Last night, I was privileged to take part in a special meeting of the Marble Falls church leadership to pray over the needs in the Gulf Coast and discuss our response to those needs.
Evacuees from all over the Gulf Coast have made their way into the state of Texas, most heading, or being transported to, the urban centers of Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio. Last night, we prayed that God would send to us people who are in need.
At Marble Falls, we have housing ready for at least 25 people and those some initial leads for those who might need employment. Via this blog, if you might know of someone in need of housing, food, and employment in a community with excellent schools, please send me an email (jim.gardner@hotmail.com).
Meanwhile, our elders have made a wonderful statement by committing a sizeable amount from the treasury to go to the White's Ferry Road Relief effort. The Carrollton Avenue church, via one of their elders, Fred Franke, has recommended White's Ferry Road's Relief Ministry as a worthy contribution site.
Next Sunday, we will collect a Special Contribution from among the members that will go to provide relief.
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For a moving, insightful chronicle of Hurricane Katrina and its personal effects, please read Dee Andrews' blog. Dee is a member of the Tammany Oaks church outside of New Orleans. Her story is riveting.
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This morning, as Mandy and I were talking over the fresh scenes out of the Gulf Coast, she suggested, "What if every church suspended their mission trips and funneled all the money to be spent on foreign missions to the Gulf Coast?"
With the massive rebuilding effort ahead on the Gulf Coast, it will require personal sacrifice on the part of us all. Hey, our new home building plans will be put on hold for who knows how long due to the inevitable spike in the cost of lumber and construction materials.
That massive rebuilding effort will not be as "glorious" as traveling to a third world country on another continent. The post-trip report won't be as engaging as the Powerpoint slides of typical mission trips.
Yet the scenes out of New Orleans look third world and the needs are certainly as dismal.
With incredible poverty, homelessness, destruction -- even "genocide" as one refugee at the New Orleans Convention Center said this morning -- the mission field, moreso now than ever before, exists right here in our own backyard.
And that is an ideal moment for the missional people of Jesus to show the way of Jesus to the world.
