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Saint Luke's Outreach
Recent Outreach Missions:
In the aftermath of the disastrous Hurricane Katrina, Saint Lukes sent a team to Mississippi to help the recovery efforts.
A Saint Luke's parishoner reflects on her experience:
Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief Effort
St. Luke’s Volunteer Team in Gulfport, Mississippi
by Jeanne Sekse
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina, a Category 4 storm, veered east of New Orleans and made landfall on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Nothing is left of the first town it hit. 140 mph winds and small tornado funnels decimated the string of beautiful waterfront towns of Waveland, Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, Long Beach, Biloxi, and Gulfport. Replace those names with the sister coastal towns of Greenwich, Stamford, Darien, Rowayton, Norwalk, and Westport, and you will begin to get an idea of the scale of unprecedented destruction this area witnessed.
The destruction was evident.
After sitting in the eye wall of the storm for nearly 24 hours, a powerful, churning tidal surge of 30-40 feet rushed more than five miles inland – the same one that breached the levees of New Orleans. No town flood zone map could have ever anticipated such a reach, nor such a scope of damage. Locals who survived Hurricane Camille, a Category 5 storm which ripped a swath across the Gulf Coast in 1969, were deluded into believing they could ride out this mere Category 4 terror. Most perished who stayed behind, and those who evacuated now have barely more than their lives to show for it.
We drove through miles of rubble, what recently had been people’s homes, their local libraries, churches, schools, police stations, fire houses, realtors’ offices, shops. Charming antebellum brick buildings were utterly obliterated in Katrina’s wrath, and now resembled a post-apocalyptic scene of staggering magnitude. Shreds of fabric hung from branches of the stately trees which characterize these lovely bayou communities. The trees prevailed, stripped during the storm but already pushing green leaves back out, a symbol of the resiliency of nature and the vulnerability of man.
The area was devastated.
One of the great challenges of outreach work – aside from carving out the time to actually commit to it – is to find the balance between numbing yourself out of self preservation in the face of overwhelming human suffering and leaving yourself open to walk in others’ pain, even for a short time. We heard countless stories told with tears in eyes still traumatized by the shock of such unexpected loss, whole lives lived modestly and rendered suddenly senseless in the wake of such destruction. It was at such moments when we realized what was truly at stake here: not whether they would rebuild or find new jobs, but whether they would find their faith again, challenged as it is in the face of such overwhelming stress.
Paul hard at work.
There were times it was unbearable to look at the ravaged contents of people’s lives: we shoveled fetid, molding sheetrock into wheelbarrows, pulled up soaking wet carpets, threw away children’s stuffed animals, broken Christmas ornaments, rusted exercise equipment, mangled picture frames, sorting the broken and unrecognizable from the possibly salvageable. Homeowners, still depressed and unmotivated to pick through the mess, bent to help us as they were heartened and encouraged by our ministry. We chain sawed and hauled downed trees, pulling large pieces of roofing material out of unlikely and unnatural places. We worked the food pantry, the medical facility, the clothing storage area, the nursery school, the reception desk. Almost 2,000 victims a day arrive at Coast Episcopal with no alternative but to rely on the charity of strangers. With nothing else to offer us in return, these soft spoken Southerners showed us the hospitality of their thanks and, touchingly, their blessings, over and over again.
Their thankfulness was obvious.
Mississippi is not in recovery mode, it is still in crisis mode. Three months later, as our eyes glaze over in helpless overload while CNN reports successive natural disasters in the Yucatan and Pakistan, it is easy to sink into inactive stupor. There is only so much global misery we can absorb, especially before Christmas. As we anticipate the season of light and hope, the people of Mississippi pick through the shattered remains of their lives. As we fill our shopping bags with presents, they anxiously watch for dwindling shipments of food, clothing and medical supplies. This is an area that needs our time and talent, and is uniquely set up through Coast Episcopal Care to receive it. Beds, showers, food and tools are provided – all that is needed is a plane ticket and a rental car.
Anyone who has volunteered at Person-to-Person would find whole days full of meaningful work in the food and clothing tents. Anyone who has wielded a hammer on Homefront Day would find infinite satisfaction helping in the cleanup and rebuild. A person with a medical or nursing degree can help relieve exhausted doctors and overworked support staff, since this is the only facility for 15 miles – the local hospital was leveled. A willing hand and a willing heart is all that is required, yet we who have been to Mississippi feel that this was the most rewarding and powerful outreach experience we have ever had, touched as it is by God’s healing to the healers.
A Person-to-Person clothing tent.
Hundreds of volunteers keep arriving from all over the country, and we need to continue to be a part of them. We have a great deal of experience to offer, not only physical building skills, but rich, spiritual and intellectual help to people ravaged by grief. You will never regret joining the next volunteer team to Mississippi. You can arrive empty-handed but plan to return full.
November 30 th, 2005
For information on upcoming service opportunities, call the church office.
