Final Thoughts

Well, it took me awhile to get to this blog again, but we did make it back safely from Mississippi about a week ago! I think it's going to take a long time to process everything we saw, but at our team meeting the night before we arrived home, we did come up with a couple of things that we want everyone reading this blog to know about our trip.

First of all, we were shocked and amazed by the amount of work that is left to rebuild the towns affected by Katrina. In some areas, it looked as if the storm had just hit yesterday, and yet we were told that even in those areas much work had already been done. We all agreed that sending money is great, but for a lot of these tasks, people are required. This trip moved us all in regards to the importance of being the hands and feet of Christ. We hope you will learn from our stories, catch our passion, and go to help yourself!

Secondly, our day at the Distribution Center in Ocean Springs showed us that there are many families who are still without the basic necessities. If you can't give your time, please do consider sending some blankets, towels, sheets, pillows, or whatever else the Distribution Center is requesting. I can arrange to have these items sent down on a continual basis (at least through the end of this summer) with Woodbury Lutheran Church so please email me at heyrebecca@csf.net if you want to help in this way.

Finally, we were excited to see how one positive thing that has come out of this tradegy is that it has really served to bring people together. We watched those neighbors that remained in the areas we worked in come together to share tools, ideas and skills. We volunteered with people from several different states and from Canada to clean and repair several homes. We worked with a Lutheran Church, a Baptist Church, and several other churches in Ocean Springs to co-ordinate relief efforts. We spent time serving with and helping people of all different ages, races, economic statuses and religious backgrounds. It was fun to see barriers that might normally have been in place crumble because people were focused on the urgent needs at hand. This experience reminded me once again of the truth found in Romans 8:28 that somehow God is capable of bringing good out of even the greatest tradegies.

We hope you have enjoyed this blog and benefit from hearing about our experiences. We are in the process of looking into planning another CSF Katrina trip soon, so please email me at heyrebecca@csf.net if you are interested. You can also check out some pictures of our trip by clicking the photo link on the right side of this page and read a Pioneer Press article about some of the work being done during our first trip by clicking the Pioner Press link. Furthermore, we would be happy to come and share about our trip with any churches or groups who would like more details. We are committed to doing whatever it takes to get more people interested and concerned about our brothers and sisters in Mississippi!

(Posted by Rebeccat at 3:01 pm on 1/11/06)

More news

I'm using my library card once again in order to be able to sit down and write my last blog while on Mississippi soil. I've decided it's a good thing I got a card though, because after all we've experienced I definately want to come back!

Yesterday half our crew spent the day cleaning out a lot in D'Iberville for our friend Mike, his wife, and their two little girls, Jessie and Pebbles. They carried a dishwasher, clothes, silverware, lots of shingles, a large tree and even two whirlpool bathtubs off the lot that his friend is lending him to park his trailer for the next year while he saves up money to build his own house. Mike and his family were previously living in a rented house in the same neighborhood, but the landlord wouldn't allow them back on the land, so he had to find a new spot to park the trailer that he has acquired since the hurricane for him and his little family to live in. We were so glad to have the opportunity to work with this family. I truly believe that God led us to them - they said that nothing had gone right for them since the storm until we showed up to help!

The other half of the team finished up some drywalling for Ken and his wife. Neither of us made it out to Linda's house as planned yesterday, but most of the team went today to finish up the mudding and sanding and to work on her brother Herb's yard. While the house will still need a little more work before it is ready to paint, it's getting really close! Linda stopped by the church tonight to give us all a big hug and a kiss and to thank us again. It's been such a blessing to us to be able to help her as well!

The few of us who didn't go to Linda's today brought the rest of our blankets and towels and some children's toys over to the Ocean Springs distribution center, which is run by Christos Victor Lutheran Church. We stayed to help distribute items to the families who came to wait in line and it was a a good thing we were there, because it was crazy busy! From the time that the center opened at 9 am until it closed at 4 pm, we estimated that we helped about 350 families. They came mostly to get the basics - food, water, hygiene items, and cleaning supplies. We also handed out Christmas presents to children (although we had boxes more for girls than boys thanks to a girl scout troup from Tennessee), diapers, blankets, towels, and whatever else we had on hand. I was amazed to see the 5 boxes of sheets and blankets that we brought disappear in under an hour. By about 2 pm the distribution center was completely out of sheets, blankets, towels, and pillows.

Working at the center really opened my eyes to the great needs that are still present in so many family's lives. Even though it has been over 4 months since the storm, many, many families are still at the point where they need to wait in line for up two hours to get the basic necessities. When I asked one young mother if she needed anything else, she shared that she was simply struggling to get her family of five enough food to eat at this point in time. Turning people away for lack of supplies was really tough, and people would respond differently - I saw a couple of women crying in their cars and others would get angry. I can't imagine how difficult it must be for so many people still, and today at the Center we saw much of the need and and pain and grief that is still fresh in people's lives.

