Methodist Volunteers to Waveland, MS

Waynesboro Men in Mississippi

Methodist Volunteers in Mississippi
During the last week of September, a group of eight Methodist Men from Waynesboro, Georgia traveled to Waveland, Mississippi to offer assistance with post-Katrina reconstruction. Coordinated by the Conference of the Methodist Church there, headquarters assigned the group to three different projects in the community based on the skills the men brought with them to the job site.
One contingent spent four days installing drywall on a house going up for a refugee family while another group spent their time installing plumbing fixtures on emergency showers at a church in the community and completing a dishwasher and ice machine installation at another church.
There are eight-work sites volunteers work from in Mississippi for the Methodist Church with Waveland being one of those. Located on the Gulf shore, the temporary US Navy barracks provided housing for the many work teams that schedule volunteer work. Groups from Alabama, Chicago, Pennsylvania, Florida and Missouri joined the Georgia group. For a small fee, food is supplied on site, but each team provided kitchen personnel. Formerly, the site was a resort conference center for Mississippi Methodists and was on one of the most attractive beach strips in the state before Hurricane Katrina’s forty feet storm surge washed ashore and completely demolished the popular area.
Much remains to be done there. Other churches may contact the Methodist Conference offices in Meridian for details.

John Hamilton
First United Methodist Church
Waynesboro, GA
johnhami@bellsouth.net

VIM Team Travels to New Orleans to Help Old Friend

“To God be the glory,” said Dr. Jim Robertson, “for what the Lord was able to accomplish through the efforts of his people.”

In mid-June a team of Volunteers In Mission traveled to New Orleans, LA to aid renovation and clean up efforts at Historic Saint James A.M.E. Church. The church, built in 1844, is led by Rev. Otto Duncan, formerly of Quinn Chapel A.M.E. in Paris, TN. This group of 16 volunteers from different churches in Paris, McKenzie and Centerville worked tirelessly for five days repairing and stripping church pews, the altar rail and doors. They cleaned storm damage and trash around the church and in the surrounding neighborhood of St. James located at 222 N. Romans Street, two blocks below Canal Street.

For more than a decade, Rev. Otto Duncan, was a vital and active member of the Paris, TN community. In December 2005, he announced plans to return to New Orleans to pastor his home church, which was hard hit by flooding. He also issued an invitation for help - the VIM team answered.

"I was truly overwhelmed with appreciation for my Paris friends who came and worked at our church,” Duncan said of the team. “My members were very excited about having them here. We enjoyed fellowship with the First Methodist team. It was a great experience."

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Kentucky team to Mississippi

Seven VIMers just returned from Pass Christian, Mississippi and met up with four individuals from North and South Carolina to work on a home in the area. It was unbelievable to us that the devastation was still as fresh as it was. The debris was still piled high on the roads, more than half the towns were deserted and to get groceries it was a 30 mile drive. We worked together and got a roof on a house and have it ready for other groups to work inside.

We also worked with a man named Ken Morris that has been in the Pass since January that has given up his career as a contracter and is hekping others to rebuild as a volunteer. He truly blessed our group. We were also received by open arms by the First Methodist Church of Pass Christian which has turned their Sunday School rooms into bunk rooms for volunteers to use.

It is an experience our group will not forget and we are planning our next trip at this writing.

Carol Moffett--Harrodsburg Kentucky

Bay St. Louis in slow recovery

The area around Bay St. Louis is recovering slowly. There were many more
businesses open now than in December. Many of the homes that can't be
repaired have been demo-ed and the debris has been removed. Debris still
remains along the curb on many streets and their are homes that haven't
been mucked yet. There are a very few new homes being built and people are
slowly moving into repaired homes.

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Georgia couple gives up everything for hurricane relief

Apr. 24, 2006

By Woody Woodrick*

PASCAGOULA, Miss. (UMNS) - Many residents of the Gulf Coast lost everything in Hurricane Katrina.

Dee and Jack Boreing gave up everything because of Katrina.

The Boreings are working in Mississippi as site coordinators for work teams helping in recovery efforts. They came to Pascagoula from Douglasville, Ga., where they had lived all their lives.
"We have been in the mission field for many years and knew for the past three years that we wanted to be doing something full time," said Dee Boreing. Members of New Covenant United Methodist Church in Douglasville, the Boreings have made five or six mission trips to Mexico. Family obligations put full-time work on hold, but when that situation changed, the Boreings were ready.
"We told God we were ready to go to Mexico for two years. Nothing came about," said Dee. "We changed our prayer to say, 'We'll go where you want us to go.'

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An open letter from a volunteer in Katrina recovery

February 19, 2006
Dear Katrina,

Your recent visit had a devastating impact on millions of Americans, yet still provided a positive wake up call to do things better throughout our society. I need to talk about both sides of this event so people will never forget, will hold accountable those that failed, and force changes that will protect us from a future threat.
At first, we were surprised and stunned by your strength. You turned the Gulf into a 'war zone' with your Cat 3 winds, your storm surge and your torrential rains and tornadoes.
However, it was our complacency, generated somewhat by your smaller, but more powerful sister Camille in 1969, which we survived much better. She gave us a false sense of security that, when coupled with arrogant pride in our levies, flood control and drainage systems, and our disregard even disrespect of natural wetlands and their role in protecting our shores, resulted in our undoing and created the worst man-made and natural disaster to impact the US. Therefore, you were not just a natural disaster, but rather an equally man-made one.
It was this realization that lead to our next reactionary emotions: frustration and anger, which were directed at the federal, state and local governments, most particularly FEMA, the Corps of Engineers, President Bush, Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin. There were even those that saw you as God's response for sin, global warming, politics in general or other equally cynical rationalities.
You made us cry when images of people trapped on rooftops wrote signs like "Help Us"; when communities denied safe passage to evacuees or would not take them in; when bodies were found in hospitals, nursing homes and on the streets, in homes and debris piles; and when people in positions of public trust avoided their responsibility with excuses casting blame elsewhere. All this while human suffering reached unimaginable proportions in the Superdome, the Convention Center and in hospitals and other 'safe' places.
In spite of all this, Katrina, you brought underlying issues of race, poverty and health status to the surface, even though both a beloved American iconic city and Gulf Coast residents were inundated by flooding and destruction. You revealed inadequacies in our government and the man-made institutions and facilities that were designed to protect us. But most importantly, you provided a wake up call to all of us who were touched by you to come together and help our fellow Americans no matter what their economic status, their way of life, their age and health, or their skin color.
Today, there are more volunteers in your wake along the Gulf Coast than residents, more people helping people than governmental presence, and a far greater human spirit than would have been the case had you never visited our shores. This is indeed a blessing.
Therefore in the end, Katrina, we have won. You are gone. But we are here, rebuilding, recovering, and are of one accord to never, ever let you or your kind so affect us again. Many more of us now are committed to remembering these lessons.

An American Volunteer

Louisiana Recovery News!

Greetings from the Westbank Storm Relief Center!
We've just had an anniversary! It has been a wonderfully rewarding and hectic four months since our center opened on October 3. Every day we have been witness to God's awesome power and blessings and it is an honor and priviledge to let God work through us at Aurora UMC and the Relief Center to bring hope and healing to our broken community.

Since our opening we have had 698 volunteers work through our center and they have served 427 people in our community. We have been able to close 218 cases and currently have 701 open cases. The phones ring constantly as word spreads throughout the community of the work being done through our center. Things have not slowed down!

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