The roads in Bay St. Louis, Miss., run a foot above the marsh, and sometimes the two are indistinguishable. Plank roads are back in style (you might say they've resurfaced) and it takes a little longer to get from here to there. But that's okay because everything runs on "Katrina time." Folks show up a little late for appointments. Lines can be long, but the Waffle House waitress takes the sting out of an hour-long wait by calling you "baby." Shelves at the just-reopened Wal-Mart are no frills—no $1,500 stainless steel grills or ultrasonic jewelry cleaners—and not even much shaving cream. Instead there are racks of axes, rows of generators, and plenty of fresh bottled water.
Six months after the worst hurricane in U.S. history leveled this town of 8,200, there's a buzz here that you just don’t hear in large parts of New Orleans. Considering the cleanup job ahead, a lot is getting done. The railroad bridge has opened again. The beach will be clean if nothing else is. Eastward, an armada of giant-tracked machines scoops up tons of sand and sifts out Katrina's flotsam and jetsam—baby carriages and car parts, palettes and plastic—leaving behind pristine, sugary mounds for the tourists everyone hopes will come.
Still, you get the idea that even the big retailers are not quite sure whether they'll be back. It will take a lot more than one or two companies deciding to return. Certainly the casinos, the "damn casinos," in the words of more than one long-time resident, already have begun to return. But even the moneyed have to shake their heads at the fury and force of a storm that looked at the first three beach-front blocks of 85 miles of Gulf Coast and said, "Let's level that."
What do you see, Giants or Grapes?
Not a house stands untouched in Bay St. Louis. Most are gone now, and the few that remain should go or require major repairs. In the wind you can hear the hard slap of American flags everywhere. Plastic, metal, or insulation "slash" hangs everywhere in the remaining trees. Mostly there's mud—everywhere.
It's been only a couple of months since Jean Larroux, 35, a church planter for Mission to North America (MNA), came back to his hometown after a 15-year absence, but it seems he could show up unannounced at any of the few standing houses in Bay St. Louis, Miss., and be welcomed as one of the family, because he is.
"Used to go to school with his son," he says about Dusty Rhodes, his new banker. "I think he dated my sister," he says as he points out a waiter. Saying goodbye to the Chamber of Commerce president, he points out, "I dated her sister." That apparently came to nothing, because Larroux graduated from St. Stanislaus High School and headed off for Ole Miss. There he met his bride-to-be, Kim, a sorority girl from the Mississippi Delta. But it all comes to something now, as Jean, Kim, and their three children are "answering the voice of Jesus" to give up a normal, happy life as an assistant pastor at Independent Presbyterian Church in Memphis to return to his hometown of Bay St. Louis.
What did that voice sound like? Larroux thinks there's "a 90 percent Presbyterian component to a call. The usual things: Is there a need, is there a fit, is there support, does it look biblical, does it fit with other 'callings,' do others agree with you, what do your elders say? The last 10 percent is maybe a little less Presbyterian: You just know. It's harder to describe, but it's there. It's internal, and maybe even a little Pentecostal. I just know that when I first asked my bride if she'd like to go plant a church in Bay St. Louis, she said 'No!' in the clearest manner possible. I knew then that there was no way I could manipulate this situation, so I just shut up about it. Not much later, we were sitting under the preaching of visiting Scotsman David Meredith." Meredith's text was Numbers 13, about the 12 spies who came back saying "there are giants in the land," and the few who came back saying "there are great clusters of grapes in the land."
"'When you look at what God is calling you to do,' Meredith asked, 'what do you see? Giants or grapes?' That evening Kim told me, 'You know we have to go!' But what about Westminster, the kids' school? What about the house? What about our friends, and all the folks at Independent? She just looked at me and said 'Grapes or giants, Jean? Grapes or giants?'"
"I knew we were going," he says. "When you have an Ole Miss sorority girl ready to move into a FEMA trailer with you, that's the voice of Jesus! Like I said, a little Pentecostal, but clear as a bell."
Last October, Larroux met with his elders at Independent. "There were heavy hearts on both sides," he says, "but we jointly acknowledged God's clear calling."
