Posted on 09/06/2005 12:17:01 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
HOUSTON, Sept 4 (Reuters) - In the last week, Joseph Brant lost his apartment, walked by scores of dead in the streets, traversed pools of toxic water and endured an arduous journey to escape the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in his hometown New Orleans.
On Sunday, he was praising the Lord, saying the ordeal was a test that ended up dispelling his lifelong distrust of white people and setting his life on a new course. He said he hitched a ride on Friday in a van driven by a group of white folks.
"Before this whole thing I had a complex about white people; this thing changed me forever," said Brant, 36, a truck driver who, like many of the refugees receiving public assistance in Houston, Texas, is black.
"It was a spiritual experience for me, man," he said of the aftermath of a catastrophe al Qaeda-linked Web sites called evidence of the "wrath of God" striking an arrogant America.
Brant was one of many refugees across Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi who gave thought to religion on Sunday, almost a week after the floods changed their lives, perhaps forever.
At the Astrodome in Houston, where 16,000 refugees received food and shelter, Rose McNeely took the floods as a sign from God to move away from New Orleans, where she said her two grown children had been killed in past years in gunfights.
"I lost everything I had in New Orleans," she said. "He brought me here because he knows."
Nearby, others looked for a different kind of higher ground and smoked marijuana in the shade outside the Astrodome.
Inside, Gerald Greenwood, 55, had collected a free Bible but sat watching a science fiction television program above the stands in an enclosed stadium once home to Houston's baseball and football teams. "This is the work of Satan right here," he said of the floods.
The Bible was one of the few books many of the refugees had among their possessions. Several Jehovah's Witnesses walked around thousands of cots to offer their services.
THE WAGES OF SIN
The Salvation Army conducted an outside religious service that included songs such as "What a Friend We Have in Jesus."
"Natural disaster is caused by the sin in the world," said Maj. John Jones, the group's area commander. "The acts of God are what happens afterwards ... all the good that happens."
Others took a different view, including Tim Washington, 42, who on Saturday waited at the New Orleans' Superdome to be evacuated. "God made all this happen for a reason. This city has been going to hell in a handbasket spiritually," he said.
"If we can spend billions of dollars chasing after (Osama) bin Laden, can't we get guns and drugs off the street?", he asked. Washington said he stole a boat last Monday and he and a friend, using wooden fence posts as oars, delivered about 200 people to shelter.
The Salvation Army's Jones was one of many trying to comfort victims in Sunday services across several states.
At St. Aloysius Catholic Church in Baton Rouge, several hundred local parishioners and storm survivors attended Sunday services. "I wish we could take your broken hearts and give you ours," Rev. Donald Blanchard told the gathering.
Some people walked out of the church in tears mid-service.
At St. Francis Xavier Church, a black Catholic Church in Baton Rouge, the mood was a mix of frustration, bitterness and profound joy. As evacuees stood one by one to introduce themselves, parishioners clapped and cried, celebrating their guests' good fortune in simply being alive.
"For those who were alone in the water, alone on the roof, you might ask 'What did we do to deserve this?'" the Rev. Lowell Case said. "A lot of us think being black may have had something to do with it, being poor and black in New Orleans."
Churches in many states have taken in evacuees and organized aid for people who in many cases had lost everything. But at least some bristled at the role of religion in helping the afflicted.
"We're getting reports of how some religion-based 'aid' groups are trying to fly evangelists into the stricken areas and how U.S. Army chaplains are carrying bibles -- not food or water -- to 'comfort' people," Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheist, said in a statement.
"People need material aid, medical care and economic support -- not prayers and preaching." (Additional reporting by Jim Loney and Michael Peltier in Baton Rouge and Mark Egan in New Orleans)
This sounds like he's trying to buy off his cops so they won't spill the beans on his incompetence. Not that it's not already well known, but a few NOPD can confirm everything that did or didn't happen.
'Cause he doesn't want them sent to his neighborhood....
Oh when the saints... go marching in... I WANNA BE AS FAR FROM NEW ORLEANS AS POSSIBLE
LOL!
To me, the contrast is beyond startling. You have the ditzy, nearly aphasic Gov of LA versus the articulate, together Gov of Texas and so forth.
Yeah, LA is a Dem and a dim state for not being smart enough to see the diff.
Maybe some donor organization could round up old laptop computers, fit them with Linux (it's free), set up FR accounts on them all.
That's the ticket - payoffs.
"The Village" -- apt.
I recommend Sacramento, California for relocation. There's the river delta, similar summer climate, (heck, they even have a Jazz Festival)good housing and jobs (compared to anything they'll ever have in N.O.)
An organized contingent of NO refugees could absolutely thrive in that town.
Figures. Don't show up for work and you too, will get a free vacation!
Being out of New Orleans has to improve their chances.
Importing more Democrat voters to CA?
No, let them be taken on by red states where the group think there may rub off on them and they may be able to turn their lives around and make progress instead of stagnating in a welfare state, where Democrats encourage them to consider themselves helpless victims, reliable voters that will sustain them in power.
If I were on a sinking ship, I'd rather have Gov Rick Perry at the helm than that human weepfest Blanco.
She knows it and her remarks just as much said it.
Oh have a heart! Besides, we'd get good Bar-B-Que!
Amazing stuff happens when people get out of the grip of a corrupt DemoRat party and the likes of Je$$e Jack$on,
Al $harpton and the Congressional Black Caucus.
We could see a sea change in attitudes results from this.
I live in Lansing. Blah food. No great music or nightlife scene. A good time is pretty tame--frisbee golf, maybe, as opposed to showing one's mammaries from a balcony. I guess it all comes down to priorities.
I still wish she would say it out loud for everyone to hear--not just those of us who really get it.
Well, there is one lady refugee who is a cook. You could bid for her services and try to coax her to Sacramento with a good job.
The city was corrupt and now it is no more.
They just flat out used the money for something other than on concern for their citizens.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.