wow... i have gotten all of your messages and words of concern, and i am totally overwhelmed that all of you remember me, let alone even CARE about my well being... usually on these trips, people are forgotten about within a couple weeks, but here we are months after NYC and i am still receiving calls and messages asking how me and my family are... i really appreciate it... to let all of you know, my family and i are all OK... our house is fine, my mom's work is fine, my grandparents house is fine, the special care home my grandma is staying in is fine... if there's one word i think God hates, its "lucky"... we definitely were not lucky, we were BLESSED... B-L-E-S-S-E-D... BLESSED!!!!!!... it was like God put a forcefield around us and told the winds and water, "NO, not this house"... many others, however, were not as fortunate... the pictures on TV and on the internet cannot even begin to let you see the craziness that goes on down here... the casino industry is totally devastated (which is a huge economic blow), all of the beachfront (including houses, restaurants, and other buildings) is totally gone, whole neighborhoods totally wiped out, hundreds of people walk the streets because they have no place to live and no work because both were destroyed, major highway roads uprooted like an earthquake hit... biloxi is about equivalent to a third-world country right now... the water isnt clean, many are without power (God has provided us with both power, and a lot of drinking water though)... it looks a lot like Hiroshima looked after the atomic bomb was dropped on it... if you have ever seen those commercials for the "save the children's foundation" where theres an old man holding a child among a pile of rubble, saying, "for just 17 cents a month, you can save this child's life", that is what biloxi looks like right now... words just cant express the devastation here... anyways, once again, i thank all of you for your prayers and concern... God is still good, even if we would've lost everything we had... let me know how you all are doing... take care, and i love yall...

-Luke