Hi, my name is Alexander. One Saturday morning this past August, I was awakened by my mother, her voice laden with urgency. Water was coming up the hill to our house and had already invaded our neighbors’ dwellings. With the short amount of time that we had, my parents and I whirled around the house grabbing important papers and a few necessities before evacuating to our neighborhood pre-school which had been designated as a shelter. From the front of the school I watched helplessly as water engulfed my home. At 1:30 AM that Sunday morning the shelter was completely evacuated by airboat because water threatened to enter the buildings. As I pondered all that had happened in the previous hours, I wondered if God had abandoned us, me and my parents, the neighborhood, the city.

Now two months later I still feel the pangs of loss every once in a while. I feel it most when I think of my collection of books now vastly reduced. The books were just things, I know. But I had an emotional attachment to them. Books people had given me, books that had inspired me, every last theology book I owned I lost. Among these books were my textbooks for school. I am an English major at LSU studying secondary education so naturally books, especially textbooks, are crucial to me. Hundreds of dollars’ worth of textbooks for the coming semester had been lost, and I have been struggling to get them back.

In all that has happened I have realized something, though. God hasn’t abandoned me after all. I see him next to me whenever people give me clothes to wear and a place to stay. I see him when people provide for me the means to buy back textbooks to continue my education. This is what you have done. I just wanted to tell all of you who have helped those hurt by the flood, you have made a difference. You are proof that God hasn’t abandoned anyone.