Remember those pics I posted a few days ago of the kids I worked with in New Orleans and the mural we painted on the mission trip? Well I just received an email from the director of Trinity Christian Community, Kevin Brown, and wow, the reality set in...read this email my mission trip group received from Kevin:

The good news is, we're alive and safe. The bad news is that along
with hundreds of thousands, we're homeless and hurting. Our website,
www.trinitychristiancommunity.org will continue to update our lives as
they unfold. Our email address, trinitychristiancommunity@hotmail.com
is still active and we are monitoring it as we get access to email.
We have an address where you can send money (don't send anything else
just yet, we don't have a place to put relief supplies until we locate
warehouse space). This is it:

1022 S. Purpera Ave.
Suite A
Gonzales, LA 70737

337-315-4190

Here is our journal from the hurricane.

Saturday. Up at 6 AM I planned to help coordinate a community gardens
project, where a group of us planted vegetable gardens for community
residents who struggled to afford food. We spent the entire day
laying out 13 such gardesn. It was hot work, and as it turns out,
quite futile.

Asked if we would evacuate, we told our pastor we would wait and see.
At that point Katrina was still too far away; these storms often veer
away unpredictably. Leah, our youngest, had a premonition that we
shyould leave. We shushed her and told her all would be OK, we would
make the correct decision when the time came.

In retrospect, planting gardens while ignoring my daughter's pleas may
seem the height of foolishness. That was, however, when things still
made sense.

Sunday. My brother called at 6:30 AM. My initial reaction was anger,
I had to awake early for the second time that weekend and would get no
rest at all. Little did I know but that was a harbinger of things to
come.

Jonathan, my policeman brother, told me that this would be the BIG ONE
and that we needed to get out of town. You've seen pictures of those
who didn't evacuate and probably judged them to be stupid. You
probably don't know that for 2 days (really all the warning we had)
long lines of cars flooded all the major outbound arteries leaving the
city. A one hour trip now took many. It was wall-to-wall congestion
with tempers flaring. It's not easy to get everyone out of a major
city in two days.

Seeing this, we spent several hours boarding up all our windows.
Again, it's easy in retrospect to judge us as moving too slowly, but
we had no idea we'd not be allowed to return home for months and that
we probably would lose everything anyway. After several hours of
this, we packed our most precious belongings (perhaps the first time
we truly began to acknowledge the danger). For me it was my guitars.
For my 13 yearl-old son Seth, it was his iPod and skateboard. Twelve
year-old Chloe packed her faithful dog Beaux. Leah took her stuffed
animals. Ever the wise wife, Sandy took our important papers.

We took the Causeway Bridge over to Abita Springs, a northern
suburb/rural town. It is one hour north of the city and ultimately
directly in the path of the storm. My 84 year old father, my sister
and brother-in law with their 3 kids, Sandy and myself along with our
3 children and dog, my brother, his girlfriend, her elderly mother and
their dog all piled into the house. Hours before the storm hit we
lost power and decided to head farther inland, to a small fishing camp
in Ville Platte, LA, Cajun Country. Three families piled into a
rustic fishing camp with two tiny bedrooms.

Monday. Wth limited TV access and no radio, we sat in the tiny cabin
and watched as the storm blew in around us. We wondered if the cabin
would blow off the stilts on which it was built. It was scary, but we
knew that we were the lucky ones. Friends and loved ones had no means
to leave the city, we prayed and worried and wondered who survived.
Many of those we loved dearly had no cars and no way of leaving.
Still others had stayed to protect what little they had from the
looters that they knew would try to steal their stuff after the storm.
The poor are always the biggest victims in tragic situations. Even
then we thought we would be home in days to repair the damage.

At that point, unbeknownst to us, we were homeless refugees with only
the clothes on our backs. But we were alive and together! With
nothing to do and nowhere to go, we went to the movies and wandered
the mall. The radio announcers told us all was lost and that it would
be 4 to 6 months before we could get back to survey the damage. That
was when reality hit!

Tuesday. Caleb, my brother-in-law, my father and I decided to try to
sneak back into the city to rescue a few items and our pets that were
locked inside our houses. The normally 3 hour trip took us over five.
At each police checkpoint we were told to go back. For several hours
we weaved our way throught the devastation, inching closer to home.

Most of the power and utility poles were down. Huge, ancient trees
covered the roadway. Dead animals were everywhere. With only 15
miles left to home we hit our final snag, a huge tree lying in the
road. Caleb tried to drive onto the levee around the tree but got
stuck in the mud. The sheriff's deputies found us and helped pull us
out. They told us to go back.

