Myron Crockett has his students back. After hurricane Katrina, students at Tulane, the University of New Orleans and Loyola were scattered all over the country, driven out by the gale-force winds and flooding that followed. New Orleans’ universities were forced to close for the fall semester. But now they’re reopening and classes are resuming this month.
Myron is InterVarsity’s New Orleans campus staff worker. He and his wife Alyssa relocated to Baton Rouge after the hurricane. While trying to stay in contact with his far-flung students, he spent the fall helping coordinate clean-up visits by InterVarsity teams and making speaking appearances at InterVarsity meetings in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky. He also helped a team from Urban Impact gut his own flood-damaged home.
“Seeing our belongings, city and its population decimated (only 60,000 of 440,000 New Orleanians are back) has left New Orleanians like Alyssa and me emotionally drained,” he wrote. “Having relief workers from various organizations around the country help us is an incredible blessing.”
Through the end of 2005 a total of 70 InterVarsity students had come to New Orleans to help with relief efforts, most from Florida chapters. Plans have been laid for 300 more students from Maryland, California, Texas, Wisconsin and other areas to visit in 2006 as part of InterVarsity’s Katrina Relief Urban Project. Spring break urban plunges will take place during March. Four summer plunges are planned for each week in June.
Randy White, InterVarsity’s National Coordinator for Urban Projects, says student participating in each of these plunge events will live and work together, study scripture, wrestle with issues of social justice and racial harmony, and serve those who have suffered great loss. More information on the plunges can be had by contacting KRUPlunge@yahoo.com.
A special fund was established to help support InterVarsity’s ministry in the Gulf Coast area. You can still donate online.
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