You know friends, all this attention is a real surprise and quite a burden. I also have to say, though, that it is still truly a Blessing. All the hateful comments are worth it if I can just bring your attention to a few important topics.

One subject near to my heart is New Orleans. I remember standing in my friend Christian’s front room listening to Ray Nagin ask us to leave our homes if we valued our very lives. Let me tell you, that is a shock and you can’t imagine it if you haven’t been there.

Christian is a carpenter and we knew he would need his tools once the storm was over. We spent the rest of the night loading up our two trucks with his woodworking gear and a few random, precious valuables. We slept an hour or two and then quickly visited my friend Jimmy who wanted to stay. We prayed for him to get his wife and child the heck out of town and were on our way. The route out Airline Highway and through Opelousas was easy as pie and we made it to Texas in just ten hours.

I thought back to those days because a message from a friend here on MySpace urged me to remember the trials of that storm. If I can survive what Katrina did to my home and my life then the little tempest I’m dealing with now is just a spring shower. To wit, he told me that when life hands us a calamity we can either fall apart or make it an opportunity to better ourselves. He pointed out the wonderful opportunity I have to direct people to important issues even while they are assailing me.

That said, here is part of the note he sent me explaining the rather bizarre censorship that Google Maps has perpetrated on the city of New Orleans. My house was near the levees and he told me to have a look at it and provided a link. I had quite a surprise. My home and all my neighbors homes had been magically rebuilt. You can imagine my surprise, friends, because they aren’t rebuilt. They are destroyed. I’ve seen it first hand. Google has replaced the pictures of the destroyed houses with pictures from before the storm. Why? Who knows friends. I sure don’t. Maybe it has something to do with why they censored me.

Here are the links, so you can judge for yourself:

As I explained, Donnie:

Here is an image of the area near your house, all as if nothing has ever happened.

and

Here is a link to some images the English newspaper The Register took that Google had up just after the storm. All quite destroyed.

The flooded and destroyed houses had gone back to being in perfectly fine shape. Why? Why would they do that? I don’t know. I’ll tell you though, the experiences I’ve had in the past few days have certainly raised some questions in my mind about who you can place your faith in and what you can believe is or isn’t real.

God Bless. I’m praying for us.

DonnieD