Pictures from Louisiana

Here are some pictures so you can see the folks you've been praying for:

Bob and JoAnne Brown:




















Here's a picture of Bob with Ray Cummings:




Here's a picture of Slidell Bible Chapel:














And finally here a picture that shows why they worked so hard to get the Christian Academy back in operation:

Day 61 Update

Dear Praying Friends,

Greetings in the name of our lovely Lord Jesus Christ!

Well, we have had a whirlwind couple of weeks since my last update! Our crew from Iowa, Kansas and Washington (state) left us this past Friday after being with us for a month. What a HUGE amount of work we've gotten accomplished with the many workers that have come in for that and shorter periods of time! We have SO much to be thankful for!!! We are thankful too, for the MANY who haven't come but have remained behind and enabled these to come ... or given them the freedom to come... or provided materials for them ... or given funds ... or ... maybe MOST of all ... PRAYED!!! Thank you ALL so much for all of your kindness to us here at the center of all of this! We pray that the God of all glory will record in His eternal record books each and every kindness to the very least of His servants as a kindness to his own beloved Son!

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In view of all that has gotten accomplished over the past two months, let me update you on the CURRENT NEEDS ...

NO MORE TEAMS are needed with one possible exception and that is for Roofers at Lake Park Chapel in Belle Chasse, LA. Contact Ray Cummings directly if you can help in that area ... Home Phone: (504) 393-7083 / Cell Phone: (504) 239-7068.

In the future there will be a HUGE need for teams to work in East New Orleans, Chalmette and the Lower 9th Ward but there is no assembly testimony there and consequently there is nobody that I know of to coordinate that effort. I'm not sure where or with whom you could hook up with to bring a team down to work there... and the work has not even begun there ... it is a virtual ghost town with bodies still just being found almost daily! This area was not damaged so much from the storm but rather was the worst of the 80% - 90%of New Orleans that was flooded due to the levees being breached! Mostwas under 12 - 17 feet of water for nearly 6 weeks. This is almost totally (80% or so) Roman Catholic with a few Baptist and various forms of Charismatic Churches (no Bible Churches) ... and the churches that are located there are, as near as I know, all closed for now.

What we DO NEED is a few finish / trim carpenters to do the final trim work on the houses we've been working on. This probably won't take long but a few men would make it go even faster and be betterthan just one man!

The team we are left with after Sunday (another one of our workers that has been with us for a month will leave after meeting on Sunday for PA) consists of 4 men ... 1 (Iowa) who will be with us for another 1 1/2 weeks, 1 (Wisconsin) who will be with us for at least a few more weeks, 1 (Iowa) who just arrived for a month, and 1 who is moving here from New York. This team will be able to pretty well cover the work left to do with the exception of needing assistance on the finishing /trimming out of the homes!

With the above finished, we will be in a "waiting mode" as we all wait in the LONG LINE for floor coverings and cabinets to be ordered, delivered and installed! Our goal is to be in our homes by Spring (April / May) with the (unspoken) hope of sometime after the first of the year!!! We would appreciate your prayers on these matters!

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Well, that's about all the update on the "physical side" ... on the Spiritual end of things we have never done better!!! Worship remains about 2 hours as does Prayer Meeting ... no music just a-cappella singing and prayer and a little ministry from the Word of God! What wonderful times these are!!! I may have told you already (it's hard to remember) but one of our ladies (who lost everything up to her ceilings) told me the other evening that ... "I would GLADLY go through ALL of this a hundred more times in order to experience the love of God and the Love of God's People like we have experienced in the past two months!!!" Whew!!! She made me ashamed for my grumbling shortly before that!!! When life is reduced to the very basic / bare essentials, all the petty little things (about people and issues and things) that used to bother you just seem to disappear as well!

I'll try to continue to keep you posted with these updates as our situation moves along. KNOW that we appreciate your support, your encouragement, your love ... and you!

Our very special love in Christ,
His servants and yours,
Bob & JoAnne Brown
Slidell, LA.

Day 50 Update

Dear Praying Friends,

Hello again from Southeast Louisiana!!! I'm sorry for the LONG (11 days I think) delay in updating you. Lots of things going on ... in addition to my e-mail crash ... UGH! I'm still trying to put the mailing list back together, so if you haven't replied to the "FIX MAILING LIST"e-mail that I sent out on Oct. 12 please do so. Until then, I'm doing this in kind of a make shift manner so I hope it is working!

