February 9, 2006
We are leaving Crossroad Church of the Nazarene today. It is with mixed emotions. The “home team” for Nazarene Disaster Relief (NDR), those who have been here most of the time since October, are great people to work with. The spirit of God is surely among us and everyone was so friendly and uplifting. They are very thankful to all who come to help. There are groups coming here from all over the United States to work and witness, most for about a week at a time; also some individuals and couples who come for shorter periods. The Sunday services were excellent. The praise and worship team leads the congregation in worshiping our God for about ½ hour at the beginning of the service. Pastor Ted speaks the word with boldness and draws people back to the Lord. When we left we knew we had been in the House of the Lord. It was an awesome experience serving God by serving other while we were in the Gulf area. We have definitely grown more compassionate and spiritual while here. We have a desire to continue doing volunteer work. We serve an awesome God. We want to see some of the devastation there and how the people are getting along. We are staying at Land-O-Pines Campground which is located about 9 miles north of Covington, LA. It is approximately 50 miles from downtown New Orleans. There is much tree damage from the hurricane here. This campground is about half permanent RV’s, mostly small trailers, and the other half is RV’s that are normally here for short periods if time. Right now those spots are filled with hurricane relief workers and some insurance agents, etc. Most of the permanent trailers have corrugated metal roofs built over them with extended patios. When the hurricane came through here the pine trees came crashing down. So there are many trailers with severe damage to them. Some have been cleaned up but mostly they are just sitting there like it happened yesterday. There are piles of cut-up trees all over the place so you can tell they lost many trees. There seems to be about 10-20 trailers destroyed.