Larroux thinks it's critically important for church planters to go back to what they know, to what they're familiar with. That can quickly clarify a call, he says. "Church planting experts can talk about all sorts of strategies, but nothing can replace relationships. That is how you move into a community."
I drive around and cry and laugh and cry again
Six months after Katrina, the streets of Bay St. Louis, Waveland, Biloxi, and Gulfport are still lined with piles of debris. At one Waveland driveway, a hand-painted roadside sign reads simply: Psalm 107:23-30. "I oughta know that," Larroux mutters. Reaching through the tools in his truck cab, he pulls out his Bible. As he reads the Psalm out loud, he holds back tears:
"Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the great waters; they saw the deeds of the Lord, his wondrous works in the deep. For he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths; their courage melted away in their evil plight; they reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits' end. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven."
He pauses to regain his composure. "Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of men!"
"It's my whole life here. This must be what it feels like to be bipolar. I drive around and cry and laugh and cry again."
Larroux lost his aunt and uncle in Katrina. They drowned in their small home when they tried to hold out against its 40-foot wall of water. The pain—and the metaphor—is not lost on Larroux. He sees a community of people whose great physical needs are only surpassed by their spiritual ones, who often live on the treadmill of works righteousness. "Katrina created great physical needs, but it also exposed existing spiritual needs. This is a rare opportunity."
"Think of it this way,” Larroux said as he talked to a friend. “We used to go to confession to tell the priest about our sins. But at this new church, the priest will tell us about his sins and about God's gift of justification. Have you ever heard that in a church?” The friend said “no.” “Eventually I hope that she will see how futile it is to hold out on her own.”
"The gospel is the third way, neither legalism or license, nor legalism plus legalism. Apologetics is not going to win this culture. Biblical theology is. If I can get them into the Word, it takes care of the rest. After I got converted, nobody ever dealt with me on transubstantiation, or Peter as head of the church. I just got into the Bible. I'd walk into my pastor's office after reading and say ‘I don't see anything that supports those things.’ He was patient with me and began slowly to show me the great truths of Scripture that the Reformation had rediscovered."
"We've named the new church Lagniappe Presbyterian,” he says. "Probably a hundred outsiders have asked me, 'Lagniappe? Why would you want to call it Lagniappe?’" (pronounced lan-yap) Larroux says nobody from Bay St. Louis needs an explanation. "Say you're buying five pounds of shrimp, and the guy at the market gives you an extra handful for free—that's lagniappe, known elsewhere as the baker's dozen. That's it. Free. Grace. In other communities, we'd be Grace Presbyterian."
Where the Hurt Is
Larroux's cellphone rings constantly. "Yeah, we'll be over there this morning to demolish the house," he tells a caller. "The Windemuller families from Grand Rapids brought down a convoy of heavy equipment, and the people to run it for two weeks. Lagniappe! How generous is that? I am just trying to steer them and a hundred other people around to the next task. Sure am glad Sprint has a 'Flexible' plan, because I put 3600 minutes on my phone last month. That's not chatting; that's about 1200 3-minute calls."
People who travel across the country to work on the Gulf Coast are initiators. They just do things without asking for directions. "People tell me this or that ... is such an answer to prayer,'" Larroux says. "But I don't have time to pray for it before it happens. Mostly my prayers are prayers of thanksgiving."
On a cold February night, under a clear sky and a full moon, Jean Larroux has gathered with family and old friends around a bonfire built in a discarded aluminum satellite dish. Salmon, brought in fresh with a crew of relief workers from Washington state, is grilling nearby. If you're hungry, you're welcome. Nearly everyone around the circle has a story about Jean. He rolls with the good-natured punches. These friends don't doubt that he's here for the long haul, because he's with them now, living in a trailer.
"Here in Bay St. Louis it was quaint. You used to be able to rent little bicycle carts with canopies and ride around the downtown area. You'll be able to do that again, I'm sure. Then a lot of churches will want to be here. But we want to be here now, because the hurt is now."
