Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

Life continues to be a challenge from day to day, hour by hour, and it looks like it’s going to be so for many months to come. We weathered the weekend well here at the house, but parts of low lying Slidell didn’t. Many neighborhoods down closer to the lake and some of the bayous had high water in them, again.

While not as high as with Katrina, water in the house is still water in the house and means that one must start all over again in the cleanup.

I’ve been "out and about" every day for the past week with various doctor appointments and errands and thus haven’t gotten much of anything else at all done.

That’s because of the continuing bumper to bumper, stop and go traffic all through town from the population explosion the past month. It is so bad that you must think about using the bathroom before you leave home, taking water or a drink with you and making sure you have plenty of gasoline for the trip, or know of a gas station that is open (many of them aren’t) and has gasoline available (many of them don’t) not too far away.

It took me 50 minutes on Friday to find somewhere I could drop off a few bills that needed mailing. I didn’t want to put them out in our mail box because of so many "strange" people driving around through the neighborhood. The first time our house flooded 10 years ago, someone stole a credit card application out of our mailbox, took out a credit card and ran up a huge bill on it in Tom’s name. It was not a good experience at all and we don’t want it repeated.

Going to the grocery store is still an ordeal. Bread is still hard to find, except white, "fluffy" bread that has no nutrients! Cheese is nearly impossible to find.

There is lots of peanut butter and grape jelly sitting out, but very few soft drinks. Many, many items are completely out of stock or in very limited brands and supply.

Things for us, even, then are still far from normal. Although, as of this week, we are no longer housing varying numbers of boarders. At least not temporarily. It changes from day to day.

I was having to call Tom each afternoon at work to find out how many "guests" we were going to have for dinner each night and to spend the night.

It is the same for just about everyone who has a less damaged house for as many miles as you can drive for nearly a day, now. Or even further.

Those of us who have relatively intact homes and any spare room at all are sharing our homes with all of those who have no place to stay.

In our case, it’s mostly been reporters and people working with Tom at the newspaper, although we’ve had close friends in and out, too.

I’ve been busy writing, as well.

One of the many things I worked on during the first three weeks after Katrina was an article I was asked to write by "Christian Chronicle," a 36 page monthly newsletter with a circulation of several hundred thousand. That article has now been published and can be read at the Chronicle’s website online.

It will also appear in the Chronicle’s October print issue, which is already being delivered.

So, if you’d like to read my online article, go to Christian Chronicle, scroll down the page to the heading, "Inside Story," to "Views: Despite Katrina’s despair, God will put puzzle together," my article.

Please, please remember and continue to pray for the several million people in the obliterated areas. For most of you reading this, life has already pretty much returned to normal and you have gone on and moved on to other, newer events and happenings.

But for several million other Americans, life won’t return to normal for even years to come. I predicted that immediately after learning about the true depth of the desolation and have not wavered in that prediction. If anything, I see more and more how much worse things really are than I first thought.

So, pray for us. Pray for us all, that God will lift us up and give us the strength and energy to carry on and to spread His love to all we meet. And everyone we meet is hurt. They all need God’s love, and we must bring it to them.