KATRINA: FRIENDS, FAMILY, AND FAITH

Oliver R. Phillips, director of Mission Strategy USA/Canada, and Fletcher Tink, professor of Urban Ministry at Nazarene Theological Seminary, have joined to publish a new inspiring book, Katrina – Friends, Family, Faith. The book, which will be released December 15, 2005, is a collection of selected stories of heroism and faith in the midst of the Katrina disaster in the Gulf Coast Region.

Phillips stated that the book’s intention is not to answer the question why bad things happen to good people, but to “reassert the belief that we can survive life’s tragedies and unfairness by an unyielding belief in the interdependency of all of creation. We desperately need each other.”

Through on-line giving and donations sent to Nazarene Headquarters in Kansas City, close to 4 million dollars have been donated to the unfortunate victims of the worst tropical storms to hit the US in 100 years.

“Much of the story is still to be written,” reported Tink. “It is being carved out not only in the way in which we “do” church, or prioritize programs; it is also being fashioned in an examination of our ‘real’ values, expressed in new ways of seeing our ‘Friends, Family and Faith.’ Our people have discovered all three of these “F’s” converging in the life of the church and, as a result, they have been changed and redeemed.”

Dwight Jennings, administrative director for Chaplaincy Ministries, reported, “Amid all the destruction and suffering associated with every natural disaster, there often seems to be one positive effect. Namely, people rediscover their need for faith in God, family, and friends. It often comes in the most unlikely ways.”

This book vividly recounts the moments of triumph in the midst of an unspeakable natural disaster.