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Vermilion Faith Community of Care Uniting the faith community of Vermilion Parish in service |
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As we prayerfully consider our call for a day of prayer to build a bridge of prayers from the Gulf Coast of the USA to the West Coast of Africa, we find that it has deep roots, and is closely tied to other important prayer intentions, as outlined below. While these prayers should be a primary concern for those of us living in hurricane-affected areas, we know that we have the support of others in many places. Please share these concerns with anyone you know would be interested. We are particularly concerned that the people of West Africa, who have deeply spiritual cultures and who are strongly interested in the life and health of Americans, be included in the process. Protection from the devastation of hurricanes during the 2006 hurricane season. First and foremost, we are praying that our homes and communities not be ravaged by hurricanes this season. This is not just a prayer for my community in Louisiana, so that hurricanes are directed elsewhere, but for all of the families and communities within and around the full sweep of the Gulf Coast, from Florida to Texas to Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula and Venezuela, from Cuba to the Virgin Islands, and along the Atlantic Coast. We are not looking or praying for the complete elimination of hurricanes. The 20th century has taught us valuable lessons about the effects of our efforts to dominate and control the destructive forces of nature. In Louisiana, for example, we sought to control the flooding that came from the Mississippi River by building levees and fixing her course. While this has brought important short-term gains, enormous amounts of sediment from half of the country that used to be deposited in Louisiana have been shunted to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, while the coastline steadily disappears from lack of replenishment. Likewise, hurricanes have their place. Besides their terrible destruction, they bring forth renewal in many ways. They cool off ocean waters; they reinvigorate ocean habitats; they wash away a lot of dead and decaying debris; they even spark spiritual renewal in the human community. 2005 was the most devastating hurricane season on record, with more named storms and more category 4 and 5 hurricanes than in any other season. It was a longer than usual season too as there was even one hurricane that went into January 2006, a rare event. Atmospheric scientists and weather forecasters tell us that we are in a decade-long period in which there will be a greater number of hurricanes per year than average, and that we can expect more storms of great intensity like last year’s Katrina. The focus of our prayers for 2006 then should be that any tropical storms and hurricanes that form be greatly decreased in strength and intensity if and when they come ashore. Restoration of coastal areas that have been devastated by recent hurricanes so that they are better than they were before. Many areas are still struggling to recover from the devastation of recent hurricanes. Florida still has a long way to go to completely the recovery from four major hurricanes in 2004. Honduras, a poor country whose infrastructure was devastated by Hurricane Mitch in 1997, is far from recovered. Areas affected by Katrina are of course just in the initial phases of a recovery process that could take decades to complete. Below are some broad recovery goals for us to focus on in 2006: |
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