Well, we've had a GREAT couple of weeks! Praise the Lord for His goodness and grace! The Chapel's School is open and operating! The Chapel's Day Care is open and operating! These are CRITICAL issues, not only for the ministry and evangelism that goes on in these, but also for their impact on the economy and community. They allow the parents freedom to work on their homes and go to their jobs which helps them get their lives going again! We've continued to have groups of men coming into help with the recovery effort. They have had all different abilities and skills and the Lord has worked it all out to provide JUST the right people at JUST the right times of need! What a great God we have ... and how intimately He is involved in our everyday lives ... again ... PRAISE THE LORD!!!

Can you imagine, we have had OVER 120 men come down to help us up to this point. Some have come individually. Some have come aspart of a team. They have come from WI, MI, OH, NC, TN, IA, PA, AL, IL,NY, MO, ND, GA, FL, KS, WA, and SC (forgive me if I've missed anyone). They have ALL worked HARD and LONG ... and the progress is showing it! We are SO thankful for those who have come ... and for the wives and children and loved ones who have stayed behind and allowed them to come... and for those who have not been able to come, but have stayed at home and prayed or encouraged or given or any of a myriad of other things that are necessary to make such a thing as this succeed!

Our last local people have finally gotten back here and everyone is alive and safe! To our knowledge we have lost NONE of our people orANY of their family members or extended family members! One of these late returners finally got into their home in East New Orleans (12 feetof water for 6 weeks) and it goes without saying that it is a real mess! I'm not sure whether it will be salvageable or not ... we'll see! It is hoped that he will be able to find some technical advice both on the structural integrity of a home that has been under water that long and on whether or not the mold now growing on ALL the surfaces of the home is"cleanable" or not ... this will then determine whether the house is even possible to reclaim. In the meantime, they are living in a FEMA trailer at Exit 4 - I-59 Picayune, Mississippi ... so we're thankful that they could get into this temporary housing arranged by her employer! Then we had a motor home donated and brought down from Minnesota ... Praise theLord!!! It, and they, arrived about 5 A.M. on this past Sunday morning, got it hooked up, caught a couple of winks nap and came out for Sunday meeting! This will provide "temporary" housing for the last of our families! They've been driving 160 miles round trip to work each day from Camp (at $2.77 / gallon for gasoline). We're setting the motor home up in the Chapel parking lot (Slidell Bible Chapel KOA) and it will cut the driving by way more than half as well as give them their own little place to call home for the foreseeable future! So, praise the Lord, ALL of our families are now in their own "temporary" housing units ... and "temporary" will probably be until spring or so 2006!

In addition to getting this housing in place, we've been making HUGE progress in the homes! They are going back together and it is moving ahead wonderfully! We are SO thankful for all the men who come and work SO hard to make this happen! Sheet rock and other supplies have had to be trucked in from as far away as Kansas in order to get us the materials we need ... an incredible effort ... and what a GREAT example of the Body of Christ working together to get the job done! A living example of the first century church operating in modern times! What a fantastic family to be a part of!

Another WONDERFUL accomplishment is that we met for the first time since Katrina in the Chapel Building!!! Was it ever nice to be back in that building! It still isn't done. There is no carpet, the pews are not bolted down, a good bit of trim and paint still needs to be done... and a HUGE amount of CLEANING! I know .. I know ... it's NOT about a building! But ... !!! It IS SO good to have the chapel building going back together again to the point where it can be used ... the Ladies are pleased because the restrooms actually have WALLS and DOORS ... WOW~!!! We're trying a little rearrangement in the pews to arrange them in a square around the remembrance table (my particular favorite) but we'll see how everyone feels after we try it a few weeks ... it does create some logistical problems in seating. As usual, the time of remembering the Lord was wonderful ... after all, HE is Wonder-full! How can you not enjoy telling the Father about what a wonderful Son he has ... and what His Son means to you ... and what a wonder-full Son / Savior / Lord he is! We had a GREAT time with the Lord in the midst! I could almost see the rest of you there as well ... maybe the tears hindered my view! The angels stood in amazement as sinners saved by grace poured out their hearts to the One to whom they owed EVERYTHING!

