We’re back from Slidell, Louisiana. We spent the week (February 17-22) working with IDES (International Disaster Emergency Services) building houses to help folks who lost everything to hurricane Katrina. You can see photos of some of our people working at DART (Disaster Assistance Response Team) director Joe Luttrell’s blog (http://www.xanga.com/idesdart).
IDES has been working in Slidell since the hurricane in 2005. If you add up all the homes they have worked to restore, rebuild, and build new, at least 140 families and individuals have benefitted directly from their work and the work of hundreds of volunteers over the past two and a half years.
But the “Slidell Effect” goes beyond mere building efforts. As I think about my own experience this past week, I know that the work in the Gulf coast region has an on-going effect on people’s lives around the country.
Just to get my wife Sandi and I to Louisiana required that two of my sisters and my sister-in-law take more than a week of vacation to leave Pennsylvania and stay with our three kids in Livonia. It also allowed my brother to take a week off and go with us to work on the houses, and his knowledge of construction was indispensible. So the “Slidell Effect” has reached my own family in a deep way.
With more than 40 people from the church down in Louisiana, the “Slidell Effect” has impacted the whole church body. Many people who could not go with us were able to support the team financially as well as spiritually, with many pledging prayer support throughout the week. Many others supported the work in Louisiana by making sure that the ministry programs and Sunday services in Livonia were planned, staffed, and implemented with no gaps. [THANKS TO EVERYONE!!]
Our team was able to go to lunch with our house’s homeowner one day, and several of us were approached and thanked by local residents. One night we watched a video featuring several people who had homes built by IDES. In it, one woman made a statement about the Christian church of Slidell, who hosts the teams who come each week; she wanted to get to know “the church that helps people.” The “Slidell Effect” has rippled throughout that community.
After that video, the group split into our house teams, as we did every night, and we discussed how we didn’t want the “Slidell Effect” to end. We talked about how, like every Christian conference, convention, and retreat, this trip to Louisiana had created a “mountaintop” experience, but we didn’t want it to end a week or two after we returned home. We talked about ways that we could make the “Slidell Effect” transform our church in Livonia so that people would recognize us as “the church that helps people.”
Our prayer wasn’t that we would simply become a benevolent organization, although our benevolence efforts certainly enhanced the “Slidell Effect.” We prayed that our work in Livonia would increase, that we would be able to let the “Slidell Effect” grow in all of our ministry efforts. We prayed not so that more people would simply be fed or housed physically but that our message of God’s love and forgiveness would be lived out in real, tangible expressions of that love.
Let us know how the “Slidell Effect” has changed your life and ministry.
I often wondered while on that trip, who was getting the real gift, Slidell, or us? Praise God, He makes everything new!
This was my 2nd trip to Slidell. First one was incredible, but the 2nd was even better. Getting to meet the homeowners and future homeowners was such an inspirational time. I urge others to try something like this…it will forever impact your life. Once again…I feel like I didn’t do enough and want to do more…anyone else? Our God is such an awesome God!
Oh you did plenty THE Rob Austin!! You were bionic, you were an animal…a machine!! lol Thanks for all your instruction too Rob, we all enjoyed learning from you. If you ever get behind or need some help on a job, just let me know, plus I come cheap, I work for water.