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“Evangelism is a carnival in the
village, a boisterous parade that marches through town. It
displays Christ with marching bands, beautiful floats, vivid
symbols, and a way of living so powerful that it threatens
the surrounding principalities and powers.” David Fitch
March 22, 2010
It has been a good year so far for New
Orleans. I am seeing signs of emerging racial reconciliation
and of the passion of New Orleanians to continue to work
hard for their own recovery. The election of a new mayor has
brought hope to the city. Regardless of one’s views of his
politics, we cannot help but be encouraged to see blacks and
whites united, each giving him an equal share of their vote.
He received twice as many votes as the other eleven
candidates combined. The very same weekend, the city was
further united as we together cheered the Saints to win
their first Super Bowl. There were 800,000 people at the
Saints’ victory parade (double our city’s population!). What
had been for New Orleans an emblem of failure—the once
hapless Saints—has given many the hope to imagine progress
in other areas of life that they never thought possible. The
Saints were a team of mostly castoffs, so this was a victory
of imagination.
Redeemer has tried to be a church like
that. Resting in the assurance of God’s sovereign rule,
knowing that he is near to the broken hearted, we have
encouraged each other to use our imaginations. Out of the
rubble of a shattered city, with just 17 members, haunted by
the legacy of a couple of other PCA church plant attempts
that never took root, we believed God was calling us to use
our imaginations and trust him.
We have seen such progress, however
much work remains. New Orleans is back to almost 80% of its
pre-storm size, about 400,000 within the city limits. But
there remain 65,000 blighted homes (over 30% of our
houses). Redeemer, with mission teams from around the
country, has worked on almost 400 homes, restoring many
buildings, and many lives in the process. For example:
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Sherri is an assistant principal of
a Catholic school, and lived 150 yards from a levee
break. She has helped several of her neighbors work on
their homes. We did her dry walling and interior
painting, and she hopes to move back soon.
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Signora lives with her 90-year-old
mom in a trailer behind their home. Contractors took her
money and never finished the work. Her brother Kennie
took time off of work every day to work alongside our
teams.
Friends, I am generally so
encouraged. Hosting and supervising mission teams is
exhausting and expensive, but well worth it. Redeemer
continues to grow, even with the enormous turnover rate. We
had a quarterly members class this fall, which was larger
than the size of our whole congregation four years ago! The
past two Sundays each had over 160 people in attendance
(including about 30 missionaries). Yesterday a reporter from
CNN called and interviewed me for an hour, and is planning
to feature our work again, this time for their 5-year
Katrina anniversary special.
Yet our needs remain, and this is where
we ask for your continued help.
While internal giving continues to
climb steadily, our congregation is largely made up of young
people, many unchurched, and many very mobile. New Orleans
is also a more expensive city in which to live and work
compared to other areas of the country, making our community
more financially draining and precarious than most. Last
year our outside support fell by almost 50% over the
previous year. I assume this is partly due to expectations
for church plants to be self-supporting in three years. That
is understandable. But urban works in a city as historically
resistant to evangelicalism as NOLA, take longer. Probably
some of the outside drop-off in support is related to the
economy: oftentimes mission giving is the first to be cut.
But friends, we need your help now more
than ever. Let me share some areas in which you might better
see our need and our potential:
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Not only do we not own a church
building, we do not even have a lease on the one we
rent. And our church building has not had heat since
I’ve been here. We literally handed out blankets and hot
drinks one Sunday, as it was 45 degrees inside even at
the conclusion of the service! One of our goals for
2010 is to build a heating system for the church we rent
from, in exchange for a cost effective five-year lease.
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We also have called an RUF campus
pastor to Tulane. (Our hope is that he is approved by
presbytery next month, in order to begin in the
fall). While he will raise lots of outside support, our
church is making a large ongoing commitment in order to
bring him here. Your support will allow us to minister
to more college students.
Not only is our need financial, it also
continues to be physical: Please keep sending teams of
volunteers! We currently host about half as many teams as we
used to, and in 2010 we’d like to reinvigorate our service
to the people of New Orleans. This is not only a faithful
response to the command of Christ to serve the homeless, the
poor and the suffering, but it is also cost effective: our
overhead costs remain the same (supervising staff, tools,
housing, extra insurance), even when we have less teams.
Most of all we need prayer. Prayer is
the only explanation for how we’ve survived and even grown,
and how we’ve been able to celebrate and serve our
community.
Thank you for your love and prayers,
Ray Cannata
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