It’s Show Time - Lisa Burgess

"It’s about time you guys showed up!”

The lone man peddled by on his bicycle along I-110 in Biloxi, muttering this sarcasm at the guys in the orange shirts as they added another wheelbarrow of house-gutting rubble to the decaying roadside pile. Mistaking them for FEMA workers, the man’s disgust was obvious over their seemingly delayed arrival to offer help in this poor neighborhood.

Our church team chuckled. They knew that the man misunderstood their identity. They knew they were under no obligation to EVER show up, and they were only here now, nine weeks after Katrina’s visit, as a completely voluntary initiative.

But later, the words of the Bicycle Prophet penetrated deeper. Is he right? Is it about time we guys showed up, too? Wasn’t the call put in weeks ago, maybe 2000 years ago, for us also to show up after a storm?

It will be said on that day, "Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation." Isaiah 25:9

The victims of Hurricane Katrina aren’t just idly waiting though; they are also working, make no mistake about that. They’re feeding their neighbors, they’re cleaning up their streets, and they’re doing so with great determination. But as they wait and work, they’re also watching, watching to see who shows up next.

God, perhaps?

Yes. I’ve been there, and I saw Him. He is showing up through His children that drive for 7 hours to sleepy Mississippi towns to clear out a tree-strewn yard, to tear down mildewed sheetrock, and to share a heartfelt prayer. He is showing up every time someone looks a Mississippi stranger in the eye and affirms that yes, we really care. He is showing up under the tents that continue to offer free food and water (and the ever-important bleach) to anyone who needs nourishment and a quenched thirst and a hope for a brighter day.

But God is showing up elsewhere as well.

He showed up for me in my refrigerator. My neighbor with four small children couldn’t abandon her responsibilities here to spend time on the coast, so she showed up by cooking a pot of stew for my family while I was gone, and left a casserole in my fridge for my first night back home.

When an anonymous donor wrote a $4,000 check to Wal-Mart to mail bundles of $25 gift cards to residents of Long Beach, Mississippi, no strings attached, you better believe it was God showing up.

And when a young mother came to the church building in Long Beach needing a shovel, she went home with not only a shovel, but a new oven and dryer as well, all because God showed up in Colorado, inspiring someone there to ship a tractor-trailer full of appliances to freely distribute to those in need in a water-ravaged home.

Yes, it’s about time we showed up. And what a parade we are.

by Lisa Burgess