Worship on the Lord's Day was again FANTASTIC! We had a wonderful time remembering the Lord Jesus and then asked Duane Brown to bring a little ministry from God's Word at the end! My "most wanted" man who got Saved just a couple of months ago came out and that was a real blessing to have him break bread for the first time with us "postKatrina"! The folks even put together a little "fellowship dinner" for the first time since the storm ... how COOL! We had a WONDERFUL time! They cooked it in the Day Care kitchen which is operating! The menu wasn't spectacular ... a Ham (that one of the teams brought us) and Macaroni and Cheese together with some salad and a few fillers and some great french bread and butter! We had a GREAT time ... you would have thought it was Filet Mignon and baked Potatoes! We all sat (kind of crammed together) at the little, miniature tables in the Day Care with some folding chairs with others standing ... it was really FUN! We all had a GREAT time!

Well, KNOW that we appreciate your prayer. We'll never get a chance to write thank you notes to all of those who have helped and given and encouraged, but please KNOW that it isn't for lack of thankfulness! We are SO grateful for all that everyone has done and continues to do! So, KNOW that we appreciate YOU!

Our very special love in Christ,
Bob & JoAnne Brown
Slidell, Louisiana

Day 39 Update

Dear Praying Friends,

Well HI!!!
I'm sorry for the long time without an update. It's not due to things being so bad ... but because things are going GOOD! Praise the Lord!

We've had a great group of volunteers in this past couple of weeks ... the Lord's people all pitching in to help get us back to "normal" (whatever that is) coming in all the way from Iowa, Kansas, Washington State, North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Iowa. Duane Brown from Atlantic, Iowa cancelled a whole month of Ministry to come and take a HUGE load off of me in planning, coordinating and directing the recovery efforts. As many of you know, he comes with a tremendous background in Commercial Electrical Contracting as well as in Construction. He's been a huge help and the work is moving along incredibly well!

Last night I was going to write but we had such a GREAT Prayer Meeting that we didn't get out until after 8:30 p.m. (2 hours) and then the folks fellowshiped another hour so I didn't get to work on school "stuff" until then and that went on till nearly curfew (11:00). What a great time we had in the Lord! Thank you ... not only for praying for us ... but also, for meeting WITH us ... as we met with the Lord! What a great time it was ... wasn't it! Some of the aid workers stopped me this morning and said ... "That was the BEST prayer meeting I've EVER been at!" Well, I don't know if it was that good ... but we had a GREAT time with you and with the Lord!

We're to the point now of things going back together ... Praise the Lord! Rewiring where necessary, insulation going in, sheet rock going up, taping and floating, things being ordered (NO telling how long it will take for the "things" to come in), and even painting going on to some extent! Thanks to Scott Leach from Prattville, AL. and James Bonner from Needham, AL. and MANY other folks from all over the country who brought materials in that were not available here on the Gulf Coast ANYWHERE! So trailer after trailer and pickup load after pickup load of sheet rock, tubs of "mud", loads of shingles ... and on, and on, and on it goes day by day! How WONDERFULLY grateful we are to the "little army" of the Lord's People who have pitched in to help us! What would we have EVER done without ... YOU! So, again ... our ETERNAL thanks and gratitude to each one of you who has had ANY part in all of this!

We have still got a few needs ...
* Right Now we (Slidell) need a couple of GOOD sheet rock tapers and floaters!
* Right Now we (Slidell) need a couple of GOOD roofers!
* We still need a good bit of chain saw work as well as toting and hauling the material left after it is cut up.
* We will be needing people who can paint and who know how to texture walls.
* Lake Park Chapel in Belle Chasse, LA. will need a crew or two to do some roofing ... call Ray Cummings (Cell: (504) 239-7068 / Home: (504) 393-7083 / Book Store: (504) 394-3087) the AFTER THE 15th of October to make arrangements if it would be possible for you to lend a hand in that effort.

That's about all for now. Day by day things are moving ahead. It will probably be a LONG time before things return to "normal" but at least right now we are getting better day by day and moving closer to being in our homes again ... thanks to each of you!

Thank you for your prayers ... for your gifts ... for your materials ... for your tools and supplies ... and FOR YOU!

Our love to each of you,
Bob & JoAnne Brown