Missions- Mississippi 09

Mississippi Rebuild Team

Posts from the Team

	Monday 6pm- Plans called for the Mississippi team assembling in the Gulfport/Biloxi International Ariport Saturday afternoon but one of us was missing- April's 2nd leg plane flight from Atlanta to Gulfport ended up being cancelled so we picked her up Sunday afternoon on our way out to Camp Love where we were gathering with 45 other Methodists from the Sta. Barbara and Sta. Ana District churches. We spent Sunday night getting filled in on the camp rules and learning about do's and dont's at the construction sites where we would be working. Monday morning we were broken into 4 teams and got all the materials and tools we thought we'd need for the day and drove out to the work sights. I ended up on a 6 person team with April, Matt Sargent (a pastor in the S.A. district), his daughter, Nicole, Charlie Summers (from Natches, MS) and Julie- another volunteer from a SA dist. church.
We drove to Betty Young's house that was being repaired from extensive damage from Hurricane Katrina. The house was far enough inland where it wasn't subject to the title surge but a tornado came up the creek by her house, lifted part of her house up, tore the roof off- all while she was inside. She is currently living in a trailer beside her house while the work is being performed. Her house is perhaps a month away from being finished. The dry wall has been installed- we were there to finish the dry wall work which requires sanding and applying a couple of more layers of compound to make the joints between the sheets of drywall hopefully disappear. Anyone who has finished drywall knows what a dusty job it is but that didn't phase anyone on the team. We were busy working, chatting all the while to get to know each other- I talked quite a bit to Charlie- turns out that he has made multiple trips to Africa on UMCOR projects- even adopted a child from Liberia and has been on many other trips within the US and Mexico- off to a devotional- more later Bill S.
Tuesday- I was at church one Sunday with my grandma, and the bulletin had a small note on the bottom about a Mississippi Re-Build trip. I thought hmm, that sounds like something that would be really fun to do and a nice way to help out etc. I could never have imagined how powerful an experience it would be. It is only my second day here, and already I feel intensely moved by the people and the stories I have encountered. I remember hearing about Katrina when it happened and thinking how sad it was, but it was never really real to me. It seemed to be in a different world than my own. Now that I am here I am seeing first –hand the impact this disaster has had. It is incredible to me that I am here almost four years after the storm and the people are still enduring so much hardship. I have heard stories about people who clung to a ceiling fan in their kitchen for eight hours as the storm raged tearing away their roof and flooding their home; Stories of how after the storm organizations came in offering help and then either left projects incomplete or took massive amounts of money in promise of rebuilding homes and then disappeared. There are stories of people who fled their homes prior to the storm and returned to find that their homes were not only destroyed but also burglarized. Then however you hear the stories of all of the volunteers who have come to help. People who have devoted literally millions of volunteer hours and putting their own lives on hold to come here to assist people they have never met.	Betty Young (homeowner) with our work team- Xavier, Nicole, Matt, April, Bill, Julie, Charlie
My first day on my job site, I arrived to find a home that I was told was in the later stages of the rebuild. Heavy reminders of the devastation of the storm still remain though. The frame of a greenhouse stands alone and overgrown with weeds like a skeleton. There is debris and rusting, decaying household items scattered throughout the yard. The owner of the property is living in a motor home literally held together with duct-tape next to a home she has been waiting to move back into for over three years. I met her today and spoke with her for a long time and learned a little bit about her story. She and her daughter rode out the storm in the house. As Katrina raged, a tornado came down the creek running along the back of her property lifting up the addition to her home and tearing the shingles from the roof allowing water to flood in. People came to her home and stole from her what little she had left. She continued on with details of all of this for a while, but what struck me the most was that after her story of the storm and aftermath, she talked about how blessed she is. She was so grateful for all of the volunteers that have come to work on her home. She