Christians from across the Gulf of Mexico are calling on God’s help in this time of trial.
On May 6th, the National Day of Prayer Christians came together at city hall in Biloxi, Mississippi to pray for various needs…with a theme of “Such a Time as This. A main focus of prayer for the day was the oil spill crisis. “We pray for protection of our coast and protection of the businesses that profit from this resource. Protect our shores. Protect our land. And protect our habitat,” was the prayer of David Oliver, of Cedar Lake Christian Assembly.
Venice, Louisiana, is a small shrimping community that is praying for God’s help in this time of crisis. Steve McNeal, pastor of First Baptist Mission in Venice hosted an impromptu prayer service shortly after the oil started heading their way. “One day that we prayed was right after they fond out there was not going to be shrimping anymore, so we prayed and the next day they announced that they were going to use the shrimpers as part of the cleanup and pay them at a pretty good amount to use their boats and their crews to go out and clean up.” McNeal said. As Southern Baptist watch coverage of the oil spill on the news. McNeal urges them to pray for Venice and people along the coast whose lives are impacted by this disaster.
One Sunday afternoon, Pastor Rick Long of Christian Life Church called together a group of men, women, children, school officials, and local business owners around a cross at Cotton Bayou for prayer concerning the oil spill crisis.
About 100 churches in the gulf states held prayer vigils this past Monday from Destin, Florida, to the Louisiana state line gathered to pray. Christians prayed for the oil leak to stop and the spill to not reach their shores. Church embers also prayed for volunteers, oil workers, scientists, and the families of the lives lost in the explosion. Included in this vigil were nearly 150 people in Dauphin Island, Alabama. Upwards of a thousand residents met across the gulf to pray for the end to the oil spill organized by the Gulf Christian Evangelistic Association.
As more and more Christians come together and pray for this tragedy in our Gulf waters…what miraculous things will come of this which we call a disaster?
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While watching the latest news about the BP Oil spill, a frightening thought came to mind: what if we can’t stop the oil? I mean, what happens if after all the measures to cap the pipe fail, (i.e., “Top Hat”, “Small Hat” and “Top Kill”). What then? An accident this problematic is new territory for BP. The oil pipeline is nearly a mile down on the ocean floor, accessible only by robots. Add on top of that the extreme pressure at which the oil is flowing out of the pipeline and there you have it: the perfect storm.
Moreover, scientists also claim that they’ve found an enormous plume of oil floating just under the surface of the ocean measuring approximately 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick. (I’m no math genius, but I bet one of you reading this could figure out just how many barrels of oil that is…)
There are new estimates that the amount of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico is anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil a day: that’s a far cry from BP’s estimated 5,000 barrels a day. If BP’s estimates are correct, the total amount of oil now in the Gulf would be approximately 150,000 barrels (or 6,300,000 gallons). That’s barely enough to fill 286 swimming pools: sixteen feet, by thirty-two feet, by eight and a half feet deep. That wouldn’t cover an area the size of New York City, let alone an area the size of Delaware. Obviously, the spill is much larger than we are being led to believe. If the leak can’t be stopped, in a year’s time, we’ll have roughly 18,250,000 barrels of oil (or 766,500,000 gallons) in our oceans, killing our marine and animal wildlife. Such a calamity would be environmentally and economically disastrous. I’m not a religious man, but I pray that BP and our government work fast to end this catastrophe.
http://www.calculateme.com/Volume/Barrels(Petroleum)/ToGallons.htm
http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2010/05/17/latest-news-from-the-oil-spill-in-the-gulf-of-mexico-is-grim/
http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/dailyloaf/2010/05/20/scientist-says-oil-spill-is-leaking-100000-barrels-of-oil-a-day-not-bps-estimate-of-5000/