I don’t think I realized how massive Hurricane Katrina was until the evacuees started pouring in. What force could extend destruction to so many people’s lives that they would flee 350 miles from New Orleans to Longview, Texas?

Longview and LeTourneau University quickly erupted in a general cry of, “What can we do to help?” Churches opened their buildings to the floods of homeless, jobless people from New Orleans. Phil Hodson, pastor of the Orthodox Presbyterian church I attend, began to ferry people out of Louisiana and into church members’ homes. On my dormitory floor, we also wanted to help in our own small way; so we dedicated one night to help at the nearby Red Cross shelter.

As I walked through the double doors, passed the guards in camouflage, and emerged into the shelter’s main room, my first impulse was a sort of empathetic suffocation. There were rows and rows of beds, reached only by narrow and cluttered aisles. Complete strangers sat side by side on messy little cots, all their possessions in heaps around them. My tiny dorm room with its cluttered desk suddenly felt like a palace. I knew that if I were forced to live there for more than a day, claustrophobia would drive me crazy.

Some people sat staring blankly past the multitudes of faces at the white brick walls; others slumped in front of a few donated TVs. A few paced the center aisle, or sat at computers trying to find jobs, houses, or information on the location of family members. A group of guys sat in one corner hunched around a Nintendo game, passing the long hours as best they could. Children amused themselves with baskets of toys donated by Longview residents.

At first, the Red Cross was a little apprehensive about a bunch of college guys traipsing through the shelter.

“Be very considerate of these people,” one lady told us. “No throwing footballs or running between the beds.” By the end of the night, their fears were gone, and we were hard at work disinfecting pillows, carrying luggage, and inflating air mattresses. We also tried to entertain the children, who had been cooped up next to their cots, some for almost a week. One of our number, a guy from Okinawa everyone calls “Hero,” quickly won a crowd of young admirers as he performed magic tricks with a deck of cards.

It struck me how little human nature changes even in the aftermath of disaster. There are still some who can think only about themselves, and who believe the world owes them as much as they have lost. There are others who thankfully and graciously accept whatever help is offered them. What kind of person would I be if everything familiar to me were suddenly wrenched away?

One woman who moved into the shelter that night immediately began ordering us around: “Put that mattress over there. No, I want that big one. Stack them up on top of each other. Turn it around the other way.” On the other end of the spectrum, a man who had just arrived with his wife, two children, and elderly mother graciously accepted our help moving cots and luggage to the back of the room. His mother, a woman of about 80, hobbled along beside me with her cane as I carried Wal-Mart bags filled with all her earthly possessions. “Thank you, son,” she said, as I arranged her things beside her cot.

I don’t think I can fully comprehend the suffering that went on in New Orleans. Where was God in the midst of the storm? How do we reconcile God’s goodness and His sovereignty? The world’s opinion is sharply divided.

My roommate recently directed my attention to a blog that linked two articles of drastically different viewpoints. The first, entitled, “Katrina: Not God’s Wrath—or His Will,” was written by Dr. Tony Campolo, a sociologist who recently spoke in chapel at LeTourneau. Quoting the position of Rabbi Kushner, he writes: “Nowhere in the Hebrew Scriptures does it say that God is omnipotent.” Instead, Campolo later declares, God has limited His power on earth in order to win people through love alone. Where was God when Katrina hit? “When disaster strikes, He cries with the rest of us,” says Dr. Campolo. God is doing the best He can under the circumstances.

In opposition to this view is an article written by pastor and author John Piper. Piper quotes Amos 3:6 in defense of God’s sovereignty: “If there is calamity in a city, will not the Lord have done it?” the prophet asks. In Isaiah 45:7, God again asserts His control over all things, even death and disaster: “I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I the Lord, do all these things.”

A church in Tyler, Tex., recently put up a sign saying that the destruction of New Orleans was the modern equivalent of Sodom and Gomorrah. The local press was understandably furious at this apparent callousness towards suffering. And yet, if God controls the storms, why did He bring this disaster?

One night at the dinner table, my dad related a conversation he had with a young colleague from the chemistry department at East Texas Baptist University. “Do you think that God brought Katrina to punish New Orleans?” he was asked. I think his reply is the best explanation I have heard. “I would be very careful declaring something to be God’s wrath,” he said.

He added that God does things for many reasons. While it may be true that, for some, Katrina was their just reward, for others perhaps it was the event that brought them to Christ.

While we know that God is sovereign, we must be slow to try to reduce His purposes to simple explanations. It is because of human sin that life-sapping storms began in the first place. It is God’s grace alone that allows any of us to live; and for those who have accepted Christ’s atoning death, there is the promise of a day when all suffering will be over. This is the message we need to spread.

In the end, I find my parents’ response to the hurricane to be the best. Above all, they looked for needs and met them. They invited a family from New Orleans out of the prison-like conditions of the shelter in Baton Rouge and gave them food and a cool place to stay. By housing and feeding those who had neither food nor shelter, they fulfilled the commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself.”

In Texas and Louisiana, thousands of churches are pitching in to rebuild shattered lives and souls. After all the turmoil of these storms is over, it is the love and witness of Christ’s people that will yield eternal fruit.