Throughout the drive we prayed for friends and loved ones. With no
phone service we couldn't reach anyone. That was perhaps the most
painful and frustrating part. Two of our staff, Ronald and Chantel
had tried to weather the storm. We couldn't reach them and assumed
them dead because they were in the parts of town hardest hit (we later
found out they had made it to the Superdome but lost touch after
that). Both of them are my spiritual children and had emerged as
rising stars in our leadership development programs.

We had left early and it was very late when we got back to our
families. All in all it was a waste of gas and only served to deepen
our despair.

Wednesday. Many tears, much anguish, incredible despair. Would we
ever see any of our friends again? Would our city look the same? Had
we lost everything? Where would we find housing? What about school
for the kids? How would we live without our sources of income?

That night a friend came over to tell us she had gotten a new job and
a new home. In one town alone over 100 new homes had already been
sold. There were no rental units anywhere. It looked hopeless. We
debated what to do. If we went North to Sandy's family we'd have a
place to stay but that would be a betrayal of God's call to seek the
Shalom of New Orleans, the city where he had planted us (Jeremiah
29:7). Every decision we tried to make seemed right but after
discussion seemed wrong. We were totally lost and confused.

Sometime during the night Caleb decided the best thing to do was to
travel to Gonzales, a town midway between New Orleans and Baton Rouge,
and establish a business address. He would also try to find places
for us to live. Sondra, my sister, her boys and my dad would head to
St. Louis to be with family. We we would drive to Michigan to be with
family and to raise some money to help us live and continue to
minister.

Thursday. In a caravan we headed through rural Louisiana toward the
safety of the North. All we had was each other and we worried about
getting separated because phone service was so spotty that there was
no guarantee we could get back in touch. Gas prices were
skyrocketing, lines were up to three hours and traffic was heavy. I
had been in touch with the Christian Broadcasting Network's Operation
Blessing and had agreed to meet them in Jackson, MS to help them map
out a strategy for the relief effort. My family went on ahead of me.

As feared, I had trouble finding them because the phones weren't
working. At midnight we reconnected in Blytheville, Arkansas. We
cuddled together in a hotel room and tried to envision our new future.

Friday. Caleb called to say he had found housing in Gonzales. Now we
worried about how to pay the mortgage on our house while paying rent.
Although our house may be totally devastated, it is the only
significant asset we have and we cannot afford to just give it up. We
also need clothes as we left with three outfits per person. Sondra is
worried that she may lose her marketing business. All of our children
have lost their friends who are relocating around the country. And we
still have not heard from loved ones.

We stop at a rest stop, now separated from each other. Sondra is
going to St. Louis and is on another highway. We are on the way to
Michigan. Caleb calls to say he is enrolling our kids in public
school in Prairieville, LA. Our kids are freaked out because they
don't know anyone there. They just want to be homeschooled because
they don't want to make new friends, go to a new school and wear
strange uniforms. We comfort them the best we can, relieved on the
one hand with the emerging stability but hurting for our children at
the same time.

In Naperville some church friends give us cash and pray with us. Seth
and I have dinner with them. Sandy drives ahead in the other vehicle
to see family. Over dinner I break down in tears for the first time
in the saftey of friends who care, but worried that my tears will
scare Seth who wanted to be sure that I wasn't alone so stayed with
me. They have bought us two bags of comfort food and toiletries.
They commit to praying for us and sending teams to help us rebuild in
the months ahead.

That night Sandy and I look at each other with exhausted, blank
expressions and try to find words for our grief. As things become
more settled, the adrenaline abates and the emotions start to work
their way out. For two days of driving we have been on the phone
trying to raise support, assure people that we are still viable and
find lost friends. We have made hundreds of calls between us and have
talked to as many people as possible. We still don't know where many
of our lost friends and associates are.

Saturday. A friend loans me his computer. I get up early with only a
few hours of sleep and begin to answer hundreds of emails. Reid
Carpenter, a dear friend and head of the Leadership Foundations of
America, calls to tell me not to worry. He promises immediate cash
for our needs and pledges long term support for the rebuilding
process. He assures us that hundreds of people across the nation are
aware of our needs and are behind us. One of our lost friends calls
from Houston to tell us she is safe. I tell her we can find a place
for her family to live in Houston.

Mrs. Vivian Wricks, a grandmother raising 10 granchildren, calls in
tears to say they are safe but cannot locate one of the grandchildren
who got stuck in New Iberia, LA. I am able to reassure her that I
will pick him up and bring him to her as soon as she hears more. The
relief is powerful and I have become part of the relief effort. The
future is both bleak and hopeful.

Things are starting to look up.

Keep us in your prayers.

Love,
Kevin and Sandy