I just returned from a meeting at which folks from our church planned outreach activities for 2006. Among those in attendance was the mother of one of our members. She lives in a low-lying area in metropolitan Houston.
Her visit was unrelated to Hurricane Rita, as it was planned awhile back. But just before she left Houston, she and her daughter, who is a registered nurse, took in six evacuees from New Orleans. Now, that group of people will have to move on, as is true of thousands of others who were residing in Houston's Astrodome.
The media coverage of these two catastrophic events--Hurricanes Katrina and Rita--have often focused on the tragic and sometimes fatal errors of disaster planners. That's understandable. Thousands of lives have been at stake and many hundreds have been lost, often owing to those errors.
But it strikes me that other stories, repeated thousands of times over and over again, bear telling also. These are stories of all the people who, because the love of Jesus Christ is at the center of their lives, have taken in thousands of strangers who need help. Many of them live in towns and cities which, barring some unforeseen change in Rita's path, are now going to become victims of a major storm themselves.
In the Old Testament, after murdering his brother, Cain was asked by God where the brother, Abel, was. Cain responded insolently, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
In the New Testament, Jesus memorably answered Cain's question. In the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus showed that everyone in need is our brother, our sister, our neighbor.
To all of you who, in the wake of Katrina, have taken in sisters and brothers you'd never met before, I say, "God bless you. I'm humbled by your examples of Christian servanthood."
May your tribe increase in the aftermath of Rita!
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