"A Bible study," I told myself. "That’s what I’ll do. Yes, a ladies only Bible study!"

Starting a Bible study just seemed like a logical next step toward sharing the gospel with the people of Spring Lake, my divinely arranged mission field. And inviting only women made me feel a little less frightened.

But first, I needed to find out who was in charge of the camp and make sure that my plan was okay. I didn’t really figure that the Baptists who owned the camp would object to another Baptist sharing the gospel, but in my very heart of hearts, I still had an unuttered hope that perhaps I would be told that my help really wasn’t necessary after all. Then the divine dare would surely be off. Also, I had some rather vague fears concerning radical liberals descending upon the camp and taking away FEMA money, or something even worse, suing, because the name of Jesus was used in the vicinity of government funding. I wanted to be sure that I didn’t mess up the mythical balance of church and state in the extremely unlikely event that someone from the ACLU happened to be volunteering at the camp!

So I set out in search of the camp’s top dog.

There were official looking people everywhere. There was a man with a bullhorn shouting out the departure times of vans going to the Red Cross and to Wal-mart. There was a lady under a canopy handing out name badges and a gentleman directing the steady stream of cars that were arriving stuffed full of donated items. A man wearing scrubs was taking medical information. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear the noise of a whole crew of men and women cooking in the kitchen. It seemed that there were almost as many volunteers as there were evacuees. And if it hadn’t been for the general guide of skin color - black, evacuee - white, volunteer – it would not have been possible to tell the two apart. Pretty much everyone looked totally bewildered.

But who was actually in charge of all the mayhem? I asked the bullhorn guy. He shrugged and said, "A big guy in overalls," as he motioned me away from a departing van. I asked the name tag lady. "Brother Jerry," was her matter-of-fact answer, before she quickly turned her attention elsewhere. Okay, that helped a little. I wanted to ask the man wearing the scrubs, but before I could tell him what I wanted, he pushed me to the back of the line and told me that I had to wait my turn to see the doctor like everyone else. Someone muttered, "No breaking in line."

So I stood in the middle of the courtyard and just looked.

Beside the road, near where the vans were loading, I saw a group of people clustered around what appeared to be a rather large man. He stood, gray head, above most of the waiting crowd, but I could not make out his facial features because he constantly stooped, ear turned down, as if trying to hear the voices coming from below. Even though I couldn’t make out individual words, occasionally, I could hear a voice come booming out of the ring of people around him. He seemed to be giving orders.

Just as I moved closer for a look, the crowd parted for just an instant to allow a young man to leave the inner circle. As he ran toward an awaiting van he called back over his shoulder, "I’ll take care of it, Brother Jerry!" And before the crowd could fill the gap in the circle, I looked into its middle where I could see that the large man was wearing a pair of blue overalls. I had found the top dog.

Joining the outer edge of the group, I waited for my turn to meet Brother Jerry. He was fielding all sorts of questions, most of which I didn’t understand and don’t remember. I wasn’t paying too much attention to his answers because I was too busy planning what I was going to say when, and if, I ever found my way into the inner circle. After about five minutes or so, as if by magic, he dismissed the crowd with a wave of his hand and turned to go.

Undaunted, I chased after him.

"Brother Jerry, please, may I ask you a question?" I begged.

He turned around, and without looking at me, pointed his ear in my direction.

"Make it quick! You’ve got one minute," he boomed. "Elaine’s waiting for me."

It dawned on me that he might be a bit hard of hearing, so I spoke up nice and clear.

"I was wondering if … I mean since there are lots of other people here taking care of the physical needs," I stuttered, "I, … uh…I was wondering if it would be alright if I concentrated on spiritual needs instead?"

There. It was out. It sounded pretty silly, not at all what I had meant to say. It sounded like I was saying that I didn’t want to do any more physical work. It had a "Holier Than Thou" ring to it too.

What I said must have got his attention, because Brother Jerry, for the first time, looked me full in the face as if studying me. Instantly, I recognized him. We had met once before. I thought back to the very first day that I came to Spring Lake. It was the day that I brought styrofoam cups and plates. Carrying a heaping armful of them, I had gone into the cafeteria that day, looking for someone to tell me where to put down my load. There had been a large man behind the serving counter filling up a drink dispenser with orange juice. When he saw me, he began to shake all over. His eyes squeezed closed and his lips moved silently. I thought the man was having a seizure, and was honestly contemplating sounding an alarm, when he suddenly snapped out of his fit and pointed to a cabinet, mumbling what appeared to be a "Thank You!" in my general direction.

