Across the canal bridge the Lower 9th Ward looks like a war zone. Thousands of houses are no longer on their foundations; swept off by a continuous surge of relentless water. Old cars poke out of the sides of some of the more derelict houses, looking like something out of a Terminator movie scene gone wrong. A stuntman would have died. Our SUV, with Fr. Jerry Kramer at the wheel, moves slowly around the surprisingly clean roads, but feet from the road's edge, houses lie derelict, water lines can be seen on some roof tops, others none at all, as the water line, in some places was 20 feet above the roof line.

Where Hurricane Katrina has hit, roofs have been entirely ripped off and naked shafts of wood jut out from 100-year old houses, reminiscent of the naked twisted metal poking into the sky from New York's downed twin towers. Here the timbers, a year later, are still exposed to the extremes of nature. A bull-dozer is all they can hope for. Thousands of cars (there are an estimated 300,000) lie dead, parked liked heaped corpses waiting for someone to turn them into blocks of metal at a recycling center.

Suddenly we stop at an abandoned Walgreens on St. Claude Ave., and emerging from the shadows of a snowball wagon with a noisy generator in desperate need of help, steps Jimmy, eating potato salad. He's black and is dressed in a black T shirt and pants. His smile is warm and welcoming; a large grin crosses his face. His hand grip is firm as he greets the Rev. Jerry Kramer, rector of the Free Church of the Annunciation, followed in turn by Fr. Shola Falodun, a Nigerian priest who works with Fr. Kramer. I make up the rear and he greets me like a long lost friend. He shakes my hand all the while laughing and smiling.

Jimmy is an elder of the new start-up church, All Souls, (a plant from Annunciation) which is searching for a church property in this hellish, surreal domain. There are dozens of brick "missionary Baptist" churches lying fallow; brick cleaned on the outside, but the insides now empty of contaminated sheet rock, the walls stripped clean, the product of hundreds of gallons of bleach to rid the interiors of mold and mildew. There is an eerie quiet here. Grass and weeds grow together in empty parking lots between slabs of useless concrete. A once new piano sits in lonely solitude in the middle of an empty, cavernous church. I hit a chord on the water-logged piano and a strangled sound briefly emerges. I try to imagine hundreds of Black voices singing a verse of, "We're Marching to Zion" or "King Jesus is a-listenin'". Now the churches stand empty like mausoleums that one occasionally visits, to place a wreath over a dead relative. Many ministers are permanently in exile and most of their flocks will never return.

It's the Free Church of the Annunciation's first plant in 162 years and all the members are mostly former Baptists whose ministers fled the Lower 9th to cities like Houston, Atlanta and Baton Rouge, but their remnant congregations have stayed. The Free Church of the Annunciation is in a "better" part of New Orleans where they only got six to 10 feet of water...the Lower 9th Ward got swallowed up. But in this hellish environment, a new church is being born. God will have it so.

Jimmy loves Jesus and it shows. He's still alive, despite nature's best attempts to kill him off. He's a survivor, nothing will keep him down. It's a fine day now, humidity is down a bit; life is good, and a snow cone is a dollar away. His house is a victim of Katrina but a FEMA trailer is parked on his lot, hooked up to a jerry-rigged electrical line, with adjacent water and sewer lines. His entire living space is 250sq feet and he is one of the lucky ones. There are families of 12 living in the same square foot trailers where the air is fetid and the smell overwhelming. Jimmy lives by himself while his family lives in Baton Rouge 75 miles away. Once in while, when he has saved a few dollars, he goes to see the rest of his family. He is not bitter.

His house is home to the temporary new church plant where 25 to 30 meet twice a week for Bible studies and on Sundays for worship, where Fr. Shola preaches, teaches and celebrates Eucharist to this growing group of former Baptists. They are falling in love with the Anglican Way...and they are being led by a Black Evangelical Episcopal priest, licensed in the Diocese of Louisiana but whose home is Nigeria. Fr. Shola hadn't until last month seen his wife and family in four years. He is working hard so they will join him in New Orleans soon.