Tonight we are packing up our car toppers and getting ready to leave for Minnesota again. It's been a great trip, but we are looking forward to coming home so we can tell all of our families and friends about what we have seen and experienced. We hope y'll are gonna listen to us and come on down, ya hear?

Some pictures

We have received incredible southern hospitality from FBC!


Alamanda and Liz helping Linda with much needed yardwork.


Andrea and Noah cleaning out the girls room in the parsonage at FBC. (Actually, it's a house that had previously been condemned.)

Another Long Update!

As I write this update, it is 77 degrees, sunny, and humid. I'm already loving Mississippi winters! I am sitting in a little coffee shop in Ocean Springs named "Coffee Fusion." It's the first internet place I have been able to find open in two days with the holidays and the fact that the "Deep South" seems to close down almost entirely on Sundays (except for big franchises)!

We had a fun New Year's Eve, spending the day on several jobs such as sheetrocking, mudding and taping. A team stayed at Linda's and another team starting working on the same kind of jobs in another house. Our final two teams were involved in yard clearing and a house mud out. I worked on the house, which was originally an amazingly beautiful mansion right on a little bay. The first floor was completely flooded and the water rising up from below made the floor cave in to the crawl space under the house. We spent the day in that space pulling out appliances, clothes, books, wigs, dishes, canned food, and everything you can imagine. 4 people even combined their strength to pull out a huge kayak full of water, which must have been blown in from the water and was wedged on the side farthest away from the bay. There were no owners at this house while we were working on it, but we learned from the neighbors that the original owners had already lost a house and a hotel to Hurricane Camille in the 60's and after this loss they decided to give up on hurricane country. We were cleaning out the house for the new owners, a young couple who bought it even though it was originally condemed by FEMA, but had gotten permission to rebuild.

New Year's Eve we spend touring Bellingrath Homes & Gardens (www.bellingrath.org) and then we went into Mobile, Alabama to watch the fireworks at midnight over Mobile Bay. Unfortunately, the fog was so thick that once the fireworks started to go off, all we could see was the fog changing from red to blue to green. At least we could say we had been to Alabama though, which made our trip an 8 state trip!

Yesterday (Sunday) we attended church at First Baptist and then we had some free time in the afternoon to do our laundry, make a Walmart run, and go out to eat at a Chinese buffet. We wanted to try some local food, but the locals all close on Sundays, so we didn't have too many options!

We also spend a couple of hours in the town of D'Iberville, which is a little suburb just north of Biloxi. D'Iberville was hit extremely hard by Katrina - most of the houses in the neighborhoods we drove and walked through had only the foundation left. We heard that the water had risen over the top of the electric poles, so every house was completely flooded. The people in this neighborhood lost just about everything they had. Luckily, some parts of D'Iberville were considered a flood plain, so many of the residents in the neighborhood we spoke to had flood insurance. However, nearby neighborhoods that were just as affected were considered outside of the flood plain, so many were not as fortunate.

We got to speak to several of the residents as we went from door to door (or rather trailer to trailer, since most people who are still there are now living in trailers that are set up on their lots) and offered people the blankets and pillows that we had collected. We also had several Christmas presents for children to hand out, but we quickly found out that there weren't many children left in the neighborhood. Many had been sent to live with relatives or in other places so that they could continue to go to school. Most people also had all the blankets they could fit in their little trailers, so we will take them to the distribution center tomorrow (where we have heard that there is a need for blankets) to hand out to people who are further along in the rebuilding stage and may need them for their new houses.

This morning our team broke up in two different groups, with half finishing a house in Ocean Springs and half working on cleaning up a yard in D'Iberville. We are cleaning up this yard (or maybe I should call it a lot - the house is gone, and we decided you probably need a house to call something a yard!) for a young couple we met yesterday as we were asking people about their needs in this neighborhood. The lot isn't really theirs, but for some reason they have not been able to get back on their land yet, so they are being allowed to use it to park their trailer on. They need to get it cleaned up quickly because they have two little daughters (a one year-old and a two year-old) who can't come outside until they clear the yard of all the glass and debris that is lying everywhere. Yesterday we say the little girls waving to us from the window of their trailer and we really want to give them a place to play!

This afternoon we hope to have time to head to Linda's and finish up the last coat of mudding and sanding, which will mean that her house is finished to the point of painting. It's great to know that we have helped bring her house this far! She stopped by the church this morning as well and we were able to give her lots of bedding, blankets, towels and even some pans to furnish her new house. Sometimes it can feel like the collective need is too great to do anything about, but when you are able to help just one or two people individually, it does feel like you can make a difference.

I think I have written enough - more soon and hopefully I will figure out our picture situation shortly as well. God bless and keep praying for us and for the people of the beautiful state of Mississippi!

(posted by Rebecca at 1:21 pm on 1/2/06)