With Hurrican Ike leering on the coast of Texas I am reminded of Hurricane Katrina. I wrote in another post how Katrina not only changed the people’s lives who were effected by the hurricane, but it changed my life as well. Here is video footage from 2 of our 4 Relief Trips that our church took in the days and weeks after Katrina. Please note, this first video is 18 minutes long, but was used as a sermon filler to show the church members what people in that area was facing and how we needed resources and assistance as our church was going to adopt a neighborhood called Eagle Pointe. There is a lot of footage of the damage to homes and property as well as some personal interviews by some of the residents of the community we adopted. It has some rough spots that are very shaky, but I had to use the video available to me. This was the first video I had ever edited and made into a movie, so bear with it, it is worth the watch.
Our church was one of the first relief assistance teams on the scene. A couple of days after Katrina hit Biloxi, MS we loaded an RV up with water and as much food as possible, and 6 of us went to offer whatever help we could offer, this is what we saw and what we heard from some of the people…
Update: You may have to hit play and then pause to let it load some, the file is big.
Can’t see the video? CLICK HERE
This video footage is from trip #2 of our adoption of the Eagle Point Community. We were larger than the Red Cross; we had over 40 volunteers, two half-ton trucks, a semi-truck, two RV’s and a 15 passenger van full of volunteers and supplies for the people of Biloxi. We provided them with basic necessities and a hot meal. The first video literally took me all night to create. The next morning several local news agencies used it for their local news stories, one used it to partner with us with a program called, “A Time to Care” along with the US Army. A service rep with Purpose Driven, who happened to be in Rick Warren’s small group got the first video in his hands, he showed it to his executive leadership team, and they donated our remaining Purpose Driven Life Books to the relief effort, and credited our account for the entire balance (very cool!). We handed the books out to everyone as well as Bibles. With no power it is a perfect opportunity for people to read, and as the church lived out the Gospel, many people were interested in what God had to say to them through His Word. I never knew that video would make it so far around the nation. Video 2 was made possible because of video 1.
Can’t see the video? CLICK HERE
This was truly living out the Gospel.
I had the privilege two weeks ago to revisit the Eagle Pointe area where our church, Evans Community Church adopted the subdivision for a few months; and it is amazing of the “scars” the hurricane left. I was speaking in 4 cities in the area to over 140 Supervisors of industries to bring encouragement; and they were so touched when we relived the times our church family went and blessed them with food, clothing, love, and then that amazing Thanksgiving style dinner that over 40 people participated in from ECC. My, the goodness of God and the faithfulness of His people. In closing, tears were coming down the cheeks of those supervisors in the meetings as they were full of gratitude to our church. From 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in one afternoon after I announced we were going to Gulfport, Miss. —- to see over $7,000 cash come in the church office, and then the water, and then the people volunteering. Let’s all be reminded of all of God’s people who rallied together to be a blessing to Eagle Pointe. Hopefully, all who were involved made an IMPACT. To God be the Glory!!!