Praying for the Gulf Coast

It may be days and weeks before the full impact of Hurricane Katrina is fully realized. My thoughts and prayers are with the poor folks who've lost loved ones, homes, pets, livelihoods...

I'm reminded of Zora Neal Hurston's fictitionalized account of the hurricane that caused lake Okechobee to overrun and flood the Florida Everglades in her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God:

They stepped out in water almost to their buttocks and managed to turn east..Dodging flying missiles, floating dangers, avoiding stepping in holes and warmed on the wind now at their backs until they gained comparatively dry land. They had to fight to keep from being pushed the wrong way and to hold together. They saw other popele like themselves struggling along. A house down, here and there, frightened cattle. But above all the drive of the wind and the water. And the lake. Under its multiplied roar could be heard a mighty sound of grinding rock and timber and a wail. They looked back. Saw people trying to run in raging waters and screaming when they found they couldn't. A huge barrier of the makings of the dike to which the cabins had been added was rolling and tumbling forward. Ten feet higher and as far as they could see the muttering wall advanced before the raced-up waters like a road crusher on a cosmic scale. The monstropolous beast had left his bed. The two hundred miles an hour wind had loosed his chains. He seized hold of his dikes and ran forward until he met the quarters; uprooted them like grass and rushed on after his supposed-to-be conquerors, rolling the dikes, rolling the houses, rolling the people in the houses along with other timbers. The sea was walking the earth with a heavy heel.

The damage and destruction, the horrors of hurricane Katrina are only just coming to light for the rest of the world to see. We can only guess the terror of those who died in it, the devastation of those who lived through it.

We can help:

Contact the Red Cross to donate money, time, or blood. There is currently a critical shortage in the nation's blood supply right now, so if you can't give money, give blood.

Or you can make a secure online donation to the Salvation Army's disaster relief efforts.

Most of all please pray for the rescuers and volunteers working around the clock to locate and aid survivors. Pray for those who are desperately seeking word about missing loved ones. Pray for the many thousands who are now suddenly homeless and destitute.

Please pray...