Hope is greatest gift, says Katrina disaster coordinator
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A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose The
Rev. Chris Cumbest, coordinator of church recovery for the Mississippi
Annual Conference, walks past the new sanctuary at Clermont Harbor
(Miss.) United Methodist Church.
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The
Rev. Chris Cumbest, coordinator of church recovery for the Mississippi
Annual Conference, walks past the new sanctuary at Clermont Harbor
(Miss.) United Methodist Church. The church was completely rebuilt
following Hurricane Katrina during an eight-day blitz by Meshach's
Carpenter, a group of volunteers from Goldston, Ga. A UMNS photo by Mike
DuBose. Photo #06957. Accompanies UMNS story #513. 8/28/06 |
Aug. 28, 2006
A UMNS Report
By Kathy L. Gilbert*
After a year of destruction, chaos and despair, the greatest gift that can be
given to people of the Gulf Coast is hope, says Ed Blakeslee, coordinator of
United Methodist Katrina relief efforts in Mississippi.
He cites Proverbs 23:18: “There is surely
a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off.”
“Much has been accomplished in the past year, but so much more remains
to be done,” writes Blakeslee in one of his recent weekly messages from
the Mississippi Annual (regional) Conference.
“I told my wife that I have probably cried more during the past year
than at any other time in my adult life,” he said. ”Some were tears
of sorrow, and some were tears of joy.”
Despite all the harm caused by Hurricane Katrina — more than 200 people
dead, 363 United Methodist churches with pending insurance claims, 23 churches
severely damaged and seven destroyed — many who have been in the trenches
say it has been an exciting year of seeing “the church being the church.”
“The hurricane offered us as a church an incredible opportunity to reach
people we would never have reached before,” says the Rev. Chris Cumbest,
coordinator of church recovery for the Mississippi Conference. “Walls
and carpet really don’t matter. It’s about people.”
The entire Mississippi coastline, from Pearlington to Pecan, suffered devastating
damage from the Aug. 29, 2005, hurricane.
One year later, after thousands of volunteer hours, Cumbest says years of
work remain.
Hope and despair
A tour of churches along the coastline is mixed with bright rays of hope and
sad scenes of despair.
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A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose Homeowner Jack Feigel (left) shares a laugh with the Rev. Chris Cumbest at Feigel's home in Waveland, Miss.
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Homeowner
Jack Feigel (left) shares a laugh with the Rev. Chris Cumbest at
Feigel's home in Waveland, Miss. A youth group from First United
Methodist Church in Starkville, Miss., is helping Feigel rebuild after
Hurricane Katrina, which struck in August 2005. A UMNS photo by Mike
DuBose. Photo #06958. Accompanies UMNS story #513. 8/28/06 |
One of the bright spots is in Pearlington, where a shiny white church with
a bright green roof almost sits where it did before the hurricane.
The only thing left of Clermont Harbor United
Methodist Church after Katrina was the concrete front steps. Meshach’s Carpenter, a United Methodist
group of volunteers from Goldston, Ga., rebuilt the church “from the
brick foundation to the steeple” in eight days, Cumbest says.
The first church service was held in the new building June 18.
“I attended worship with them in February, and there were 10 persons
present,” says Cumbest. “On June 18 there were around 50 who were
not a part of Meshach’s Carpenters who attended, many from the Clermont
Harbor community.” Cumbest calls the rebuilt church “an incredible
witness to the community and to the coast of how the Light of Christ continues
to shine in the darkness.”
A few miles from Clermont Harbor, Barry Smith has a team of United Methodist
volunteers building a shed in his backyard. He and his pregnant wife and young
son are living in a trailer and he says the Federal Emergency Management Agency
has told him he can only have it for seven more months. The shed will hold
building material Smith has salvaged from other building sites.
“We lost a lot, but we have gained a lot,” he
says, watching the workers sweating in the intense Mississippi heat.
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A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose The
Rev. Theodore R. Williams Jr., pastor of St. Paul United Methodist
Church in Pass Christian, Miss., stands in his partially restored
sanctuary.
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The
Rev. Theodore R. Williams Jr., pastor of St. Paul United Methodist
Church in Pass Christian, Miss., stands in his partially restored
sanctuary. The church was damaged when Hurricane Katrina struck in
August 2005. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose. Photo #06959. Accompanies UMNS
story #513. 8/28/06 |
Down the road, college kids from Starksville (Miss.) First United Methodist
Church are carrying 8,000 pounds of Sheetrock up a steep stairway for Jack
Feigel and Paula Coffey.
“We couldn’t have hand-picked a better group of people,” Feigel
says. He and Coffey spent two and a half months on the balcony of a hotel in
Diamonhead after the hurricane ripped their home apart.
A shed floated up on their property, and the couple were just about to move
into it when they got a FEMA trailer. They earned the money to pour their foundation
from salvaging cooper wiring, Feigel says.
With tears in their eyes, they watched as the
young people worked. “I
just can’t believe it,” Coffey says. “They are heaven sent.”
?We came. We saw. We mucked.’
Pass Christian (Miss.) First United Methodist Church has a huge bulletin board
in its hallway filled with handmade signs from the many volunteers who have
come to help.
“We came. We saw. We mucked,” says one sign from a group in Huntsville,
Ala. “Clergywomen strippers were here,” says another.
The church had two feet of water in it, says the Rev. Terry Hilliard, coordinator
for spiritual and emotional care for the conference’s Katrina response
team. Debris in front of the church’s double front doors kept more
water from flooding the building. After the hurricane, only four households
in her congregation had habitable homes, she says.
Right after the hurricane most people were shocked,
and then they got really busy cleaning and trying to assess the damage, Hilliard
says. Months dragged
by while people waited for insurance settlements and for government officials
to decide how the houses should be rebuilt; that’s when it got really
hard, she says.
“I think people are not as energized as they were when there was a lot
of physical work to do,” she says. “People are tired; they are
emotionally, physically and mentally worn out.”
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A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose The
Rev. Chris Cumbest walks up the concrete slab of the former Leggett
Memorial United Methodist Church at Seashore Assembly in Biloxi, Miss., a
United Methodist retreat facility that faced the beach.
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The
Rev. Chris Cumbest walks up the concrete slab of the former Leggett
Memorial United Methodist Church at Seashore Assembly in Biloxi, Miss., a
United Methodist retreat facility that faced the beach. The only
building remaining after the storm was the cafeteria. A UMNS photo by
Mike DuBose. Photo #06960. Accompanies UMNS story #513. 8/28/06 |
But Hilliard says amazing stories have come out of all the despair.
“We worked on a house in Long Beach, and the crew went to replace the
roof on a house,” she says. The crew had tried to contact the homeowners
but couldn’t reach them. They just picked up the roofing supplies and
got busy, she says.
At the end of the day, the crew found out it was really supposed to be replacing
the roof next door.
When the homeowners drove up, they were shocked.
“The couple said they had been driving around
making the decision to commit suicide. They had just had enough. And then
they came
home and there
was a new roof on their house. It turned them around.”
Hilliard also tells the story of one couple in
her church who said, “We
could have paid contractors to fix our house, but we needed the volunteers
to fix our hearts.”
“This is what it is all about,” she says. “The spiritual,
emotional care is about figuring out some of the pieces of the puzzle to help
fix people’s hearts.”
*Gilbert is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in Nashville,
Tenn.
News media contact: Kathy L. Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or
newsdesk@umcom.org.
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