Final Update From New Orleans

Praise God it's time to go home! After seven long months the Wings Of Love Ministry equipment will be returning to Arizona from New Orleans in early April. It has been an amazing season. It has been a season when we have seen tragedy on a scale not recently witnessed in this country and we have seen God working in so many powerful and miraculous ways that I can hardly separate one event from another in my memory. We have seen the highest and the lowest in human behavior. We have seen volunteers and supporters from around the world respond to the calling of the Holy Spirit by putting their lives and their treasure into service here.

Our ministry has grown considerably over the last seven months; we now have doubled the number of vehicles we started out with and praise God we now have full time volunteer staff! This means of course that our expenses have gone to a whole new level and so we are looking to God to continue blessing us with increases in provision. The specific miracle we need right now is to find a piece of land in Chandler that we can park our vehicles on and hopefully house our volunteer staff in our travel trailer. In addition at this writing we do not have the funds for fuel or maintenance to bring our vehicles home, so please pray with us that God would speak to donors.

Since our last update, the Good News camp has undergone some amazing growth with a total of at least 11 large tents now on the compound, which have housed nearly 1,000 people. March is the time for spring break and what is wonderful about that is that literally thousands of students of all faiths have chosen to spend their break helping in New Orleans when they could have been partying. Campus Crusade alone had over 3,000 in a single week, pushing the total meals coming from the Good News camp to over 10,000 per day! To go from a camp of as few as a dozen people to almost a thousand and feeding 10,000 meals per day with nearly no budget is a miracle indeed, we feel privileged to have experienced it, while also being somewhat dazed and weary. Keep in mind that during all of this time, and even as you are reading this, goods and supplies are being given to the newly ret urning residents, God's name is being lifted up in praise, with song and even dancing as shown in the picture at the right of a Y.W.A.M. praise and dance team that came all the way from Hawaii to help!

As we prepare to depart New Orleans we ask that all would keep the Good News camp in prayer, along with the entire Jerry Davis ministry which has the seemingly impossible task of operating the camp until at least August. The good news here is that nothing is impossible in Christ Jesus and if any reading these words wish to stay informed and possibly even help out with the camp, please refer to www.anoint.com for further information.

Handing out school supplies and a view of the Good News Market, stocked with supplies to give to returning residents

There is now a greater focus on some of the most devastated areas of the city, particularly the lower 9 th ward and St Bernard parish. With this in mind there is now a new relief camp at a church called Light City in the midst of the devastation of the lower 9 th ward. We visited this area a little over a week ago and as you can see from the photos below, the area remains in a state of complete wreckage, more than 7 months after the storm.

Some current views of the lower 9th ward

Homeowner and a typical interior view of homes in St Bernard

Stairs to nowhere and Treasured Memories, left in the trash.

Here are some recent photos from New Orleans which each seem to pose a question for all to consider;

Where is your treasure, and who provides your security?

What is your foundation?

As usual there are some additional pictures this week in the photo gallery, along with lots of pictures from previous editions, so if you would like to see the complete hurricane response photo gallery click here.

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Wings Of Love Ministry

"Serving People Who Serve God"

3818 E Libra Pl, Chandler AZ 85249 (480) 917-3608 email to: info@wingsoflove.org www.wingsoflove.org