Regarding Hurricane Ike

9/14/08

Regarding Hurricane Ike

All of the sticks and bricks that we have carefully arranged and placed, reduced to a pile of rubble in a matter of hours. Years of plotting and planning shredded by a power greater than our own - a power greater than our wildest imagination. What insignificant creatures we are in comparison. How foolish we are to think that somehow we can design our own safety and security. How utterly rebellious we are to laugh in the face of God. This is not a laughing matter, for we are plotting and planning our own destruction.

As one reviews the targets of Hurricane Ike, it is clear that God is showing forth His displeasure with the idols that we have placed in our lives. Cars, boats and houses tossed about as small toys. It is interesting that our reaction to these losses is one of sympathy – as if the people have lost something essential to their well being. This reaction is wrong and is a sign of our backward way of thinking, for it is in the loss of these things that eternal life is brought forth. It is in God’s mercy that these things are taken.

While many are inconvenienced in the aftermath of the storm, it is this very thing that provides opportunity for God to show forth His mercy. As our government becomes increasingly helpless in relieving the pressure of ever increasing calamities, God’s never ending mercy will begin to shine ever brighter.

Strongholds were tumbled: Hooter’s fell into the swirling waters of the Gulf of Mexico and windows were blown out of the JP Morgan Chase Tower in downtown Houston. This is how it will be in the end – all of our idols will be destroyed.

The people that stayed and endured the wrath of the storm will tell you that they should have run; that no possession is worth the terror that they experienced. They say that next time they will run. But what they do not see is that at the end of things there will be no place to run. We must seek our shelter now while there is still time, for at the point of His coming it will be too late.

For years prophets have come forth warning of impending doom; prophets that have been faithful to the Word of God. But we have mocked and scorned them and then returned to our foolish ways.

The final days are approaching and we must be sober as He places each of us in our designated position. The hour has come in which no man can rest in the assurance of days gone by. As each new day breaks forth, His everlasting light shines down upon the sins of man, exposing us for what we are, children of iniquity lost amongst the foolish things of this world, scorning that which is good in order to pursue that which is vile.

The hour is late. The sun is beginning to set even as a new day is beginning to dawn.

During the SI Conference Call Revival Prayer Meeting tonight 9/16, one intercessor from the area reported little or no evangelizing in the Hurricane Ike areas of damage. We prayed. Who goes? (the prayer call was extended for 45 minutes for individual intercessor prayer without recording)

Help coming forth in His Name.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/26795157#26795157

Church, football make post-Ike Sunday seem normal
By ANGELA K. BROWN and CAIN BURDEAU, Associated Press Writers

NAHUAC, Texas - Wearing jeans and rubber boots, clutching Bibles and weeping between hymns, residents of the storm-shattered Texas coast comforted each other Sunday at makeshift church services that provided more than a respite from Hurricane Ike cleanup.

About 50 people came together on a basketball court outside the Oak Island Baptist Church, just south of Interstate 10 about a mile from the tip of Trinity Bay. They sat on folding chairs or simply stood, forced outdoors by the 1-inch layer of mud left inside the single-story red brick building by floodwaters that tossed pews like matchsticks.

A demolished mobile home was still lodged among trees, many of them snapped by the storm's 110-mph winds that somehow left the church's trio of 20-foot white crosses still standing. Across the street, piles of debris had sprouted, proof of the labor undertaken since the storm blew through last weekend, and of the work yet to come.

"I know it's hard. Looking around, it's tough," the Rev. Eddie Shauberger told the congregants. "But there is a God, and he has a plan for our lives."

Similar services were being held on Galveston Island and throughout the Houston area, where power had been restored to enough residents that schools planned to hold classes Monday for the first time since the storm.

In Galveston, Bobby and Pamela Quiroga sought succor at a Mass set up in the historic Hotel Galvez. They went to their Roman Catholic church a week ago, the day after storm arrived, but it was closed.

"It's just good to be around people," Bobby Quiroga said. He added, letting his voice trail off, "When you feel a wave shake your house ...."

The newly married 42-year-olds were still trying to gather their senses eight days after watching their homes and businesses flooded by Ike's 12-foot surge.

"Fourteen steps, and we watched the water come up all the way up — even to the floor. Surreal," Quiroga said, his wife leaning on his shoulder.

She dabbed her swollen eyes with a hand towel and vowed never to live on the island again.

"When I fall asleep," she said, "I see the water rising."

Observances in the hardest-hit spots weren't overflowing with residents. Most of Galveston won't reopen until Wednesday, and it could be weeks or more before basic services are restored in all areas.

Still, the island is far from deserted — at least 15,000 people ignored mandatory evacuation orders before and after the storm, and many of them were still there Sunday. Some businesses were beginning to reopen, cell service was improving and electricity was coming back on.

Island leaders emphasized that Galveston remained dangerous. Fuel and other essentials remained scarce. Police will indefinitely enforce a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew once the island reopens, and parents were warned their children could be exposed to infections from storm debris and other hazards.

Planes continued spraying the island to control mosquitoes. Officials urged those returning to wear masks to protect from mold and to properly dispose of spoiled food to stave off vermin.

Teams of cadaver dogs were still working their way through rubble and debris on Bolivar Peninsula, which suffered even heavier damage than Galveston. Evacuees from the peninsula will board dump trucks and other heavy vehicles this week to examine their homes, since the main road is impassible in many spots.

Authorities had blamed the storm for 26 deaths in Texas and 61 total in the U.S., including a utility contractor from Florida who was electrocuted Friday while trying to restore power in Louisville, Ky.

Power had been restored to most of the customers in Texas whose electricity was cut by Ike, though the state said about 875,000 remained in the dark Sunday.

Whether the power was coming through the wall or from a generator, people throughout the region watched the Houston Texans try to win one for the wretched back home.

Maine Williams, a 49-year-old cotton warehouse worker, tuned in the football game with friends in Galveston on a portable TV they set up in an alley. The humidity, mosquitoes and flood muck that covered the neighborhood was made bearable thanks to the grilled hamburger meat, pig tails, cabbage and potatoes, along with the camaraderie and cold beer.

"It's like normal," Williams said, adding that he really wanted was to see his girlfriend and family who evacuated before the storm on buses.

"We're worried about our people," he said. "We want them to come home."

As for the game, which the Texans lost on the road to the Tennessee Titans, Williams wasn't too concerned with the outcome: "I'm a Dallas Cowboys man!"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080922/ap_on_re_us/ike