And now, here I was face to face with the same man. I began to mentally compose answers to the questions that I imagined would surely be asked. Who was I? What church did I attend? What were my qualifications? My doctrinal views?

Unbelievably, as he looked steadily into my eyes, he began to shake again, like a leaf in a storm. His eyes squeezed closed and his lips uttered silent words. It was that seizure thing again. Was he shaking with emotion? What kind of emotion? I wasn’t exactly sure. Were tears glistening behind those wrinkled eyelids?

Just as quickly as the storm came, it departed. Brother Jerry smiled. His big hand thumped me on the back just a little harder than I preferred to be thumped.

"You are an answer to prayer, girl!" he boomed. Then with his own sort of Great Commission he ordered, "Go, go. Go and do it."

He turned, and was gone before I could ask any more questions.

I stood in the dusty courtyard, now unaware of the mayhem around me, wondering what had just happened.

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The next day the mission field arrived by bus from Fort Chaffee. This military encampment located in the Ozark mountains near Fort Smith, Arkansas, was the processing center chosen by Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee, for all Katrina evacuees seeking shelter in the state of Arkansas. (This was not the first time that Ft. Chaffee had been a place of shelter. In 1975, Ft. Chaffee was a refugee camp for South Vietnamese fleeing Sài Gòn at the close of the Vietnam War. In 1980, Cubans refugees seeking to live permanently in the U.S were housed there.) Since Ft. Chaffee is approximately 700 miles away from New Orleans, for many of the people, uprooted by Katrina, this was the farthest they had ever been from the place they called home.

They had endured a long bus trip to get there, but what tested the evacuees more, was the grueling wait for registration after they arrived at Ft. Chaffee. Almost a full week after Katrina struck, many had been without a hot meal for days, and could not remember the last time they had a bath. Most were looking for their loved ones, separated as they boarded buses in New Orleans.

To add to their trauma, they were told to get right back on those same buses, bound for an unknown destination described only as a camp, 200 miles back in the direction from which they had just come. The trip should have taken only 3 ½ or 4 hours, but because of communication problems, it took almost twelve.

The eleven buses arrived in the dead of night. When they pulled up at the camp, their passengers were like the living dead. Confusion reigned. Misunderstandings had caused some to think that they were being taken to a prison compound where they would be locked up. Fear and despair were gnawing away at wounded spirits, but total exhaustion dulled the bite.

Preconceived ideas of racial conflict plagued both the evacuees and the volunteers waiting at the camp. When the buses pulled up and the evacuees saw a crowd of white people staring at them, a man on one of the buses broke into sobs of fear, "I don’t want to be around so many white folks." he exclaimed. Whether they would admit it or not, there where those in the waiting crowd whose emotions mirrored his. Spring Lake Baptist Camp is located in the tiny community of Lonsdale, Arkansas. When those buses arrived, the population of the campground became three times the population of the surrounding town. The racial balance shifted accordingly.

Another long wait ensued while lists of names were checked and rechecked, but people finally began to step down off the buses where, much to their surprise, they were greeted with applause, cheers, and hugs from the crowd. Each group of four or five evacuees, or "guests" as they were called, was assigned a "host". The host promptly escorted his group of guests to the cafeteria where tables of steaming hot food were waiting. After a good hot supper, each group of guests was escorted by flashlight to a lodge where a bed with fresh linens was ready. On each bed was a small bundle of toiletries including a towel, wash cloth, soap, lotion, toothpaste and brush, deodorant, and other personal items. The host showed each of his guests around the lodge to which they were assigned, making sure that there were no other immediate needs that should be addressed - medical concerns or pets, for example - before bidding the new arrival farewell. Hosts then headed home in the wee hours of the morning with a promise of return the next day.

