[Episcopal News Service – New Orleans, Louisiana] In the days after Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath devastated the dioceses they led, now retired-Mississippi Bishop Duncan Gray III and his Louisiana counterpart at that time, now retired-Bishop Charles Jenkins discuss the days immediately after the storm and reflect on its lessons 10 years later.

“A church that is focused inwardly, a church – as I have said before – that exists for those who are already in it, I think is a church that is not living up to the calling of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” Jenkins said. “I would want the rest of the church to know that, here in New Orleans, she was reaching out to people to whom no one else would reach.”

Gray echoed that sentiment, saying he hopes the church will “remember the joy was to serve [and] remember the excitement in a common enterprise of rebuilding, remembering when their heart beat faster imagining what it would be like to drive through the middle of the night” to get to Mississippi to volunteer to help the Gulf Coast rebuild.

“That was, I think, the call of God.”

This video is the third in a weeklong series of Episcopal News Service coverage. Other videos and stories are here.

– The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg and Matthew Davies are editor/reporters for the Episcopal News Service.