Jack talked yesterday with a friend of ours from New Orleans. His home is gone.
Other family friends are from Mobile and we haven't heard yet how they are doing.
Another friend sent an email to say that her parents lost everything -- she was flying them here to be with her. . . and they were coming with only the clothes on their backs.
Our world has become a smaller place. It makes me wonder: there may not be very many who aren't connected, personally, in some way with those who are suffering in the South.
Today the blogosphere united for a "Blogging for Katrina Relief" Day. I want to recommend Samaritan's Purse, run by Franklin Graham. They already have trucks loaded up and headed south. . .
Headin' South. . .
The Church on the Move!Some people have been wondering whether any other countries will offer their help. Probably not. But we do help our own. The news has been full of horrifying tales of lawlessness and degradation in New Orleans, but I am confident that in the days ahead we will see more and more of the courage, strength and kindness that is at the heart of American culture driving out the evil now trying to take center stage.
And for the last word, a fellow blogger, Paul at Wizbang who is from New Orleans, makes an appeal for Americans to set aside politics for the moment (note to Bobby Kennedy) and concentrate on the victims:
Think about it for a second from my chair... (I'm not whining but) I'm almost 40 years old.... Here is the sum total of all my worldly possessions: 4 pairs of shorts, 5 shirts, 2 pairs of shoes, 4 pairs of underwear, 1 pair of blue jeans, a box of family pictures, 2 flashlights, a piece of trench art my grandfather brought back from WWI and my father's hammer. (Hey, it means a lot to me!) That's it. Everything else is gone. And BTW, I'm unemployed.
I tell you that not to whine but to let you see the tree thru the forest. Multiply my situation by about a million. Stop and think about that... A million people homeless and unemployed.
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I was wrong about the other countries. Michelle says they are "coming around, sort of."
Via John Hinderaker: a doctor in Louisiana says give to the Salvation Army -- already on the ground, doing good work (as usual), not the Red Cross. . ."they do not have a sizable presence here and are only fishing for money like after 9/11."
