Luvin’ Louisiana

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What you see in this video is what you see when you drive down street after street after street in and around Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Everything that people have worked for their entire lives has been reduced to a pile of wet, moldy trash at the curb.

My baby girl often says, “I need some luvin’.” just before piling her 5′ 4.5″ self into my lap. Right now Louisiana needs some luvin’. It’s time to hold my people.

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Many of you have contacted me asking how you can help my family. I’ve asked several who’ve lost everything what they need most. They still need hands to help with gutting homes. If you are able to go there, go. I can connect you with housing while you’re able to be there. The immediate need for cleaning supplies and food is being met.

The immediate needs are just the tip of the iceberg. The needs are HUGE and hard to wrap my head around. The majority of homes that were flooded were not covered by flood insurance because they were not located in a FEMA designated floodplain. Federal aid is miniscule. Many people that I know and love are still trying to figure out where they will live and how they will rebuild and replace EVERYTHING.

Please look back over the list of my family that has been impacted. If you are interested in adopting one of them, let me know. I will send you the address of where they are staying and you can send help directly to them. I recommend gift cards (Amazon is great because they sell everything from groceries to furniture and clothing) and personal notes. Or, just send a personal note of encouragement. People are tired and short on hope, send some words of hope.

My uncle started a GoFundMe for my cousin Cori. She is a single Mom that worked her tail off to buy a home for her and her son. She has lost everything, including her car.

If you have a spare car to donate, we will find a way to get it to someone who has lost theirs.

The Baton Rouge Area Foundation has a flood relief fund that is a trustworthy place to make donations.

Every time my son Seth prays he says, “God thank you for giving us so much love so that we have love to give others. Please give us more and more love so we have more and more to give.” For the record: I didn’t teach him that. It’s not a parenting win. He just gets it. He knows that He is dearly loved by the Father and that the love he receives is to be given to others.

1 John 3:16-17  This is how we’ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God’s love? It disappears. And you made it disappear.

In this last week I have witnessed The Church acting like Jesus in bigger ways than I can ever recall. People have shown up in Louisiana, worked, cooked, fed, encouraged, and loved like Jesus. People are pouring out the love of God on my tribe and it makes my heart smile. But there is still SO MUCH to do.

Galatians 6:9 So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good…

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