oil spill prayer journey: tears and shock

Scott and I left New Orleans yesterday afternoon, completing our week-long oil spill prayer trip.  It was a humid and draining week with much to take in, even discouraging at times, but with many meaningful moments as well.  Following is Scott's recap on the middle two days of our trip, the second of which marked our greatest exposure to the oil itself ...

On Thursday, our gulf coast prayer journey began appropriately.  We had a chance to pray on the beach of Grand Isle one last time before moving along.  We worked our way from Grand Isle, Louisiana all the way to Gulfport, Mississippi.  The road included much beautiful scenery.  The way was scattered with rivers, marshes, bayous, forests, and some great trees.

Upon arrival at Gulfport, we headed straight to the beach.  There we found a pier and walked to the end to see the condition of the water (which was totally clear of oil).

At the end of the pier were a couple of guys on a bench.  Ben soon struck up a conversation with one of them, a local fisherman named Michael.  It turns out that Michael had been crying and praying about the oil spill when we showed up.  He shared much of his story and thoughts about the spill with us, but the following quote is what will stick with me for a long time:

I’ve got tears in my eyes.  I don’t want it to get here.  I don’t want it to get here!  That’s my livelihood!

Somehow looking at it on the computer does not seem to do justice to the sincere passion and pain that he delivered it with.  This man truly felt the pain of many of his gulf coast neighbors and deeply feared how it would impact him.

As we spoke, a man sat quietly next to Michael with his head buried in a booklet.  At some point along the way, Michael interrupted him.  Luis, who only spoke Spanish, was out from Texas for a few days visiting family.  Though I didn’t want to interrupt his personal, devotional time, I am glad that we – and by we I mean our new friend Michael – did.  It turns out that Luis was going through a Catholic devotional.

Luis had a powerful story.  He had lost his wife in 2003 (if I remember the date correctly) and had turned to drinking.  But in 2005 he gave up drinking and turned to the Lord instead.  It was great to hear his story and share what we were doing as well.  He and I had a great time sharing how God is in control, pase lo que pase (“whatever happens”).

After a while the four of us, who were absolute strangers 20 minutes earlier, joined together in prayer on the end of the pier there.  What a powerful and unexpected time!

As of Thursday morning, a couple of plans had fallen through, and I was wondering if anything meaningful was going to happen.  Certainly the two of us would pray, but I thought that other than that it would mostly be filled with a lot of driving, catching up on work, and planning.  What a pleasant surprise to see God move in this way.  As we walked away, our two new friends were encouraged as were we.  And I have a new friend Luis who wants to give me a call sometime.

God is good!

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The clean beaches we saw in Gulfport, Mississippi on Thursday’s leg of our prayer journey were not to be found on Friday.  As we crossed the state line over into Gulf Shores, Alabama, we went from a fear of what could happen to a realized fear.

Upon arrival, we noticed that the yellow flag was flying on the shore.  This indicated the danger but allowed people to go in the water.  And go in the water they did.  The beach was a contrast of beach umbrellas and cleanup tents, people wearing bathing suits and workers wearing special protective boots and gloves, people playing in the sand and workers digging up the oil in the sand, people swimming in the water and people taking pictures of the oil and tars balls in the water.

The reports we had heard of tar balls found on the beaches there were most definitely true. They were scattered across the shore.  Solid to the touch, those found in the sand were not as sticky as I might have thought.  Perhaps it was the result of having been in the sun and covered in sand.  As I crumbled one in my hand, however, it quickly became much more sticky and stuck to my hand.  In fact, after washing it off in the ocean water and scraping it through the sand, my hand remained covered with a layer of oil.  It was only after wiping it down with several baby wipes that I started to make some progress.

Ben bravely trekked into the ocean to see what he could see.  There he found what looked liked little flakes.  When he reached out to touch them, they dissolved immediately on his hand, revealing droplets of oil.  Even with these moist drops, he was only successful in partially removing the oil from his skin.  He, too, was left with an oily layer that was only removed later with more intentional effort and help.

Imagine what it might be like for an animal that happened to come into contact with it.

Meanwhile, contracted workers continued to work just a few yards off the water’s edge.  Every couple of hundred yards or so there was another group of workers.  The scary thing was that the oil was not just found in chunks on the surface.  They had to dig down into the sand where they continued to find the contaminated spots. T hey filled bag after bag after bag with oiled sand.  Every short while an excavator/tractor would come by to be filled with the many bags.  They were then transported to the nearest collection of dumpsters that had been brought in just for that purpose.

Whereas access to the contaminated areas was extremely restricted in Louisiana, here people were not separated from the workers, oil, or water.  It was bizarre to watch as people would step across tar balls to go swimming in the water.  Or as people set up their towels, chairs and umbrellas right near the cleanup tents.  Or as tourists snapped picture after picture of the work, sometimes posing right next to the workers.

After a while we headed a little further on down the beach to Gulf Shores State Park.  There workers in hazmat suits collected countless oil-stained booms.  As I walked out on the pier there, a look down into the water revealed massive tar balls on the ocean floor.  Even worse, fish were swimming and jumping in the area, surely unable to avoid contamination.

Next, we continued on to Orange Beach, which is the next city to the east of Gulf Shores.  Though we only traveled a short distance, the picture drastically worsened.  The flags had gone from yellow to red, meaning: “DO NOT GO IN THE WATER.”

This was with good reason.  As I walked toward the shore, I couldn’t help but think to myself that this was one of the more beautiful beaches I had seen.  This pristine beach contained beautiful white sand, clean of any debris.  But as I approached the water, the picture completely changed.  The last 10 or 15 feet to the water (at high tide) was completely stained with oil.  It went from white to some sort of orange-brown.  Walking barefoot, I immediately felt the grease of oil between my toes.  An overpowering stench of oil filled my nostrils.  I watched as each wave deposited a new line of oil on the sand.  As the waves retreated back, they revealed large amounts of oil in the water.  Furthermore, both large globs and tiny droplets of oil were visible on the surface of the water.  In contrast to our experience in both Louisiana and Gulf Shores, there were no workers, no security: just a few others watching this disaster unfold before them.

I was profoundly impacted at this point.  I sat overwhelmed at the tragedy before me.  It was like watching the scene of a car accident.  Horror stood before me, but I could not bring myself to leave.  After a couple of hours locked into the disaster, a heavy storm rolled in.  Thunder rumbled in the background, raindrops fell on my head, and I just stood there.  I was in shock, unable to even think.  The damage we had caused to God’s creation was more than I could handle.

What had we done?  How awful that my own consumption had been a factor in causing this!  Why weren’t we doing more to fix it?  How tragic that I could do nothing more.

Overwhelmed and shocked, all I could do was call upon our Lord.

For more images and videos, please visit Creation Hope's Facebook page, our Flickr page or our YouTube channel (video content coming soon).  I apologize for the delay on these latest posts.  As you can imagine, this trip has been filled with long, challenging days.  Our schedule has had us up early and working very late every day.  Now that we have returned, I will be back on track.

("I've Got Tears in My Eyes" and "In Shock" shared by Scott Williams, originally posted on Creation Hope's blog; be sure to visit Oil Spill Prayer as well)