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Mark Lomax, in clerical collar, rubber boots and green Vatican City baseball cap, was standing outside his ruined St. Mark Catholic Church in the fetid stink of desolate St. Bernard Parish, when four neighbors spotted him from across the street.

"My God, look who it is!" a jubilant Paul Gremillion called back to his wife and two neighbors. The priest and his church members embraced in the middle of a mud-caked street, sweaty and dirty from foraging in the greasy sludge that coated the floors of their homes.

As usual, tears came quickly. "Oh Father, will we have a church again? Will there be a parish?" one of the women asked, her voice quivering. "We'll see. A lot's going to depend on the government and where they let us rebuild," Lomax said. "But you can be sure of this: Wherever the people are, the church will be there, too. It's just not clear where that's going to be yet."

So it goes around metropolitan New Orleans, in southeast Louisiana and in Texas, where in muddy streets and make-do shelters, in borrowed hotel meeting rooms and even on the Internet, New Orleans pastors have confronted the most basic physical, spiritual and emotional needs of families who have lost all they owned.

"In the last couple of weeks I've done literally everything, from social work and mental health counseling to psychological and spiritual warfare," said the Rev. Charles Southall of First Emanuel Baptist Church. Southall is now displaced in Baton Rouge, tending to a few hundred of his scattered New Orleans flock.

Like them, he lost everything he owned. He delivered his first sermon after the storm in a borrowed pulpit, wearing a suit and shoes donated by his hosts. He is still locating members of his church, scattered from "sea to shining sea." He works with some and worries about the rest. Restful sleep has eluded him since Hurricane Katrina struck Aug. 29, he said.

"The need has grown so exponentially since the storm. It's so intense. I get two or three hours of sleep at a time and then I'm up. There's so much hurt, so much pain."

Yet in the midst of pain is a powerful recompense. Although physically and mentally exhausted and suffering their own material losses, many pastors say they have never felt more needed than in the past month, consoling, explaining, encouraging—or helping their people solve the practical problems of housing, food, and income.

Walter Austin, a Catholic priest and Louisiana National Guard chaplain, worked with nearly 30,000 evacuees in the squalid indignities of the Superdome for five days after the storm. He walked among the crowds in his military camouflage, a chaplain's cross on his black beret and a Bible in his hand.

He introduced himself and showed them how to prepare their military-issued rations. He preached morning Scripture services from atop a generator cart outside the stadium. He spoke from the book of Job, the tormented soul beloved by God. He promised them they were not abandoned.

Often, he said, they asked him to pray with them. "Prayer was such an instrumental part of their lives," he said. "And what they prayed for was not for God to get them out of this, but to comfort them and get them through it."

When, after five days, they began to file, exhausted and bedraggled, onto evacuation buses, many left the line to grasp Austin's hand in thanks. "Some had urine stains on their clothing. Do you understand what they went through?" he said. "But they were coming over to us to say goodbye and to thank us. And it was spontaneous, heartfelt. My being there meant something to them, and that was a real joy."

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October (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49