As we look at ways to serve, we find ourselves working toward putting ourselves out of work—which is not necessarily a bad thing as it means we are accomplishing much. It was a busy day at Good Shepherd; emptied a thirty-six foot truck full of supplies from Ohio and feeding 600 meals. I can’t say how many buckets we gave away today exactly but here’s a shot: 20 buckets from FaithPointe and approximately 50 female hygiene bags; we put out about 60 buckets from the truck, so my guess is over 80 cleaning buckets.

At FaithPointe, Jaques Walker is meeting with the leaders of Tangipahoa Parish tomorrow to get some ideas on how we can help.  FaithPointe is responsible for the meal pick-up and delivery as well as returning the carriers.  Operation BBQ Relief is leaving Louisiana Friday which will end our meal distribution partnerhip.  We could not have done this without them!

Fr. Jim+

I need to thank Good Shepherd and FaithPointe for stepping up today. My Sundays are quite busy, before the hurricane, now having to be at too many places and each church really did their part: thank you!!!

We Served 250 meals after service @ Good Shepherd

FaithPointe put together 50+ Cleaning Buckets and 50 women’s hygiene bags.

Please keep The northern parishes between Baton Rouge and Covington in your prayers.  We have a meeting tomorrow at 9 to see how we can help.  We should also hear what is needed in Jean Lafitte below New Orleans.

Fr. Jim+

I want to thank The members of Holy Cross Church, especially Glenn Kimmell, for the donation of 1500 styrofoam clam shells. Thank you Donna Hulsey and Jaques Walker from FaithPointe Family Fellowship for the pick up and delivery of all the meals on both sides of the lake.

Good Shepherd continues to show its commitment to our community. Everyday, as more and more people return home, more volunteers come to help in the food and cleaning supply distribution. Six hundred meals were given out today in Metairie! Thank you!!!

On the north shore, FaithPointe worked on getting the church ready for service tomorrow.

Jim+

Someone asked why are you doing all this? ( hurricane relief)

“If one part suffers, every part suffers, I one part is honored every part rejoices with it." 1 Cor 12:26.

We are not just one person or one church.  As Anglicans, we are a communion, a world wide body of believers who come and stand with our brothers and sisters in times of suffering: To share with those in need our blood, sweat, tears and our prayers. God promises to neither leave you nor forsake you. Joshua 1:5 Deuteronomy 31:6

From the north shore, FaithPointe provided 22 buckets today to Good Shepherd Church in Metairie, with an additional 40 more coming tomorrow. We delivered our last 100 dinners to the hospital and first Responders today on the Northshore.

Jaques Walker got us invited into the Tangipahoa parish disaster response group to find out the needs in that community. First meeting is Monday. FaithPointe is moving away from the flood buckets and into women and children hygiene bags. We feel it’s a need not being met.

Good Shepherd handed out 500 (Operation BBQ Relief) meals today and all the cleaning buckets we had. Thanks to Holy Cross Anglican in Baton Rouge, and John Curtis Christian School in River Ridge, we will continue to hand out meals. We were running low on food clamshells and could not find any on the north or south shore. Thank you Father Ernie for locating them In Baton Rouge and finding someone to meet me half way. We also received a very generous donation from John Curtis Christian School in River Ridge. When they heard of our need for additional clamshells to serve meals, they found over 300 in their school cafeteria that they immediately got into our hands this evening.

I received a text from Ms. Mary at the North American Lutheran Church.  She is sending a 26’ box truck full of supplies on Monday from Ohio and 200 more flood buckets next Thursday. Thank you so very much we couldn’t do this without you!!!

We are also being asked if we can help in the Lafitte area below New Orleans and I will report more as I get the info.

Fr. Jim+

FaithPointe Family fellowship wanted to help out where they could.

With Good Shepherd out of cleaning supplies FaithPointe purchased what we could find and the kids put together 12 cleaning buckets and 45 in bags ready for when we get more buckets.

We fed 100 meals for dinner in Covington.

Good Shepherd had a good morning.  We got power Back!!! We had 2 volunteers from Holy Cross and one from FaithPointe and 5 from Good Shepherd. They fed 250 meals at lunch. There was a mix up  with the meals and we only received half of what we ordered. The Sanctuary was open for prayer!!!

Good Shepherd is making a commitment to house outside groups as large as 16 people in the gym. We have air mattresses and the shower trailer.

Fr. Jim+

Covington power is about 90% restored. We need to start having teams come into help clean up. We are feeding 100 meals for dinner to the fire Department and The local health care workers. We have three volunteers working In Covington.