said she has pictures hanging in her trailer of all of what she calls her, “angels”. She told me about how she loves to go fishing in her creek and hunting and do ceramics, woodworking, sewing, refurbishing sewing machines and on and on. As she was telling me this I stood in awe of this incredible woman. She has been in ill health and has had back surgery and has another scheduled for April. She is in immense pain and has endured so much and yet she is so happy to be alive and is so vivacious. She came into the house while we were working today and said, “Wow, I didn’t think I would ever be able to live in my home again”. And yet, it should not be much longer until that dream can come to fruition. I am so touched by her, by her story, by other stories I have heard, and by just being here. And it is so amazing to be able to help out and to make a difference in someone’s life. You really do not realize how fortunate you are until you experience something like this. I would love to be able to return here next year and the year after that and continue to help these people who have experienced such immense hardship to see that there is good in the world, and there are people who care. I would encourage everyone to reach out to their fellow human beings and spread love, compassion and genuine caring because there really is not enough of that in our world. There is so much hurt and destruction and pain, but when we reach out we show people that there is more to life than these things. With Love, April R. – Mississippi Re-Build, March 2009 - NUMC
	This is our team (+1) from NUMC in front of the Camp Love Building. Bill Schuler, Kevin Burkholder, Pastor David Burgeson (from Arroyo Grande UMC), Wynn Wolfe, Louie Atteberry, April Rainville (front)
This is a picture taken inside Betty Young’s (right) house. Her daughter Charlene is on the left, and April Rainville is center. Our work team was assigned to do the finishing on the drywall in Betty’s home. She has been in a trailer parked next to the house since Hurricane Katrina (August 2005). Her daughter has been living in a small (appx. 8’ by 8’) aluminum storage shed on Betty’s property for some time. She just got the small travel trailer back that her ex husband had stolen from her and will be moving back into that next week.
	This is the work team (plus the Young’s) assigned to the Young residence. Front l-r: April Rainville, Charlene Young, Julie Rear: Pastor Matt Sargent (Brea UMC), Xavier, Nicole Sargent (Matt’s daughter) , Bill Schuler, Betty Young, Charlie Thomas (Natchez, Mississippi)
We took a side trip the last day to Waveland, MS. This is the “Angel Tree”. Waveland is the “ground zero” of Hurricane Katrina. Angels were carved from some of the dead branches of this tree. I positioned the sun behind the head to give a halo look.
	Work pictures are sparse- lighting wasn’t good nor was the activity of what we are doing. How exciting can sanding and mudding dry wall be??? Julie is in the closet and Matt is on the ladder.
This is a sign on the site of what remains from a Catholic Church in Waveland. Waveland is right on the gulf and less than 30% of the homes that are beachfront have been rebuilt.
	This picture was taken from the beachfront drive in Waveland- it reinforces what I said in the last picture- empty lots where people haven’t rebuilt. Note the “stick” trees in the background. The water surged up to 28 feet high in this area. When those tree trunks were submerged high winds came up and snapped the trees off at the water line.
Wynn looks at all that’s left of a bank building in Waveland- the door is to the “safe” in the bank.
	l-r: Betty, Matt, Louie, Charlene. The wheels on the left of the picture are for the trailer where much of Betty’s belongings from her house are stored- the trailer in the background is where she lives, and her house is on the right. This picture was taken on Friday, March20th. We had a Thursday night meeting where the excess funds for our trip were distributed by the votes of the attendees. April brought up the needs of Betty Young- she doesn’t have a clothes washer or dryer. The group voted to purchase these for them. Louie delivered them at lunchtime on Friday and this picture is taken just after Louie made the present known and Betty saw them on the back of Louie’s truck. She immediately broke out in tears. When our team left about 30 minutes later she told us through tears how grateful she was and how much she loved us all and invited us to come back in the future to visit her.

For additional information about the work team, contact the District office at
(818) 882-8005 or sbdistumc@earthlink.net or see Wynn Wolfe before March 1, 2009.
Donations can be sent to: Santa Barbara District UMC, Mississippi Rebuild 2009, 10824 Topanga Canyon Blvd., Chatsworth, CA 91211-135