Buying the House on Flood Street

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina swallowed the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans whole. When the waters finally receded, Robert Green came back to find his mother's house — the house where she had died in the storm — reduced to a concrete slab and splintered wood. Neighbors left. Block after block emptied out. City planners openly debated whether the neighborhood should be bulldozed entirely and converted to green space.

But Robert planted a garden on his mother's lot. Then he rebuilt. While officials argued that the Lower Ninth Ward was finished, Robert hammered nails and hung drywall. Neighbors thought he was throwing money away. Investing in a place everyone else had abandoned seemed like madness.

It was exactly what Jeremiah did.

Jerusalem was surrounded by Babylonian siege works. The prophet sat in a prison courtyard. Everyone knew the city would fall. And in that impossible moment, God told Jeremiah to buy a field — to sign the deed, seal the documents, and call in witnesses. It looked foolish. It was faith.

Jeremiah's purchase declared what Robert Green's hammer declared in the Lower Ninth Ward: this place has a future. Not because the present looks promising, but because the Almighty has spoken. "Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land."

Sometimes faith looks like signing a deed when the walls are crumbling — trusting that God's tomorrow is more real than today's rubble.