Due to the need of cleaning supplies buckets in New Orleans we are rounding up the youth from FaithPointe (north shore) to start building buckets. I have reached out to the Mormons who helped us with them during Katrina to see if we use them as a resource as well for buckets.

Good Shepherd is still without power. We reached out to Samaritans Purse about housing there volunteers in the gym. With the shower trailer on site and we should get power back soon and we could house our own volunteers. We would need cots of some kind.

We fed 500 lunches and gave out the rest of our cleaning supplies.

We had 7 (4 Good Shepherd, 2 St Stephen’s, and 1 FaithPointe) volunteers.

Fr. Jim+

Thank you Lord for this day!

We started the day with the Shower Trailer delivered but not workable. By the day’s end Mr Mel and Mr. Joe of Good Shepherd got it up and running.

We increased our lunch count to 450 meals.

Thank you Tommy and Katherine Lamb!  We were out of cleaning supplies and they showed up at 12:00 noon with a 142 cleaning buckets from Houston.

We delivered 50 meals for the first Responders in Covington and 50 meals to St Tammany Parish hospital ER.

In His NAME,
Fr. Jim+

We had a slow start without many supplies to hand out. But The Members of Holy Cross Anglican in Baton Rouge were incredible!!! They handed out what they had especially water that they brought. Every thing picked up when the BBQ Pork meals showed up from Hammond (Operation BBQ Relief).

We handed out 300 plates in approximately 45 mins- wow!!
Thank you Holy Cross- we could not do this without you!

We would not be in business without the help of North American Lutheran Church Disaster Response team with their donations of cleaning supplies, quilts, personal hygiene supplies and so on!! Now we have their Shower trailer.

Now the opportunity to help in a totally different way with the shower trailer. Thank you.

On the Northshore, we distributed 50 meals to the Goodbee Fire Dept and 50 meals to St. Tammany Parish Hospital ER.

Prayer requests:

1. A mother asked us to pray for her 13 yr old son who needs a kidney transplant in New Orleans.
2. For God’s Holy Spirit to guide us, strengthen us, fill us with hope and peace beyond all measures.
3. That we can meet the needs of Samaritan’s Purse as they bring in volunteer groups.
4. And a special prayer of thanksgiving for Mel, Margaret and Joe for their hard work and support. Thank you guys.

Upcoming:
The NALC offered to send the cleaning buckets and supplies directly to us, and we are looking into having a Boy Scout troup from the Northshore put them together here in Louisiana. Thank you Tommy Lamb and Jaques Walker for your work on that.

Fr. Jim+

Today we gave out the remaining cleaning supplies. 80+ cleaning buckets all the Quilts all the personal hygiene bags, 90% of the baby blankets, trash bags , bleach

We gave out 200 lunches

For Dinner we fed the St Tammany / Goodbee firemen and the nursing staff of St Tammany Hospital ER.

Upcoming This week
The Shower trailer will arrive tomorrow from Texas
We have increased the number of lunches lunch to 300
We have requested water, and more cleaning supplies.
We will be offering a daily noontime prayer with Communion.

As soon as we have volunteers to form teams we have over 100 names of people who could possibly use our help in Metairie.

Needs
1) more staff to pray with people, ask questions about their situations, finding out about their neighbors and their own needs,
2) water
3) cleaning supplies
4) rakes , shovels, brooms, trash bags
5) baby wipes
6) feminine products

Fr. Jim+

Set up at Good Shepard around 10am and ended at  4pm
Received 100 meals around 2:20 we gave them all out by 3:20
Sunday we should be up to 200 meals for 1:00 and 200 dinners for 5:00

Gave out 110 cleaning buckets, all the rakes, brooms and shovels. 50 health/ personal care kits, 20 quilts, five kids and 10 adult Bibles, one bottle of bleach -all the trash bags (8 rolls)

Needs
People , Water, ice, diapers,  gas , 3 compartment styrofoam clam shells  rakes brooms,  more cleaning supplies from( North American Lutheran Church)

We were able to prepare the 100 meals with two adults and two children. I would suggest looking for a minimum of four adults.
Staffing the cleaning supplies ~we started the morning with 6 that was a good number. By the days end we were down to 4 that was way to few since they were there all day.  Shoot for no less than 8 either in two shifts or six at a time allowing 2 to take breaks each hour.

Observation
When we put people out next to the street with signs the amount of people stopping for cleaning materials increased 5x when it was just signs on the street we had 6 or 7 cars stop per hour.

Recommendation
We need more helping hand and clergy, especially Deacon and those called to be; a crisis of this magnitude across this much space needs the God’s table servant to go out and be the hands and feet of Jesus. To bring back the needs of the lost to be lifted up in prayer by God’s Holy people.

Fr. Jim+