Dear Friends ~

Our team has continued to respond to some very difficult tragedies since my last update. We helped 7 different families when their loved ones died at home; responded to 3 different suicides (2 involving gun shots and 1 hanging); an attempted suicide; and helped with 2 death notifications -- 1 involved notifying a young mother of two little children that her husband had died – this one also required that we go to three different families that night. We also helped at an over-dose; a fatal accident, helped a parent whose daughter had been murdered; and assisted a family whose older teen suffered a major medical problem.

Mary and I also responded to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. We were both “deployed” on the same day to the same city – Baton Rouge. Mary was a Trainer for the Red Cross and I served the Louisiana State Troopers with the International Conference of Police Chaplains. Later I served the New Orleans PD in New Orleans. Mary did a wonderful job preparing Supervisors to serve in the shelters and also had the privilege of working in some of the Louisiana shelters. Our Chaplain team worked with 100s of fire fighters and officers. There is no way to describe the physical devastation that we saw and the discouragement of some of the evacuees. One NOFD Captain expressed to me, “It’s wasn’t the hurricane that was difficult, it wasn’t the societal-meltdown, it is the bureaucracy that we are dealing with now.” One officer shared how he felt after trying to survive and rescue others at the same time. At the end of 24 hours he realized he had no place to go clean up and rest as his home was destroyed. Another officer explained how well he was doing after losing his home and 3 cars. He smiled and said, “It’s all material, just temporary things.” Many of the people had great perspectives and attitudes.

Please pray for all the families that lost loved ones here in Napa, particularly for the young mother who lost her husband. Pray for the many concerns in New Orleans:  for Larenzo Carter whose partner killed himself in front of him with two guns – pray for his partner’s wife and children -- he was overwhelmed not only with the stress they were under but also the loss he suffered. Pray for Martha Pierre who just returned from Iraq as a Combat Nurse and then lost all in her apartment – she was very devastated when I first met her. Pray for one officer who was so discouraged that he said he wished a terrorist had dropped a bomb on their city and he would have been in it. Pray for Ofc. Harry Parker who lost all except two bags of clothes – but said, “God has a purpose.”  Pray for Ofc. Kevin Thompson who was shot point blank from behind in the back of his head – he has had two surgeries and another to go. Pray for Ofc. Mark who lost his home and is considering moving to another city. Pray for a lady officer whose father left her son in the storm for his dogs – no joke. Pray for Sgt. Sam Poole (Dist. #9) whose men described to me what a good man he was before I ever met him. And pray for our Community Chaplains that God will give them the wisdom and grace they need to work with the families who have suffered tragedies. Thank you.

God bless…With kind regards,