Although not all. most of the evacuees are where they are going to be for a while. Some who evacuated, but did not live within the levee system ahve already returned home. People on the west side of New Orleans did not receive as much destruction as others. I am so glad that they get to go home and begin the rebuilding process.
For the rest of the evacuees, news trickles in. Their questions, some of them, are slowly getting answers. Some families are being reunited; some are not. Some never will. Some sigh in relief that their house was on high enough ground, while others live in denial, knowing that their house is in the lowest part of the city, but still hope to hear word that it still stands. Sadly, there won't be anything for them to go home to.
Some people have just wiped the slate clean. They are going to live where they evacuated to. Their life in New Orleans is over.
In caring for evacuees, there is now a feel that the frenzy is over and the long, hard work of service begins. Adrenaline subsiding, there must now be something more than that to perpetuate the care. This is phase two. This is the time when people decide that they are like Jesus or not. Hurricane relief is sexy in the first couple weeks, but what about after that, when the news reporters return to the all important celebrity court cases and documentaries on the history of Dracula?
For those of us who have evacuees in our home towns, do not abandon them. Let's love them until they are out our reach. Let's serve them until they are home. Let's let them know the love that is in our hearts, placed their by a very loving God.
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