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With a major Baton Rouge hospital just a short walk from St. Luke's, among the evacuees are parents of special needs babies flown in from hospitals hit by Katrina. Babies from hospitals in Rita's path were also moved to that Baton Rouge hospital. Koehler expects some of these babies' parents will find shelter in his church as well.

The past three weeks have brought home to Koehler the lesson of Christ's feeding the 5,000. He said the little that the disciples had was enough "if it's in his hands, and they do what he says." "The pieces were there, and all we had to do was open our eyes, say 'Yes,' and do what was in front of us," says Koehler. "Everybody calls all their spiritual gifts and material gifts into play, and they'll get used somehow."

During Katrina, St. Luke's housed 25 Environmental Protection Agency officers and fed 65 hungry workers from Baton Rouge's 911 emergency call center. "The government wasn't giving us help. We were giving help to the government, which I think is an interesting twist," Koehler told CT.

Hotels across Texas and Louisiana remain full of Hurricane Katrina survivors, leaving no place but emergency shelters, church buildings, and private homes to house this second wave. Shelters housing Katrina's homeless reopened to welcome Rita evacuees, many of whom sought help from churches.

While the Red Cross, fearing liability, will not match evacuees with families wanting to take them in, Austin churches had lists of dozens of members happy to house them. Eighteen Spanish teachers from Spain attending a Houston conference evacuated to Austin where First Evangelical Free Church quickly sheltered them in its members' homes.

In Shreveport, Louisiana, some 250 miles northeast of Houston, one of the largest churches is Summer Grove Baptist. Housed in a former shopping mall, Summer Grove was closing its Katrina relief distribution center in the old Dillard's department store when Hurricane Rita prompted a new migration into Shreveport.

The church reopened the center and began handing out leftover Katrina donations to Rita evacuees. Summer Grove hired Cary Windler to coordinate relief and 200 volunteers working with the church's Katrina response. Windler said the church helped Rita evacuees until it had to close in anticipation of Rita, which hit Shreveport Saturday morning as a tropical storm.

Across the Red River from Shreveport in Bossier City, Louisiana, First Baptist Church helped care for Katrina survivors in the CenturyTel Center, a venue for concerts and big gatherings. First Baptist met Katrina evacuees' needs ranging from food to furniture. As Katrina survivors moved to more permanent dwellings, Rita prompted a second exodus into Northwest Louisiana. First Baptist receptionist Kaira Krysinski said Friday that Rita evacuees had been flowing steadily into the church seeking help. "They just see this large steeple from the highway and they pull off because it's a symbol of hope," she said.

Rita's Aftermath
After Rita passed through, the Salvation Army, Texas Baptist Men (a disaster relief group), and the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board (NAMB) moved in her wake to feed the hungry, provide childcare, and help clean up the mess the storms left behind in Texas and Louisiana.

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September (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49