Several weeks later, as I sat eating breakfast with some of the ladies that came in on those buses, I asked them to tell me what that first night was like from their point of view. They talked about the fears that they experienced coming into a very dark, strange place in the middle of the night, completely and totally exhausted. Their fears sounded silly in the light of day, but we all know how night inflates little fears into terrors. One lady said that she was scared of the woods. In the urban environment of her New Orleans neighborhood, trees were for the park. And parks were dangerous places after dark. Another woman shivered and explained that she hated the sight of the dark mountain across from the lake. "I was afraid it would fall on me!" she said. Her mountain was actually little more than a small rolling hill, but her fear of an avalanche was very real. Some confided in me privately that they were mostly afraid of the volunteers. They wondered what kind of people we were.

But everyone to whom I talked agreed on one thing. Within a few minutes of getting off of those buses, they felt …well … safe! Hot food, showers, clean beds and plenty of hugs had brought about a feeling of security for the first time in a week.

For the first few days after their arrival, the evacuees spent most of their time just trying to get their fundamental needs met. Some stood in lines, hoping to see a doctor and arrange for medications and eyeglasses lost in floodwaters. Others waited for their chance to go through piles of donated shoes and clothing, searching for something close to the right size. The handful of donated washers and dryers, hastily hooked up behind the cafeteria, ran non-stop as almost four hundred people tried to wash the few clothes they owned. Waiting for an opportunity to use a telephone was maddening. Almost everyone was trying to contact someone else just to let him or her know that they were alive. Volunteers brought computers to the camp and searched for hours through long lists of names on the Red Cross and other rescue organization web sites. Other volunteers wrote down names and hurried home to search on their own home computers for vital information lost in the flood, things like the addresses and phone numbers of banks, employers, and insurance companies. The trauma of the last week had even caused long-memorized necessities like social security numbers and family names to be wiped from the memory.

When I think back to that early time at Spring Lake, during the first few days, there was one object that, for me, came to symbolize the general feeling of the entire camp. Somewhere along the way, during the journey between New Orleans and Spring Lake, each person had been given a single white plastic bag to carry his or her possessions in. These bags were clutched. They were clung to. They were guarded and treasured. No one would have thought of leaving his bag unguarded on his bed. That attitude of clutching and clinging was tangible all over the camp. Mothers grasped their children. Husbands and wives entwined. Some, especially the elderly, clung to their beds, hardly leaving them, even for meals. Others grabbed every physical possession that they could get their hands on, stuffing their bags to the bursting point with tracts, newspapers, and magazines, free toiletry samples, snacks and bottled drinks. Hands squeezed phones so tightly that they seemed to have adhered to the plastic. It was as if every person was hanging on to something for dear life.

And then there were those who clung to their little green books. One afternoon during that busy first week, I leaned against the balcony railing on the upper floor of Faith Lodge for just a moment to catch my breath. While there, I counted at least a couple dozen people in the courtyard below holding fast to their Bibles. Whether they clutched them for the right reason or not, I didn’t know; but I was encouraged by the fact that at least some folks had chosen to hold on to the one thing that could show the way to Dear Life. With that thought, I was gently reminded that the Almighty had taken my dare and was waiting for me to keep my promise.

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There was one item that Mr. Clarence Jones left behind besides his sandals. And the fact that he left this particular item puzzled me greatly. Months later, it still does. He seemed to place much value on it. I can not remember seeing him without it and several times I saw him sitting, cupping it in his hands, studying it. Perhaps he did not know what to do with it, its purpose and its place in his life. Perhaps he saw it as something that belonged only to Spring Lake Baptist Camp and had no value in the world where he was going. Or maybe he just left it because he wanted to share it with the next man who would claim his vacated bed. I just don’t know.

I am talking about his Bible.

When arriving at the camp, one of the first things that the guests of Spring Lake received, right after food, a shower and a bunk, was a Bible. They were the small, green, King James New Testament variety that years ago I remember a Gideon handing out at my elementary school. The evacuees received them gladly!

