Salem Katrina Team Report - January 10

We drove our son Ben to the Gulfport airport for his return to Vermont, concluding his 20 days here in the Katrina area. We are so pleased with the frequent comments from other teams about how hard he worked at the Christus Victor Lutheran distribution center...this will be something he'll remember all his life, and which has had significant impact on the victims of this historic disaster. Here's his crew, with Ben third from the left. A great crew!

Joan continued doing wallboarding work in D'Iberville, and I helped Bob Montgomery of the Christus Victor church sort clothing, looking for winter-weight items which will be needed here in the cold weather already upon us. Bob and his wife Brenda are only a couple houses away from their church, and they've been among the mainstays in the area's recovery. They're at the church working by 8:00 AM every day, and typically not back home until 9:00 PM or even later. Last night, I walked over to the church to help some folks in an older RV, and passed Bob walking back home at 10:00. How long can folks like this, strong as they are, carry such a burden?

Sorting the piles of donated clothes for our distribution center, I discovered a couple of chef's shirts and delivered them to our kitchen crew so they could look more spiffy...now the four without are jealous of the two who have them! Fun ladies-- Gladys has one of the shirts! We have a great food staff --all volunteers-- who arrive at 5:00 AM and work until long past dinner, usually wrapping up just before evening devotions.

The Ocean Springs Fire Department came back this morning to photograph the damage from our motorhome fire. There aren't many such fires (aren't we special??)and they mentioned doing some training with their photos. We are insured with National Interstate, and while their company's contract fire inspector has been here to do a careful inspection of the fire, we still have yet to hear from their adjustor five days after. The inside of the coach has the expected smoke and soot damage, but I'm surprised about the intensity of it. We heard from one dealer that such fires can result in a year of refurbishment. Our fire began in the Norcold refrigerator, which uses propane or AC power, and uses ammonia. The entire back of the refrigerator and a part of the areas left and right of it have burned, plus the flames destroyed the large awning and some inside areas. The firefighters had to chop through the roof to suppress the flames...that's a nasty looking hole. What a terrible stink.

Thank goodness for the couple who invited us into their beautiful home (where they put up eight volunteers a night). They need the room soon, however, for others arriving, and maybe we'll be able to start back to Oregon soon. Oh, the mysteries of life!

We have spent so many hours emptying the coach, to wipe off items using a Pine-Sol mixture to get off some of the soot. We've run pretty much every stitch of clothing through a washer, using Pine-Sol, color-safe bleach and Tide, as the internet suggested this combination to remove the soot and smell...seems to work. But hard to do, fitting in the hours around our chores at the church. We're supposed to be volunteers, not victims!! It is not hard to see how hopeless one can become after such a loss. But unlike the people of Mississippi, we have our regular home to return to. Their turmoil will continue for years to come.

The lesson from all this: life is good. We have a beautiful home to return to, unlike so many of the Katrina survivors. And we were washed with kindnesses and blessings from the folks we work with here at Christus Victor Lutheran. Thank you all. In a special way, this might be the best part of our four month mission to the Gulf Coast.

We heard the police were looking for us!! Turns out that when we were parked at the D'Iberville PDA camp around Christmas Day, while we were off and resting in Jacksonville for the holiday, the city folks sent their sheriff to check out the ownership of our vehicle. They wanted to know who the heck owned the RV (that's us) parked alongside the unused tennis court about 100 yards away from the main PDA camp which has been built in the town's baseball field. We understand they were worried it might be an unauthorized repair contractor or "squatter" even though we had our mission signs on the sides..but that location was where George, our first PDA camp manager, assigned us, and the current volunteer manager, Dr. Bill Caldewalder, set things straight...he explained the situation to the officials, but also explained to us that the RV would have to be moved. Which we did, of course...over to the Gautier Presbyterian Church and then, after a night, to Christus Victor Lutheran.

Visiting with other folks volunteering for the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, we learned again how important PDA feels it to be that volunteers not represent themselves, or misunderstand in their own minds, that volunteers are with PDA. We volunteers are coordinated and in some ways also supported by PDA, but we are certainly not part of their organization. This is all confusing but it must be important to them. For our part, I'm glad we were able to provide some financial support, especially the money given to Julie in Gautier before she left, and the support sent before we arrived to help set up their Internet access and other items. It seems our donated equipment (copier/printer, generators, multifold ladders, drills, first aid gear, food and food preparation equipment, tarps, cleaning supplies, etc. have been useful as well. I understand that Gautier Presbyterian is no longer accepting donations, but other churches in the Gulf area certainly are, and I recommend contacting Christus Victor in Ocean Springs if you can donate items.

This last Sunday we attended my first Lutheran service. I enjoyed it very much, and the pastor was focused so perfectly on the Katrina situation, yet still lighthearted. The service seemed more structured than ours with more hymns (Joan loved that, of course!), and communion was quite formal, like an Episcopal service. Joan felt very much at home, having begun her musical career as minister of music at a Lutheran church after completing her Master's at Northwestern. During devotions this morning, we were asked to shout out the states represented by today's volunteers: Oregon, Washington, Virginia, Minnesotta, Mississippi, Iowa, Idaho, Colorado, New York, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Georgia. All together, over 260 youth and adults here at this camp, and there are volunteer centers just like this all along the Gulf Coast.

Keep coming to volunteer, folks. And send money or gift cards along with your teams. Clothes are not needed any longer, and neither is water, but pretty much everthing else that life requires should be brought here. Sewing machines, washer-dryers, used computers, good furniture, tools...send these things to help the people of Mississippi and Louisiana.