All is well in NOLA

Sarah and I returned from the wilderness of South Carolina on Saturday not really knowing what to expect to see in our beloved city. We have never lived in a city prone to evacuation, much less one that was almost written off as a new marshland 3 short years ago. We returned 2 days after the city "re-opened" to find streets filled with leaves and branches/trees, street lights on the ground, signs blown over, and people cleaning up. There were long lines and full parking lots at the stores that were open, and many parking lots that are normally packed, were eerily bare because the stores had yet to receive their shipments of goods or workers had not yet returned so they could not open. Store parking lots that had not reopened since Katrina were used as staging areas for power crews, relief services, and city sponsored evacuation return locations. We also returned to our apartment to find that some things in the fridge had heated up to a point that they had exploded (biscuit can, milk jug, mustard), but were cool now that the power had returned. Life is not easy in a post-hurricane city, but it is great. We missed our city of a year and a half as if we had been born and raised here. What is it about a city that can do that to you?? We could name off things we love, but I do not think that "things" are what we love about the city, its the city we love, its Gods leading and continuing to spur us on to live a life for him in the city so that the lost people of the city can see and hear that the Lord is good. While we did not sustain any hurricane damage at our house, by the grace of God, we do feel the pain of the people who did lose something in the storm, all the residents of the city lost something this week, We lost the chance to live and love in the city for a long grueling week. May God place his hand over Cuba, Florida, and the rest of the gulf as Ivan comes this way. God is a great big God and he holds us in His hands!!