Eighteen years ago I lived in Alexandria, Louisiana. We spent about four years there enjoying the culture and the food. I also tried to help rebuild a congregation that was suffering from a major decline in attendance. One person even asked me why I would go to a "dead church." This did little to lift my spirits. We had some success over that time. We added some wonderful people to the membership. There was a lot of trial and error in attempting new ministries. My hope is we did leave it in much better shape than on arrival. It was an interesting place to say the least. I met some amazing people. There were also some very different people who crossed my path. It was eighteen years ago today that Andrew came to visit us. That day will stay in my mind forever.

Andrew was not a human being. He was a hurricane. This is the one that skipped over Florida back into the gulf until it reached our state. Fortunately we were on the west side of him. The hardest rain and wind is always on the east side of a storm. It was still more than enough to make his presence known in very real ways. Our city was an evacuation point for those in the southern part of the state. People traveled up to sit out the storm in churches as well as our coliseum in town. Entire nursing homes were loaded up for the ride to Alexandria. Our Pentecostal church in town had at least a thousand people scattered around their facility. The coliseum was filled from top to bottom. My best guess is a few thousand people were there. This does not even begin to touch on the numbers in motels and such.

A small group of us gathered together that morning in order to see if there was anything we could be doing. We had contacts with the state Baptist office which was just down the road from us. I do not know how many meals we ended up making but it was on the level of multiplying the fish and bread. Part of the day was spent at the coliseum unloading grocery trucks of food and supplies. All of this was going on in the middle of the storm. Our church had a large kitchen along with a gym area. Other state Baptist disaster groups ended up staying the night before heading down to the hardest hit areas. This was my first up close experience with such a storm. All I know is our little group really came through in a big way that day.

This really stays with me in terms of understand ministry. No one was into their ego that day. We did not have time to devise all kinds of rules on how we would do what was needed. There was no vote on who would be in charge or who would get the credit. We just got busy trying with God's help to meet the needs on that rain soaked occasion. One other thing that stands out is how much fun we had just doing that. My belief is that God allowed us to do some things that were way past our ability. We did not really think much of it at the time but we did realize it later. It is amazing how much can be accomplished when you do not worry about credit or rules or the other stuff that hinders ministry. I would never hope for another hurricane to come along but I would surely love to see that type of ministry again.

Bro. Trey