Email: Hurricane recovery efforts [JB]

Do you have any idea what goes on in New Orleans every Mardi Gras? God did not raze New Orleans just to prevent a "gay Mardi Gras" -- and any preacher who claims that New Orleans' annual Mardi Gras or its "sin" in general is the cause of Hurricane Katrina is no Christian at all, and should have to answer to the people suffering all up down the coast. Believers who promote anger and blame over love and compassion are no believers at all.

Churches in Houston are having a huge outpouring of compassion and service. Second Baptist is sending 200 volunteers a day plus truckloads of food to the Astrodome, St. Martin's Episcopal is doing similarly. I would think every church and synagogue is pitching in. Even before Tropical Storm Allison savaged Houston to the tune of $4 billion, Houstonians have a lot of empathy for fellow Gulf Coasters. If I were attending a church that didn't mention the need from the pulpit, I would never enter their doors again. This is the greatest national disaster since 9/11 -- and before that, probably the Galveston hurricane of 1900. Even when I lived in the north, our churches sent aid to the victims of Hurricane Andrew.

It's true that sending the airfare money for American mission workers could go for more supplies which foreign nationals could apply to their disaster recovery efforts, but the extra hands really can contribute more than the value of the airfare in effort, and another purpose of mission work is to teach Americans a greater awareness of other cultures and esp. compassion for those in need.