Photo courtesy of Northside Baptist Church

Wayne Lewis of First Baptist Church paints at a church in Pascagoula, Miss., while on a trip to help hurricane ravaged areas. Behind him is Bob McDowell. They were with a group from Northside Baptist Church that worked in Mississippi from Jan. 22 through 28.

The Rev. Sam McGregor expected to hear the constant drone of power tools when he went to work recently in the Hurricane Katrina-ravaged area of Mississippi.
 
 
Instead, he found a "painful silence."
"You don't realize how extreme the situation is," said McGregor, pastor of Allison Creek Presbyterian Church, who worked with 52 others in Long Beach, Miss., right after Christmas during a roofing blitz by the Presbyterian Church (USA). "The needs are great."
 
Allison Creek in York is one of several area churches continuing to send teams of volunteers to Louisiana and Mississippi to help people restore their communities. Others include St. Anne Catholic Church, Oakland Avenue Presbyterian and Northside Baptist Church.
 
Trips are planned by numerous churches through the spring and summer.
"Most people feel their faith becomes real because it's practiced and not just talked about," said Laura Smith Conrad, associate pastor at Oakland Avenue Presbyterian. "They're really moved by the stories."
 
Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast in late August, flooding 80 percent of New Orleans when levees broke and displacing hundreds of thousands of families in Louisiana and Mississippi. The hurricane killed more than 1,400 people.
 
Five months later, volunteers have stories of the devastation that Gulf Coast communities still face. They tell of boarded-up windows and blue tarps that hang over roofs in entire neighborhoods and of the lack of electricity, day cares and grocery stores.
 
They describe seeing debris in trees, black mold on walls and a lingering odor.
And, they tell of people who appreciate that someone cares.
 
"It's the hope we're bringing down there with us," said Joerg Luenenschloss of Chester, who went with the Allison Creek group. "The people down there need it so much."
 
Northside's pastor, the Rev. Jerry Sosebee, and a crew of about 20 spent a week in January at Ingalls Avenue Baptist Church in Pascagoula, Miss. They painted, assembled furniture, installed wall board and repaired plumbing and electricity.
He estimates 10 percent of people are back in their homes. The rest live with relatives, in tents or in trailers from the Federal Emergency Management Administration.
 
"It's the biggest mess you've ever seen," he said.
 
The York Baptist Association has partnered with the association in Jackson County, Miss., said Mike O'Dell, York's director of missions. The disabled and the elderly will be first on their list during the next trip Feb. 18 through 25.
 
He feels for the working class making their own repairs while juggling a full-time job. Some are making mortgage payments on a house they can't live in, while having to also find money for the rehabilitation.
 
"They really are just trying to survive," O'Dell said.
 
Church members said they'll help as long as it takes.
 
Volunteers with Oakland Avenue Presbyterian have taken three trips to D'Iberville, Miss., since last fall, including the weeks after Thanksgiving and Christmas, Conrad said. The trips, led by deacon Sally Herlong, have been for adults only, although seventh-grader Elliott Anderson accompanied the group over Thanksgiving.
 
"It was a life-changing experience," said Anderson, 13. "There were so many people there that need help. Anything you did, they were pleased."
Anderson hopes to go back this spring when the church sponsors a youth trip, she said.
 
Allison Creek volunteers hope to make three more trips this year, McGregor said. His church has created a new ministry called Hope from the Carolinas to fund trips to the recovery area.
 
Even those with few skills have something to offer, he said.
 
"It was neat for me to see both the residents there who felt a real sense of new hope from the volunteers coming in and then the volunteers and the life-changing experience they had," he said.
 
Suzzanne Brakefield of St. Anne Catholic church agrees.
 
She and 15 others traveled to New Orleans in mid-January to help fix the day care operated by the Daughters of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary in a Vietnamese community.
 
"It was a really hard working weekend," said Brakefield. "It was a wonderful, wonderful experience."
 
The group included members of three families and several teenagers. Thi Le, who operates a restaurant on Main Street in Rock Hill, flew down to cook.
Church members already had a strong bond with the nuns, who sought refuge in Rock Hill after the hurricane struck.
 
The day care is needed so people in the community can work, Brakefield said. She found herself putting siding on a shed; others installed a fence.
 
"We did lots of things we never thought we could," she said. "We are so glad we went."
 
Trip organizers say people who can't go can help by making donations. They fear the public will forget.
 
"The more we can get teams down there, the more we can get families in their homes," O'Dell said. "It's going to take a long time."
 

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