Friends,
Here is a quick note to keep you in the loop and help you to pray specifically. Here is a sampling of the human toll interacting with folks in the last day:
1. A church family lost their house completely in Slidell. Everything is gone. Yet a couple drove their 5th wheel from Michigan and gave it to them for free. God provided. Yea God!
2. Another family lost their home. Trees destroyed it. Someone is letting them live in their home until December. Yea God!
3. An attorney lost his entire law office. The hurricane set off the sprinkler system and it rained inside the building for 2 days. The building needs to be gutted. Pray.
4. My staff helped a tough 80 year old man remove debris. He started to cry and said this was the first time in his life anyone has ever helped him for nothing.
5. One family stopped into the church after seeing our sign “Free Food, Free Water”. We helped them and then the team gathered around and prayed for a specific family need. One hour later they called and said God answered the prayer and their faith was restored.
6. One man I talked to had yet to hear if many of his New Orleans relatives survived Katrina and he was searching desperately for them
7. One Middle Eastern man wanted to know if Katrina was God’s judgment on the French Quarter and New Orleans for wickedness. This question gave me an opportunity to share the gospel of Christ.
8. One of our men had a Mexican young man show up on his property. He was lonely, disoriented and hungry. He had bicycled out of Slidell in the hurricane to escape the flood waters. He had not eaten for days and didn’t know where to go.
The list could go on and on. Everyone has a story.
Praise:
1. Power is being restored to neighborhoods immediately surrounding the church.
2. Relief teams have arrived from California, Ohio, Maryland, and Illinois. A team from North Carolina comes tomorrow. A man came from Texas to cook for the teams.
3. We had a spirit led, God honoring worship service yesterday. We rejoiced in being alive. The church is being the church – caring, loving, listening, mobilizing.
Prayer:
1. Pray for spiritual revival and renewal. God has our attention. Pray for a spirit of surrender and yieldedness to the calls of God.
2. Pray that we let our light shine in such a way that people see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven. This happens one person at a time. As one person said, “Jesus is in us. Now He wants to come out of us.” The opportunities are endless. Last night our half dazed, hot and tired neighbors were outside. With no A/C since the hurricane they weren’t sleeping at night. After getting a generator in our bedroom, we invited them to stay in our bed and we went to another house. They were grateful.
3. Pray for my staff. Burnout is easy in these situations and we have just set up a rotation to get people out for 2 days at a time.
4. Pray for wisdom in setting up organizational structures to sustain the effort over many months.
5. Pray for our church families who have no jobs or who have jobs now in jeopardy. Pray for those who lost homes or have great damage. Pray for wisdom as schools are out and life is difficult. My guess is that over half the church is scattered throughout the south. Some people are moving out of state. Pray for wisdom.
There is so much more. Got to go. Ask the Holy Spirit to take my meager prayers and communicate them right to the Father. He will!
Betting the farm on God,
Michael
Trinity Church's News Blog Updates are not dated
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