A return to New Orleans

The television coverage tends to focus on the downtown urban neighborhoods and the damage that occurred there. In reality, vast areas around New Orleans, southeast Louisiana, and southern Mississippi look like they've been through a war. We drove through street after street of devastation that was not selective. Middle-class neighborhoods, wealthy neighborhoods, poorer neighborhoods – all suffered alike. People who spent their life working to own a home saw the fruit of their labor destroyed overnight.

Members in our church had varying degrees of damage – from barely noticeable, to damage so bad that they'll never be able to return. Some members are living in other cities, others are trying to rebuild. One of the families had water up to the second floor in their house. As my wife and I walked through the remains of their front door, the destruction brought tears to my eyes.

This home was where the New Orleans congregation had a going-away lunch for my family when we left the area just a year or so ago. Today, the walls are spotted with mold. The furniture was ruined. The house was simply trashed. They are going to rebuild, but the task is monumental.

Their story is similar to that of other members of the Living Church of God, and thousands upon thousands of hard-working citizens of New Orleans, not only in the urban inner-city, but mile after mile of neighborhoods, suburbs and countryside throughout southeastern Louisiana and into Mississippi.

Some people have taken the disaster lightly, saying, in effect, "New Orleans deserved this hurricane," or "this was God's hand destroying New Orleans, because of the decadence of the city." In reality, the Bourbon Street area, so famous for its red-light district activities, was hardly damaged at all. The French Quarter is on some of the highest ground in the area. Certainly the French Quarter had some very seedy sections, and the Mardi Gras festivities are debauchery defined, but in the overall picture, is New Orleans any worse than San Francisco, or New York, or Atlanta? Can Los Angeles or Las Vegas sneer at the vices of New Orleans? How about Hollywood and the filth that it pumps out every day? For America to wag a self-righteous, hypocritical finger at the evil of New Orleans – and ignore the vices of our other major cities – is like Sodom pointing the finger at Gomorrah.

Another thing that I find disturbing is the historically and economically uninformed statements like, "Why did those foolish people build in that area anyway?" If we pick up our history books, we'll find that the port of New Orleans is older than our nation itself, dating back to the Spanish explorers, and later the French. The New Orleans area is one of the most strategically located cities in all of America, providing logistic support to the breadbasket of our nation.

That is why January, 1815 and the "Battle of New Orleans" was a key moment in American history. Without the city of New Orleans, the Louisiana Purchase, including that vast western part of our nation, would have been virtually valueless. Today, the Port of South Louisiana and New Orleans is the largest port by tonnage in the US, and it is the fifth largest in the world. It exports more than 52 million tons a year – over half of that is agricultural produce. Seventeen million tons of cargo comes through the port.

This has been a vital area of importance since the inception of our country, and people are needed to work those jobs. The demand for place to live has led to housing developments in areas that are prone to flood damage – just as in so many other port cities of the world. Bangkok, Thailand; Dacca, Bangladesh; and Amsterdam are just a few examples. But to simply say, "New Orleans has no reason to exist" is without any historical or economic understanding.

God gave this blessed land to our forefathers, because of the obedience of the "father of the faithful," Abraham. We know God promised overwhelming material blessings to modern Israel, especially to the tribe of Joseph (Genesis 49:22), and the United States is part of modern Joseph (follow the link to: The United States and Great Britain in Prophecy). Modern catastrophes are certainly one way that God is going to get our attention, to bring us to repentance (follow the link to: Who Controls the Weather?).

The call for repentance is not just for New Orleans – but for the whole country, and the whole world! An instructive event occurred during the ministry of Christ, which bears review as we contemplate the recent disasters in our land (Luke 13:1–5).

Seeing New Orleans again gave me a sense of what the future holds for so many of the cities of our land as we as a nation are removed from the protection of God's hand. God speed Christ's return, and the end of these perilous times!