Five people, including our pastor, Rev. William P. Proctor, traveled to D'Iberville, Mississippi for a week of mission work to help rebuild ho
mes destroyed by hurricane Katrina. Although we had attended meetings and spoken with other Presbyterians who had gone before, nothing can prepare you for the devastation in that region. Street after street with houses in varying stages of disrepair, concrete pads that represented where a home had stood before Katrina, homes where no work had been done in the 8 months since the storm -- one home with a tree across the roof, and row after row after row of FEMA trailers that were meant to serve as home to the thousands of people who had been displaced by the storm.
And there were the stories. We had been told that one of our primary functions in addition to rebuilding would be to listen, listen, listen. Telling and retelling the horrors of what they had been through was part of the healing process. And we heard from people who had lost everything -- house, furniture, clothes, memorabilia such as photos, legal documents, money and most of all hope.
Our team of 5 was split into two groups. Three of us spent the first day raking
so
meone's yard. You see, grass won't grow where there is mud, debris, scraps of paper, stones -- all moved into place by the flood waters. In that day, we found what appeared to be remnants of photos -- a cause for hope, only to find that they disintegrated when we tried to pick them up to return them to the home owner. The next day, our threesome spent the day removing the ceiling and insulation from the kitchen of a home where muck-out was still needed. This required exhausting over head work without benefit of the luxury of a scaffold. And then it all had to be hauled outside to be picked up some day by a garbage truck. Did we mind? Not in the least! The home owner, initially a bit reticent, was so grateful for the help. The rest of the trip was spent by this threesome installing a roof on a trailer that wa
s home to a family. Had they ever done roofing? No, but you don't stop to wait for a Home Depot clinic -- you just do it.
The other two members of our team spent four days on the street doing needs assessments. Hard to believe that 8 months after the storm, there were still houses where no one had been to find out what needed to be done. We talked to residents if at all possible, even calling some on their cell phones to find out the status of their houses. And if they weren't home we would make notes on what we saw from the outside of the house so that other teams of volunteers could be assigned to start the process of repairs. On the last two days this team rode up and down every street in the town where no needs assessments had been done to determine if there were any houses still standing on those streets. There were many streets where only the concrete pads remained to mark a homeowner's property. The walls, roof and entire contents were long gone. The job of building a new home would be assigned to other groups with those skills.
It was a week of sore muscles, sunburn, and heart ache for the people in the town who had suffered so much. Would we do it again? You betcha! And we're going to -- in late Fall. We couldn't have done this without the help of the Synod travel fund. Many thanks
