Tracking Gustav

Flooding of New Orleans levees, costly damage to the Gulf oil rigs off the Louisanna coast, thousands of citizens staying at home in the path of Gustav - so many concerns. Having just moved from the U.S., and the Gulf Coast more specifically, we can remember the feeling that so many people are having in their stomachs, hearts, and minds right now.

Gustav passed over Curacao a little over a week ago and was not even a Tropical Depression. It brought some exciting electrical storms, one unfortunate tornado, and a much-welcomed rain to the island, but not much else. It was gone, and then quickly forgotten here in the Southern Caribbean. However, Erin and I will go to work tomorrow with many fellow Americans on our hearts and in our prayers.

We managed to enjoy our weekend - a lively one filled with friends' birthdays, big family barbeques, scuba diving clean-ups, and a little bit of work around the house and in preparation for school. It's hard to believe that within a week oil prices may be through the roof (as if they're not already) and school's will be closed before really even getting started, businesses will be ruined, houses will be flooded, and lives will be 'destroyed.' It is so difficult to come up with anything to say when there seems to be nothing we can do. Perhaps we need moments like these to learn how to pray.

My prayers go out to the people who will be affected by this storm. My heart is with the communities that will suffer through this storm. My hope is that the damage is somehow minimized, and that help is quickly received where it is desperately needed. I beg those of you who read this blog to do something to help those who will be affected. If you don't have friends or family in the line of Gustav please make a friend, welcome them into your family, so that it can be said that Americans 'love' each other - that we bless each other - that we are not the self absorbed and emotionally detached people that many around the world believe us to be.

This storm, and it's effects, will be the focus of the news media for the next several days, and this will be especially true if the damage is as bad as they are trying to scare us into believing. Change the news stories, shock the reporters, give them a real story that is worth reporting.

Erin and I are busy searching out ways to help the island and communities of Curacao. Sports programs, building houses, island clean-up projects - we love to see the benefits of a few caring gestures. Gustav can be about something besides devastation - it can be about restoration and rejuvevenation. This will be my hope and prayer.