Katrina Stories

Photo: An American flag stands where a home once stood in Waveland, Miss.

Over the last two days we've been meeting residents of Waveland, hanging dry wall, laying tile, cooking food, felling trees, cleaning out-houses, painting, spackling, and doing laundry. Why is it important? Why does it matter that someone's walls get spackled, or floors get tiled? Why? Because over one year ago, these people lost everything, and they wonder if someone cares. It's not about their living conditions - it's about the state of their hearts. Their hearts have felt abandoned and they are overwhelmed.

One of the residents we've been working with was on the cover of Time magazine because of a picture taken by a college student rescue worker - the photo was of this family in their SUV, surrounded by swirling water, the husband in the act of placing the children on top of the SUV in a last ditch effort to rescue their children - rescue workers just minutes away. Any longer and the entire family may have been lost in the waters. But praise God this family was rescued. However, the story doesn't stop there. The family consists of mom and dad and five children. Mom is raising her children in a home that has been gutted - no cupboards - little furniture - with barely the walls in her home, and she has a disease, lupus, that exhausts her. Yesterday she got on her knees and asked God to help her because she couldn't keep up with her household's needs. Within a few hours, Pastor Art (from Camp Katrina, aka Christian Life Center) knocked on her door, to follow-up on the repairs they were making on her home. She wept as she told him about her despair, and that he was an answer to her prayers. Within the afternoon, a team of two women (Melisa included) went to help this mother with her laundry, her dishes, and to clear her kitchen in order for tile to be laid. And her story is still going on as her home is worked on. She prayed and God answered immediately. She knows He answers prayer, and she knows others care.

Another resident has had a hard time accepting help. She had been self-sufficient before the storm and often served in her community - taking food to families - volunteering - and feels uncomfortable asking for help. But the $7000 the insurance company gave her to repair her completely ruined home wasn't even close to enough ($7000 because the roof sustained "wind" damage, yet the rest of the house is considered "flooded," therefore, ineligible for insurance). Now, 14 months after the storm, she's more than realized that she can't fix things on her own. She's been living in a tiny FEMA trailer. Yet she is hopeful - her house has now been dry walled, spackled, and primed by the work teams. She may be able to move in soon. But it's not about the home. It's about knowing that someone cares that she has been living in a barely habitable trailer for 14 months.

Today, when another work team was finishing up dry wall and electrical work, the home owner stopped by. She walked into the home and immediately burst into tears. Because the dry wall had been hung, she could imagine that she might be able to move back in sometime soon. Her husband had been working 2 jobs to help pay the mortgage on their ruined home, and buy supplies one week at a time to help put the home back together. She could now envision them moving back in one day. She has hope.

Because we are sleeping in an old car parts warehouse on rickety bunks, using out houses and thrown together showers, we may feel like we're not in America. Why shouldn't a building have indoor plumbing? Why shouldn't a sleeping quarters have heat? This is America after all! But hurricanes happen. Tragedies happen. And America can fail us. Or, rather, our American lifestyles can fail us. We think we want life to go back to normal, but that's not what we're really after. We want to know that God cares, and that our fellow man cares. We'll never actually go back to where we were before - and we wouldn't want to. When our lives have been touched by tragedy, we grow in ways we couldn't have grown without that tragedy. Because through them God has shown us He really does care about the little things like spackle and paint, He shows us He cares ... He shows us He cares through you and I.