Jimmy joins us as we climb back into the SUV and circle the area looking at other abandoned churches, hoping for that rare combination of church, parking lot and major relief center. We see several possibilities. A now abandoned Roman Catholic parish looks the most inviting. It's clean, someone has recently mowed the lawn; the buildings seem ready for use. It needs minimal work to re-open. Calls will be made next week and the wheels set in motion for a possible buy out or lease. Hope is in the air. It is a moment ripe for Fr. Jerry to make his move and form a mission for his evangelical catholic flock.

We drive on. On another street corner we meet "The King" who lives above his barber shop on St. Claude Street. His home had been hit by a ten feet water surge, but he isn't bitter. He smiles when he sees us and strolls over to the car as we pull up next to him. We asked him about his day and he said he is "fixin' his house and mowin' his lawn." He said it is hard but honorable work. He is right. He loves Jesus too and it shows. He holds a Bible study class in his home each week. He's still sweating from mowing an overgrown lawn. All around us are empty buildings, businesses that have folded and derelict houses and churches standing ghost-like in the afternoon sun. The "king" is sweating but his toothless grin is real, you can tell he is working for a "higher power".

The "king" points to a building across the road that lies empty. "I can git you that fer nothin'," he tells Fr. Kramer. "I know the man who left." "The King" knows everybody, the quitters and the stayers, the hookers and the pushers - they are all part of his world. "They all need Jesus," he says quietly. "Just say the word Father and you can have that property." Fr. Jerry smiles. It's a good day, and it ain't over yet. . It's a paradox on a paradox. One can only laugh and cry at the same time, and marvel at God's strange and wonderful sense of humor.

For Fr. Jerry, in this war zone, the cry is the Gospel and making it relevant to the real world of broken and lost souls torn apart by a 30-foot surge of water and powerful 100-mile-an-hour winds. What happened in Louisiana was not primarily an act of God, but the failure of man made levees to keep the water out. There's blame enough to go around though. Politicians, bureaucrats and pundits all point fingers at each other. But it is the churches that have done the best rehab work, and their record goes mostly unsung by the media. There is no room here for pluriform truths, just the single truth of God's redeeming grace and transforming power in the midst of both a human and nature driven tragedy.

As Fr. Jerry sees it, it is not just the failure of the government. The breached levees are a direct result of the failure of the Army Corps of Engineers who should have fixed the problem years ago. Politics and money failed these people. But it is the churches who are saving the day for south Louisiana. "This is the greatest argument ever for faith-based initiatives," says Fr. Jerry. "We can get a lot done with a little money. FEMA should be run by Baptists not Washington-based bureaucrats or local politicians. If the Baptists were running the place, the problems would be fixed in no time at all," he says. It's hard to imagine how, the task seems so monumental. The wash out for the three states - Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama, is the size of England. I try to imagine water covering England from Land's End to John o'Groats. My mind still can't totally grasp it; and still I am only seeing one small part of it all.

In the year since Katrina struck, with only minimal resources Fr. Jerry's parish has served 50,000 people in the church parking lot and beyond, and he is looking now to opening a major relief center in the Lower 9th Ward. Presently his church is serving 130 people an hour with relief supplies, and when he opens the doors in the Lower 9th Ward those numbers will swell exponentially. His old deconsecrated church and parish hall has been turned into a warehouse for relief supplies. "We have claimed new ground for the kingdom here in our part of New Orleans and we are going to the Lower 9th to plant a new flag for the Kingdom," he says. "We are not surrendering an inch of what we have claimed for Jesus," he exclaims stubbornly.

Fr. Jerry has had help from across the country. Episcopalians of one stripe or another have been amazingly helpful. A parish in the Diocese of Pa. took the bait and offered to fund a Laundromat; They kicked in a few thousand dollars and it was off to the races. Big evangelical parishes like The Rev. David Roseberry of Christ Church, Plano has been one of his most generous partners, but others from California to NJ have stepped into the breach and stood with Fr. Jerry and his growing flock with goods, money and a constant flow of people coming in to serve. Hundreds of young people, 200 from campus Crusade for Christ alone, came in for spring break to help clean, mow yards, muck houses, tear out sheet rock and much more, a first hand learning experience for the kingdom that many would later say jump-started their own desire to serve and save the lost.

