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

This is the final report for Grace Team 4 written by Team Leader, Tom Pflederer.

“January 16, 2006, New Orleans

Lake Pontchartrain is the second largest salt-water lake in the United States, some 600 square miles of water, a small ocean. In the middle of the 24-mile long North Causeway that crosses it, all shore lines pass out of view and the horizon is an unbroken line of water and sky. One night we watch a breath-taking sunset fade to darkness and the light of a full moon dancing on the surface of the churning water, a dazzling display of beauty.

Lake Pontchartrain is also a geographic and topographic nightmare, a doomsday scenario of unfathomable proportions for sub-sea level New Orleans. By the time our team arrives to gut houses in the northern neighborhoods, the breeches have been repaired, the waters have been pumped, and the media attention has subsided. But the devastation that the entire area wakes up to every day is still a harsh reality.

The landscape is stunning: Neighborhood after neighborhood filled with houses, now abandoned, almost all with waterlines at least halfway up the walls, parts of roofs missing, sometimes still bearing the red spray-painted markings left by rescue workers in boats, debris still scattered randomly on roadsides and in yards. Trees fallen on houses and cars, still untouched four months later. Cars, truck, buses—exteriors dented and pierced, interiors fuzzy with mold—parked at crazy angles in odd places or sandwiched together like sticks of chewing gum or wrapped around overpass pillars. Virtually everyone we talked with in New Orleans said they had lost everything.

The very proposition of our team’s work is preposterous. We enter someone’s home and go through their drawers and closets and shelves. We drag all their personal belongings and household furnishings out into the front yard, throwing it all into a huge pile. Then we take sledge hammers and crowbars to the walls, systematically destroying the inside of the house, leaving only a skeleton of 2 by 4 studs.

Trinity Evangelical Free Church in Covington, just across the Causeway, has been transformed into a raw-edge, frontline ministry center. “We used to be a safe, comfortable, God-fearing kind of church,” says its pastor, Michael Sprague. “No more. It’s unsafe. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable. We are having to moment by moment by moment depend upon the Holy Spirit. Love has had to be taken to a whole new level. We are having to look to God for everything, because we can’t make it up on our own anymore.”

After Katrina, Trinity added staff with experience in relief work and project management, opened up its worship center during the week as sleeping quarters for volunteers, and now hosts and sends out teams that come from all over the country into the devastated neighborhoods, some to tear down, others to rebuild, the hands and feet of Jesus. We are given clear and unmistakable instructions: This is not about houses. This is about people. When you’re out in the neighborhoods and you see people, stop what you’re doing and approach them. Tell them who you are, why you’re there. Listen to their stories. Weep with them. Hug them. Find out how you can pray for them, and then circle up and do it.

Each member of the Chatham part of the team has left a special mental snapshot in my mind. Lucy approaches a couple of ladies who are stopping traffic for a heavy equipment operator smoking a cigarette, pulls them all into a prayer circle with the whole team, and we pray with them and for them. One of the ladies declares Lucy a “woman of God.”

Emily walks out of a house that we are gutting, sits down and says, “This is really emotional.” She and Zach take a walk around the block to talk to neighbors they spot across the back yard, and come back exhilarated at having ministered to a total stranger. When we go out to eat one night, Nikki, a waitress herself, notices a waitress who is wearing obvious signs of fatigue and worry and stress, strikes up a conversation and tries to encourage her. She and Stephanie volunteer to pray in the circle we often form in front of houses.

Matt and Ron are relentless warriors of grace, quietly leaving behind a trail of simple acts of kindness. Matt gives one of his own tools to an appreciative homeowner, whom he knows will need it. As we clean out the vehicles, Ron walks around asking, “Do you have any trash I can take care of for you?” Saying goodbye, four strapping young college guys from Mizzou surround Ron and squeeze him into a collective bear hug.

Crossing over Lake Pontchartrain on our last trip out of New Orleans, Matt and I read from Proverbs, talk about our families, ponder the churning waves and the city lights beyond them, and try to comprehend our experience. Honestly, the contrasting images of utter despair and hope offered are still too much for me to take in completely. It’s enough now simply to know that God knew this day would come and go, and that through it all, from the ashes, He is again speaking beauty and grace.”

This is a photo of the combined Team 4, consisting of members from Grace Community Chapel, Chatham Bible Church and the Mizzou Chapter of RUF.

The following pictures are just a portion of the ministry they accomplished:

And this:

Along with this:

There are still thousands of home that look just like this one, still waiting for volunteer teams to help restore life to the way it was.

In order to help those who need it so desperately, please consider a contribution to the combined efforts of this blog and Grace Community Chapel of St. Peters, MO, in raising money and volunteers for ministry teams to be sent to Trinity Evangelical Free Church in Covington, LA, to be distributed locally to the Lake Pontchartrain North Shore and New Orleans area. You will find detailed donation information by clicking here.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 21st, 2006 at 8:21 am and is filed under Katrina North Shore Relief. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Tags: Hurricane Katrina, Katrina, New Orleans, North Shore, St. Tammany Parrish