Countdown to 30: Day 11

(Hurricane Katrina cont.) At some point I remember getting a call from Keayea, Birdie's sister. They were in Houston after getting out of New Orleans and driving two days. I remember listening. I listened a lot on the phone during that time. I do not remember everything that she was telling me, and got the story quite confused as I tried to tell it to others, but all I knew is they were safe. I couldn't believe it though until I talked to Birdie. I had to talk to him. It was bothering me that I had not talked to him since before the storm, but I was able to talk to him that night.

I had daily phone calls with the missionary at the Center who had evacuated to her parents' home in Kentucky. We would update each other on who we had heard from. We figured out that text messages were going through on 504 numbers whereas phone calls were not as reliable. I was not a texter at that time. I would call the one family that remained in the neighborhood daily to find out if they had received any assistance (and to make sure they had put an axe in the attic just in case). At some point, they stopped answering their phone.

I pretty much started living on autopilot. I had many conversations with people that consisted of where are you at, what is your phone number there, and then listening as they complained about shelters, lack of assistance, lack of money, etc. Everyone was grieving, including me, because the one thing that we all knew for sure is that nothing would ever be normal again. The way of life prior to the storm was gone.

There are many stories of God's provision, a few of which I will share in the coming days. One of those stories involves a family who called me from Baton Rouge. They had no gas left (at least not to go much further than Baton Rouge), it was hard to find gas. They did not have a place to stay because the family member they thought they could stay with had a houseful already. The only thing they knew to do was call me, and I had no way to help them. After getting off the phone with them, I checked my e-mail, and there was an e-mail from a college friend whose family lived in Baton Rouge and wanted to help if I knew of anyone needing help. Several frustrating phone calls later as I tried to direct the two families to a meeting spot, this family of a college friend was able to provide some immediate assistance to this family from New Orleans. It is awesome still to think how God worked that out.