Fr. Jerry reserves his kindest words for his Bishop Charles Jenkins who has been totally supportive of his work and ministry. He recently deconsecrated the old church (but not the altar) and the church moved into a donated double-wide trailer, while an empty lot next door is being prepped to receive a new steel shell, that when enclosed, will be home to a new church capable of seating over 200. Bishop Jenkins will consecrate it. "He has supported us in every way from day one and is ready to reach out and help any time we ask," says Fr. Jerry. "We're blessed."

The parish has recently been on a roll. They borrowed a million dollars from banks and started buying up properties all around the church to house multiple ministries for outreach, youth, relief and more that Fr. Jerry has planned. "We're on a roll for Jesus and His Kingdom and Katrina has been the catalyst to jump start new ministries," he says.

The church is drawing divorced Catholics, church dropouts and people of all ages, shapes and sizes from the community. Fr. Jerry himself, 39, is a former Roman Catholic seminary student and Church official, divorced, remarried, and when asked why he left RC Church as a priest after 15 years, says simply, "I wanted more Jesus and less church." He found a home in The Episcopal Church and describes himself as an Evangelical Catholic. He has no time or patience for the TEC's revisionists, pansexualists and those who want to change the church's received teaching. "When I was in Catholic seminary 50 out of the 57 students training for priestly ministry were gay. The problem isn't going away whether you are Catholic or Episcopalian," he says.

He is a Rite I Prayer Book priest and hasn't much use for 'happy clappy' Episcopalianism either. He treads the via media of orthodox faith, the ancient liturgy and old church hymns in the Anglican Way. More modern evangelical styles of worship don't play well in New Orleans. In a city like New Orleans nearly everyone understands "old" whether it is houses or church. We pick up what the RC Church rejects, we introduce them to Jesus and the Good News of the Gospel, their lives are transformed by a personal relationship with Christ and they are hooked." His stalwart wife Stacy holds weekly women's Bible studies and runs an AA program. "She's a bit more Protestant than I am," laughs Fr. Jerry, but they both read A.W. Tozer's devotional writings together as a couple.

SUNDAY 10.30am

Some 60 people crowd into the double-wide trailer after chairs and tables have been folded up following a Bible class where Fr. Jerry gets them to focus on who Jesus is, what He has done and how they can live the Christian life without focusing on all the trappings they are used to. The church's mission statement says it all: "The Free Church of the Annunciation confidently proclaims the Good News of God's transforming grace, carrying on Christ's mission of reconciliation in the world. We do this through experiencing Jesus Christ in worship, building Christian community, and serving others in newness and fullness of life." It doesn't get much better than that.

The congregation is a mixed bag of young marrieds, singles, growing youth, some older folk, and many who feel uncomfortable and unwelcome in other churches. Mercifully you won't find any of Frank Griswold's "diverse center" here. Death and tragedy focuses the mind. The gospel of changed lives is everything or nothing.

Just before the Service begins a tall, square-jawed Salvation Army officer in full military uniform strides in. He has just been sent down to New Orleans from Dallas to jump start their ministry here, post Katrina. He loves what Fr. Jerry is doing and he can't do enough to support the parish's ministry with enormous supplies of clothing and food for the church's outreach to the community. He enters into the liturgy with gusto and together we carry the base line acapella for the hymns, which include "O, for a Thousand Tongues," "Spread, O Spread thy Mighty Word," and oldies like "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent" and "Amazing Grace" as the offertory hymn. The church cannot afford an organ or piano. The congregation is undeterred.

Race, gender, class, money...its' all meaningless here. There are just worshippers, all raising holy hands to God waiting to receive the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ into their bodies. It is a sight never to be forgotten.

END

To get in touch with Fr. Jerry click here to make a donation or to ask him any questions: www.annunciationinexile.homestead.com