I can understand that need for God’s Word. If I lost all of my possessions, I believe that one of the first things for which I would ask is a Bible. Put a Bible in my hand, and I can find all sorts of truths to grab on to. I can know the height and depth of Jesus’ love for me (Ephesians 3) and I can say with confidence that nothing will separate me from that love (Romans 8). I can bless the name of the Lord along with Job in the middle of despair (Job 1). I can walk with David through the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23) and cling like a tick on a dog’s back to Jesus’ description of "His Father’s House" (John 14). The Bible is the tangible, holdable, proof of God’s promises to me. But without it, I go blank. I feel spiritually stupid. Without it, I am just relying on my memory, and my memory isn’t so good.

I am sure that some of the evacuees at Spring Lake felt that way, too. I met a few dear saints who in those first days after arriving at the camp were hungrily eating God’s word. To them, a few days without physical food at the Superdome paled compared to a few days without spiritual food at the time they needed it the most.

On the other hand, I believe that the average evacuee who came to Spring Lake, probably like the average person elsewhere in our country, held his Bible more like a man holds a lucky charm. At some point in his life, he had been told that the answers to all problems were in this book. Katrina had brought him plenty of problems. He needed answers. So why not give the lucky charm a try? Maybe if he got lucky enough he could find a verse to name and claim.

I was however later to discover that there were actually two other categories of people looking at those Bibles. There was a rather large segment of the evacuees who could not read, or at least could not read with confidence. These people were longing for someone to tell them what everyone else was so interested in. And the fourth group, as hard as it is it believe in our Judeo-Christian culture, was made up of men and women who had never seen a copy of the scriptures before and honestly were just trying to figure out why they had been given a little green book, especially when they needed so many other things.

It was seeing all those folks holding Bibles, looking for answers that awakened the evangelist in me. I wanted to be like Philip when he asked the Ethiopian, "Do you understand what you are reading?" (Acts 8:30) But I wasn’t sure that I had the courage to talk to strangers. Fortunately, the Lord knew what I needed and had already been preparing me for the work He had planned.

On the Sunday before the Katrina evacuees arrived at Spring Lake, I had listened to my pastor preach about missions work. In theory, I loved the idea of being a missionary. From the time I read my first storybook of famous missionaries like David Livingstone and Hudson Taylor, I had entertained the idea of going to a mission field. So on that Sunday, when Pastor challenged us to pray that God would make us a missionary, I did.

I did not pray the "Here am I, send me" prayer of Isaiah. No, that would have been a lie. Instead, I was honest with the Lord. I told Him that I knew that I had made some life choices that limited where I could go. I acknowledged my responsibilities toward my husband and my children and my aging parents. I admitted that since I had chosen to work at home and educate my children at home, my mission field was very small and near to home. Going to the grocery store on the other side of town where I didn’t know the girl at the checkout counter was about as close to a mission field as I was going to get. Pretty much everyone I came in contact with on a day to day basis already claimed to be a Christian. I just could not see a mission field anywhere in my future, but I told God that if He could find me one, then I was willing to be his missionary. My prayer was almost like a dare.

I ought to know better than to dare the Almighty.

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A couple of mornings later, I was back at Spring Lake, this time toting a van full of buckets and mops, brooms and scrub brushes. I was unloading at Seph lodge, which sits away from the main courtyard on a hill in the woods. Coming nearer and nearer, penetrating my consciousness, I noticed the systematic "thump, thump" of someone running slowly down the dusty road beside the cabin. As the runner drew abreast of the cabin door, I and turned and looked to see who was being so energetic on another hot day. I couldn’t believe my eyes! It was Mr. Clarence Jones, jogging by without even a sign of the odd gait exhibited at our previous meeting. He recognized me immediately and broke out into a big grin.

Coming over to the cabin door, he started, "I be enjoying these shoes you gave me. I get in my exercise, now. It be hard to run in them old shoes. I already walked this road seven times today. I gotta stay in shape, ya know. As soon as I’m able, I’ll be gettin’ back to New Orleans. My boys is gonna need their coach. It won’t be long befo-"

I interrupted, ‘You coach? What do you coach?"

"Baseball!" he answered impatiently as if there were no other sports to coach. "Little League. I’ve got me a great team of boys. We’re playin’ fall league."

"Wow, that’s great. So you like baseball, huh? We like baseball too, my family, I mean, my husband and my boys. They play in the back yard all the time, and my youngest son played on a church team last spring. But whatever made you want to coach?" I started to add "at your age" but caught myself just in time.

