August 17- Pilgrimage Director Ken Janke
Final Thoughts
It has been a few weeks since our pilgrimage to New Orleans, and the weight I feel in my heart has not gotten easier to carry. We spent a week working, praying and surveying the immense damage that is still monumental even a year after Hurricane Katrina’s initial destruction. The work is so great, but our hands were added to ease the much needed help. Lives were affected by the scope of the destruction, but lives are being rebuilt, and hearts are being restored. For one week, we all felt that God was rebuilding, restoring, and restarting our own hearts with a newness only the Father can bring. Times of reflection brought us eternal perspective, and moments like that are what make a Wonder Voyage Pilgrimage distinctively different from all other mission relief works. I carry now with me the wounds I saw, the work left still to do, and the faces of lives affected. The work is still great, so until I can return, I pray to the Lord of the harvest.
Please grant me the grace, fairest Lord, that some day we might experience a spilling of heaven’s glory on the fields of which I’ve seen in New Orleans. Grant Your laborers the joy found in the echo of some angelic song among the day to day work that still remains. And grant us all eyes to see and behold heavenly things in the most humble of places. Amen.