Remember Katrina?

Do you remember Hurricane Katrina? That monster storm struck New Orleans, LA on Aug. 29, 2005 and caused catastrophic flooding as levees failed and 80% of the city was submerged. It also devastated much of the Gulf Coast.


This is 2009 - so that was a long time ago, and things are pretty much back to normal down there now, right?

WRONG.

It is amazing to me to learn that families are still living as refugees, that homes are still being rebuilt, that whole neighborhoods and towns are still in shambles.
A friend of ours, Jimmy Chalmers, who is a self-employed contractor, beekeeper, pastor, homeschool dad, and all-around nice guy, is in New Orleans right now, helping to rebuild homes there and journaling about his work and about the stories of the people he meets on his blog, Woodshavings. Be sure to scroll down and start with his Jan. 16, 2009 post, and read through them chronologically. Jimmy went to NOLA (New Orleans, LA) for a week after Christmas as a volunteer with Operation NOAH Rebuild, a ministry of the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, and was so impacted by what he saw there that he came home and determined to go back for a whole month. He is doing this on faith, trusting God and the community of believers to provide for his and his family's needs during this time.

If you can contribute toward his effort to help the people of New Orleans and also provide for his family, there are a couple of options. One is to use PayPal. Log into your PayPal account and put in the recipient's address as
carpentersshop@gmail.com
Otherwise, email them at carpentersshop@gmail.com and they can send you a physical address to which you can mail a check, made out to The Carpenters Shop Church ( Jimmy's church - donations are tax deductible )

If you are a skilled in a trade, he'd love to have you join him!