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)
Yes you are right.
This is something good that can come from this chaos. These poor black people who have been inculcated with a 'anti white people' attitude from birth are getting the chance to see that there are many white people who do want the best for them. This could be a life changing event for these people, and maybe it might even make them question the bilge spouted by the race hustlers in the future.
Lots of future republicans!
And you won't see it in the future, either. They're only willing to sit on the sidelines and complain that someone somewhere might hear something about Jesus.
Yeeeeesssssssssssssssss!
It is a shining silver lining.
hmmm...maybe this is "the answer".
No, I don't mean flood all the inner cities but perhaps find a way to actually physically separate these poor black people from the race hustlers and environment that has enslaved them for decades.
Wonder how that could be accomplished?
I don't live in Sacto. Just went to college there.
Jesse Jackass will not like this.
No he won't; he believes in divide and divide. : )
most excellent , LMAO.
i never could figure out the big whoop that these people get at pointing out double posts and or grammar errors.
(the last one i am flagrantly guily of every time i post)
but just dang. somehow someway most figure out what i am trying to say.
DG tell your fellow Californian about Texas hospitality.
And it's not just a temporary thing. Already church groups are signing up to be volunteers weeks in advance at the shelters.
I guess on the flip side, we also expect people to show some can-do spirit, too. Texas is about individuality and making things happen for yourself and others, so we'll encourage the evacuees to find jobs, get out of the shelters and get on with their lives.
And helping them do that is the biggest hand we can give them.
It's quite a bit different here than in California, and having spent about half of my life in each place, I'm pretty sure I know what I'm talking about.
Well, thanks, neighbor. It's good to be here.
Depend on a professional atheist to say something like this. To show contempt for those who do not share his infidelity.
There are some who are planning to stay. Certainly thousands can't continue to live in the shelters.
Well I, for one, would like to thank Ms. Johnson for having the decency to not distribute the biography of the the most influential atheist in history, Mr. Josef Stalin.
Poor Ms. Johnson just doesn't get it. I hope she does understand someday and soon.
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