I went to church one Sunday morning and our pastor told everyone that we were going to have guest coming . We go to a small congregation at a Non-Denominational Family Oriented Church so everyone is tight nit . When our guest arrived our pastor introduced them to everyone . There was the man and his girlfriend of eighteen years that had been evacuated from the 9^th ward in

New Orleans after Katrina had devastated the city with it’s flooding . The United States government had flown them into Mascoutah , Illinois to Mid America Airport and then bused them to Alton Illinois about 60 miles away to stay at an abandandoned Mental Hospital until they could find them a temporary housing . They had just recently moved six of the families to the hotel where the pastor’s son worked as a maintenance man . Our pastor talked to the mayor of our village (3000 population ) which is a suburb of St Louis Missouri  along with the owner of an apartment complex found six apartments for the misplaced families for six months FREE rent . Another set of business owners donated enough money to furnish the apartments . The six families moved in got settled . Some decided to stay and some decided not to . The man with his girl friend of eighteen years they decided that they liked Illinois a whole lot better than New Orleans .But before they could do too much the girlfriend had to go to Houston Texas to pick up her grandson that had gotten separated from her in New Orleans . He was three years old and someone had recognized him . After she got back within a week her boyfriend had a job working full time riding a mass transit bus to work . That Christmas before the bus made it final turn to take him two miles to his home he got off the bus to go the local hardware store to purchase a live Christmas tree so his /her grandson could have a live tree . It was snowing ; it was cold ; he was from New Orleans ; there was an empty farm field on one side of the road and he walked two miles with a five foot tree on his back up six flights of stairs to his third story apartment so the grandson could have a live Christmas tree.

When the pastor first met the three year old grandson when arrived from Houston he would want give the little boy a hug and the little boy would want to fight him . ( God knows what he had to go through while he was at Houston by himself ) but after a couple of years and a lot of love the pastor finnaly persuaded the little boy to give hugs instead of slugs .

   About a year ago the man ask me to do something for him . I was very happy to do it for him . He ask me to be the best man at his wedding . I just wish my pastor would have lived long enough to have been the one to perform it . This man is my NEW BEST FRIEND.

His wife has told us many times . She always wanted to get out of the ninth ward . She just didn’t realize God was going to do it that way.