWine’s Website
(202) (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

Hugh Hewitt has put up a poll on the President’s nomination today. Click here to cast your opinion on Judge Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court.