Then without a hint of pride and gazing away, as if remembering something, he said, "Me? Aw, I don’t know, after playin’ professionally, it just be the right thing to do. It’s a hard game to walk away from." He kicked the dust with the tip of one of his new shoes.

I was flabbergasted. A professional baseball player? Surely he was joking with me, trying to pull my leg. Why, I had looked at him a few days before and figured from his attire and his mannerisms that he was just a bum. Or ex-bum maybe, someone who had moved from the welfare roll to the social security roll. Now, I looked at him a little closer. He was short, but powerfully built with thick legs and big shoulders. He was older, yes, but not bent. Yes, I thought I could see the athlete in him! His body was probably healthier than mine.

He must have guessed my thoughts because he looked me right in the eye and said, "Negro League."

I liked the way he rolled the word "Negro" off his tongue, stretching it out, "Neeee-grow".

He continued, "It was a long time ago. It was before you was born. You wouldn’t know about them days."

Then it happened again -the prick - the one in the tough skin of my heart. It was the Lord, again, trying to get my attention. Showing me my pride.

"Oh God," I silently prayed, "forgive me for my prideful spirit. Help me not to foolishly make judgements about other people!"

But aloud, I said, "Oh Mr. Jones, that is amazing! Professional baseball. Wow! Would you mind if I brought my boys by to visit with you later. My middle son just loves baseball history. He studies baseball players and teams and statistics and memorizes them. I know that he would want to interview you! Would that be okay with you? Could you tell him all about when you played and who you played for and what it was like to be a player in the Negro Leagues? If it isn’t too much trouble, I mean." I felt like I was begging.

"Sure," he said with just the tone of voice I envisioned a Little League coach using on an over-zealous parent, "You bring them boys to Faith Lodge and we’ll play checkers and talk baseball."

"Alright, I’ll bring them tomorrow night."

He nodded and waved as he headed back to the dusty road and his self-imposed fall training schedule.

That was the last time I ever saw Mr. Clarence Jones.

When I took my boys back the next night, new ready-to-be-autographed-baseball in hand, his checkerboard was being used by another pair of players. Thinking that maybe he had just gone out for a little exercise, we walked the dusty roads of the campground until it starting getting dark. Finally, Steve, finding out which bunk Mr. Jones was assigned, went into the lodge to leave him a note. He came back with a disappointed look on his face. All he had found was a bare, empty bed; and just peeking out from under the edge of the bed was a pair of ladies sandals. Mr. Clarence Jones was gone.

Days later, I found by checking bus tickets that he had taken a late-night bus to Memphis, Tennessee. Some of his lodge mates thought he might have said he had family there. What I didn’t understand was why I felt so sad. Mr. Clarence Jones entered and left my life in the span of four days. Why, there were leftovers in the refrigerator that had been around longer. There was no reason why this man’s sudden departure should leave a void. What was wrong with me?

The words of the Wal-mart sales clerk answered from my memory "Be careful, you might get hurt!"

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I made my choice, turned and hurried up the hill calling out, "Excuse me, excuse me sir."

He stopped and waited for me to catch up.

"Uhh…. I was wondering if your feet hurt," I blurted out.

He looked down at the sandals as if noticing them for the first time. Embarrassed, he shifted his weight from one foot to another.

"They was the only shoes I could find," he said. "They’re not too bad."

We stood in an uncomfortable silence for a few seconds, then I started babbling, "I was wondering if it would be okay if I bought you a new pair of tennis shoes? Do you like tennis shoes? Would that be all right? I’ll bring them to you tonight. Will you be here tonight? "

My words ran together nervously.

He flashed a smile at me. "That would be nice," he said. "But I’ve got wide feet," he hesitated.

"Oh don’t worry, I’ll get wide shoes. But how will I find you again?" I asked as I looked around at the unfamiliar campground.

"Oh, that’s easy," he replied. "Just go to that building right there," he pointed and straighten his shoulders a bit before he continued, "and ask for Mr. Clarence Jones."

The delivery of the shoes took place later that evening. I had gone to the Wal-mart shoe department and after getting there, realized that I knew Mr. Jones needed a wide shoe, but I didn’t any idea what size to buy. Then I had a crazy thought – why not just buy a pair of every size of men’s tennis shoes? Maybe Mr. Clarence Jones wasn’t the only man at Spring Lake parading around in women’s shoes.

