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. Living in Arkansas all my life, I saw a hurricane as a thing that happened to other people who lived far away by the ocean. If an approaching hurricane warranted any consideration at all in my busy, middle class, suburban life, it might cause me to look at the weather forecast to see if the possibility existed for the hurricane to turn in the right direction after landfall and bring rain far inland, watering my August-dry tomatoes. Hurricanes hurt people that I didn’t know and the damage they caused was cleaned up by the government, and my tax money. That’s all I knew about it. However, Katrina was to be a different kind of hurricane. It would be a storm that touched my life, a storm that would blow me away, turning me upside down and inside out. Katrina was going to cause me to question and test the spiritual beliefs that I had talked about since I was a child – love, hope, forgiveness, healing, salvation. Katrina was going to lead me to walk with Jesus in a new way. I did not know it then, as I sat with my husband and watched the Superdome leak, but some of the very same people in the background behind that reporter would soon enter into the foreground of my life. A few days later, busloads of evacuees would flood into Arkansas and I would meet the people of the black radar circle. Three hundred and eight-seven of them would come to a place near my home, called Spring Lake Baptist Camp. I want to tell you the story of Spring Lake and what happened to the people there. It isn’t a story about Hurricane Katrina, although Katrina is what brought us together. It isn’t a story about survival, although many of the people of Spring Lake were heroic survivors, braving neck-deep floodwaters to escape their flooded homes. The story of Spring Lake is about people - evacuees and volunteers, old and young, white and black. This story is about judgement and grace and hope and healing, abundance and poverty. And mostly, this story is about Jesus. It is a story that needs to be told.
Comments
Nov. 1, 2008 - Untitled Comment
Posted by Anonymous
i was there when i arrived i was tired of moving from place to place i went from a boat to a helicopter to a airplane to yellow bus to a greyhound to a army camp and then to the church camp at the end i had a great time on the boats,, and eating hott food no heater meals lol and the trips to walmart haha it was great