you are light

Well guess who learned all about roofing today?!Alright, so far all she's learned is tear out ... but Janet does know what it means when someone short-nails her ... and (contrary to the expression as she starts up the ladder), if you do it, she's not going to be happy about it!

The group split up today ... half of us (the 'don't EVEN think about putting me on a roof' half) went back to Barbara's for more Fun with Siding. The other four (the 'sure no problem, I can do a roof' half) went for a quick jaunt (yeah, look at a map - we're in Gulfport) to NEW ORLEANS to work on a roof in St. Bernard Parish.

SB is the place you saw on the news constantly in the early days post-Katrina ... water to the roof line. Nothing but house-tops as far as you could see. Even now, Toby shared, all you see are brick structures, totally gutted, with water lines at the ceiling beams. For block after block. Amazing.

Also amazing? The weather this evening. The sky. The air. Hard to imagine that waters so beautifully painted, so serene and reflective ... and tonight, filled with life, boys and dads playing on the shore ... could have wreaked the havoc so plainly on display still, more than one year later.
About 20 minutes down Hwy 90 from the church/mission station, is God's Katrina Kitchen, in Pass Christian. As we understand it, this two-tent, ten-trailer compound houses relief workers from all over, and serves three meals a day, six days a week (the staff takes Sunday as sabbath and rests) to workers who live on the property, and any who come in for meals, all funded exclusively from donations (there is no charge to eat, but donations are welcomed).

Many from the Pass Christian community -- residents who would return to work on homes, or who hadn't left but are low on or completely without resources -- often eat with the workers. No one is turned away. Worship is held each evening, and again all are welcomed. "Not one church, just one God" a sign proclaims. A cross dominates the dining hall, and a spirit of grace and generosity dominate the people. All signs of help and hope in a community still so shaken by the events of September 2005. In fact, there are more of those signs than you might imagine ...

"Leave your burdens here," it says. And even more intimately, reaches further to ask, "How can we pray for you?"

Tonight I prayed with and for our mission team as we closed our devotional time. As I did, I felt the prayers of our community at Geist, our families and friends ... and of the people we don't even know are praying for us ... of the people we don't even know at all ...

Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. ... For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of the light -- for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. (Eph 5:1-2, 8-10)

It is powerful for me to know that we are held in -- and held up by -- your prayers. Then we become bearers of that grace, and carry those prayers here, where they join the prayers of so many here on the Gulf Coast. In conversations with near-strangers, in the laughter of new friends, in the teasing and camraderie and generosity of fellowship, in the sweat and sunburn of a hard day's work, the smallness of the world, and the greatness of God became very real for me today.

I am in awe of the people with whom I am spending this week.
For once you were darkness, but now . . . in the Lord . . .
YOU.
ARE.
LIGHT.