I went and got two buggies and picked out a nice pair of shoes in each available size. There were about a dozen pairs in all. A curious sales clerk asked what I was doing. After I explained, she commented, "That’s nice of you, but I wouldn’t go out to that camp! Be careful, you might get hurt."

Going to the camp wasn’t what was frightening me at the moment. I was more nervous about how my husband, Steve, was going to react when I walked in with all those boxes full of men’s shoes. But it turned out that he was as excited about giving them away as I was and decided to go with me to the camp.

Mr. Jones was waiting, as promised, and his eyes lit up with surprise when we opened the back doors of our van and showed him all the shoes he could pick from. He tried on a couple of pairs and found one that fit him just right! It was so much fun to watch him putting on those new shoes! He thanked me politely, but I assured him that no thanks were necessary.

"Consider them a gift from the Lord," I told him. "But there is one thing that I want to ask you to do before you go back to your lodge," I continued. "Go and find another man who looks like he needs shoes and send him to us."

Mr. Clarence Jones practically skipped away in his new shoes, pleased to share the good news with his fellow lodge mates.

Within fifteen minutes, we had given away all but one pair of shoes, one pair at a time, each person sent to find another with a similar need. With one pair of shoes left, a tall thin man, appearing to be in his mid-sixties or early seventies, shyly approached my husband. Glancing at his feet, I could see that he could use a pair of shoes. He looked at the remaining pair and shook his head.

"They won’t fit me," he said in a disappointed tone of voice. But suddenly he brightened. "But they will fit my father. Can I take them to him?"

Steve cast me a doubtful look. Was this going to be a situation where someone was trying to take advantage of our kindness? This man looked too old to have a living father. Was he going to try to sell them? Maybe he was going to trade them for something else, like cigarettes, a scarcity in the camp at that time. But ever the trusting soul, my husband handed them over.

With all the shoes now gone, Steve and I walked around together, hand in hand, fascinated by the hubbub of the main courtyard. Most of the evacuees were standing in a line of some sort, waiting. Some were waiting for medical attention. Others were waiting to use the phone. A large group clustered around a TV screen anxiously watching for news of their homes and families. A few played checkers, and down on the lake, some tried to relax with a fishing pole in hand.

In the midst of all the activity, Steve pointed to one person, a very old man, bent with age, walking very, very slowly toward the cafeteria. He was wearing our last pair of tennis shoes. He was also wearing a smile!

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I had a choice to make. But the choice was NOT whether or not to help the Katrina evacuees. That choice had already been made. Why else would I be out at Spring Lake Baptist Camp? Just going there was a public declaration of my willingness to support the evacuee effort, and not without some risk of criticism. You see, the reaction of our community was split. A lot of folks felt sorry for "those poor people" and wanted to help. There was much talk about what he or she would donate and many of the offers were quite generous – money, clothing, and medical attention.

But secretly, there was a segment of the community who was fearful about the character of the people who were coming up here from "sinful" New Orleans. Whispers were exchanged at the donut shop and the grocery store.

"You know how THOSE people are. We don’t need the likes of them in our community."

Some even insinuated that Katrina was a long overdue judgement, sent from God for the destruction of an ungodly place, and therefore, they had no reason to extend a helping arm to the very people whom the Lord had chosen to judge.

I thought that this kind of talk was foolishness. Katrina destroyed bars and banks, casinos and churches without discrimination. The innocent child and the chronic sinner died together. So I jumped on the donation bandwagon, instead. I headed straight to the discount store to buy stuff to take to the camp. Feeling pretty proud of myself because I had thought to call ahead to ask what was needed, I stuffed my van full with every Styrofoam cup and plate on the shelf of our little Freds store. With excitement, I headed out to see firsthand what was going on out there at the camp. This was history in the making! Maybe, if I was lucky, I would get a chance to talk to some of the evacuees and they would tell me their incredible survival stories.

While I had chosen to be sympathetic to Katrina evacuees and express my concern with a monetary donation, I was facing a deeper spiritual choice. The decision I was facing was whether or not to get personally involved. Sympathy and concern are two emotions that are as disposable as Styrofoam cups and plates! But true love and compassion are bought with a higher price. They take time and commitment. They come with a risk as well. What if the whisperers at the grocery store were right? What kind of people WERE these evacuees?

I stopped for just an instant to ponder my choices. Which direction should I go? I could either take the easy stroll down the hill to my waiting van and leave Spring Lake and the evacuees behind, having done my duty. Or I could turn around, step out of my comfort zone, climb up the hill and get personally involved in the life of a stranger.

Behind me I could hear the sound of the "Slap, slap" continuing down the other side of the hill.

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The first time I saw him, he was slowly trudging up the hill behind the chapel. His rich brown chocolate skin looked as if it were melting and dripping off in the early September heat. It was very hot that day, close to 100 degrees, I’d say, and humid. Typical early September weather in Arkansas. He was wearing a short sleeve tee-shirt with some sort of resort logo on the front, advertising a summer vacation, long past, the kind of old tee you use to shine your car after you wash it. He also had on a pair of gray sweatpants that seemed to be glued to him. It first glance, I thought they were too small but it occurred to me that they were just stuck to his sweaty legs.

My eyes slide quickly over his odd attire because it was his feet that had first attracted my attention. As he came toward me, he was walking with a very strange-looking sort of shuffle.

Right foot. Tip-toe. Slide, SLAP!

Left foot. Tip-toe. Slide, SLAP!

His ridiculous gait reminded me of the way my sons used to walk when they were toddlers and they paraded around the house in their daddy’s shoes.

Just before he got to the top of the hill we met. His eyes briefly met mine. He smiled and nodded in the gentlemanly sort of way that seems to be characteristic of men of his generation. I mumbled a "Hello" back to him, but quickly dropped my eyes to the ground, embarrassed because he had caught me rudely staring at him. I don’t think he noticed. He just passed on by with a determined look on his face, as if it were taking all of his strength and will to continue up the hill.

I glanced back over my shoulder and that was when I first focused in on his shoes. He was wearing sandals – not the kind men wear with wide toes and broad leather straps – No, he was wearing ladies sandals! They were pretty and narrow and pointy with a bit of a heel in the back, and they were at least three sizes too small for his feet. His toes were squished down into them as far as they would go, but still his heel hung from the back an inch or two and the sling, having been slit with a knife, bounced wildly around his ankles. With each step he slid his dusty feet into the toe of the shoe to keep it from flying off and threw all of his weight down quickly, trying not to hit his bare heel on the rocky ground.

With a sigh and a sad shake of my head, I continued on down the hill, back toward the beehive of activity in the main courtyard where the volunteers were trying to organize the evacuees into orderly lines, (without much success, I might add). Then I felt it. I felt a teensy tiny prick in my heart. I’m not sure that I knew it right then, but I can say with a certainty now that the prick was from the hand of the Lord. It was a prick of compassion. It was a prick that broke through a lifetime of preconceived ideas. It was a prick that demanded action.

I had a choice to make.

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It was 5 months ago, to the day, August 29, 2005. My husband was watching the TV coverage of Hurricane Katrina and I was reading a book as I sat with him. And just to let you know right from the beginning, we were not watching with prayerful vigilance over the people of the Gulf Coast. Hardly. We were, like the majority of Americans, keeping a eye on Katrina with a sort of morbid curiosity. Half hoping that we’d get to see something interesting happen on live TV. And I suppose we did, but it was a bit disappointing. The roof of the Superdome was leaking. That’s all. The voice of the reporter inside sounded strained, maybe just a little frightened, enough to get me to lower the book I was reading and gaze at the TV, giving it my full attention for just a moment. But then the report ended, abruptly, as the commercial came on. The sudden end of the report did not surprise me. Typical TV. Keep you waiting for any real news until the commercial was over. I sighed and begin to try to find where I left off in my book. That’s when it caught my eye. The circular radar image of Louisiana, superimposed in the bottom left corner of the TV screen had gone black. Texas was there. So was Arkansas, where I lived. But Louisiana was a big black circle. For the first time, I felt a little concern. There were a lot of people inside of that black circle. I felt a shiver pass through as I turned back to my book.

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