(Almost) Final Report from Biloxi

Hello up in the MIdwest and Eastern coast!

And for you at Lord of Light in Ann Arbor: do you need a picket fence built? No sooner said than done! Yesterday Jay and I went out with a Lutheran Disaster Response Construction Site Manager to build a picket fence. We had hoped to take 2 or 3 more workers along, but Jay and I were the only ones Tim could scrounge up. He really should have stayed at the front office to manage, but he was out working along side us. The place was the home of the City Inspector for Biloxi, so we were a little suspicious about the urgency of building this fence around an undamaged fairly new home out in a suburb of Ocean Springs. The story is that this fellow lost his entire house in a Biloxi location, then just happened to have the chance to buy this one. Further more, it's a matter of Luth D Response "owing" this guy one for probably many, many breaks and favors he has done for us over the past 7 months.

So, there we are on the site, and Jay and I start drilling the holes for the posts with this gasoline-powered augur, which is a real trip going down, then every few seconds pulling it back up to bring up the dirt, getting bucked by the stubborn drill. First hole went well. Second one gave us problems down around 2 feet. Now, I'm really watching how I lift this machine back up in tandem with Jay. But suddenly down there, as I'm bending and lifting with my legs, I also have to use my back...and zing! Out goes my back again, the third time in one month. And I had been feeling super up until then, no back problems in spite of some very hard destruction work. I had even thought of cancelling my chiropractor's appointement for Friday afternoon. Well, I'll keep that appointment.

I left Jay and Tim to continue the work, then drove back the 12 miles to base to try to scrounge up a couple replacements for me ( I don't mean to imply that it takes 2 to replace me!). I found them in Tent City (Camp Biloxi, as the other LDR tent site is called) in the persons of 2 America Corps gals. I drove them out, then picked them and Jay up at 5. Jay reports that they did a terrific job with the power augur. It figures! These folks, from 18 to 24 years old, are the best.

The rest of yesterday afternoon I puttered around the church's volunteer base, running a couple errands with the car, taking it easy for my back.

Last night was Lenten Service here at the church, another good blessing during our week. Every night after dinner we offer stories about "Where did you see the face of God today?" Really quite amazing how peole discover this reality in their hard volunteer work here: like doing dry wall and painting in a house, and the little kids who are to move back in there come up to you and give you a big hug. Or a young member of this church who lives 90 miles away in New Orleans, who has been rather depressed because of the long wait to get his condo gutted, re-dry walled, painted, etc., only to find that his electric stove can't hook up to where the outlet was placed. Yesterday, just by chance a group from Pennsylvania who had an electrician amongst them ( a premium skill down here) returned mid-morning with nothing to do. Judy, the pastor's wife, who is the site manager here at the church and the spiritual spark plug of this effort, realized that God didn't have anything for them to do for no reason! She asked two of them if they would drive to N.O. to take care of this guy's electrical needs. They did, and last night at the "soup and sandwich" Lenten supper joined in by church members, this guy's mom reported how happy her son was for the work accomoplished. So happy that he gave these two folks some his Mardi Gras beads that he has been hoarding for most of his life -- like a whole trunk full! So take that, Pastor Sue Sprowls and Barb Hayworth!

Back in October one of the volunteers made a DVD of "8 Days in Biloxi" which included the story of Frank, who nearly lost his wife to the surge of water, and he himself survived by climbing up onto his kitchen stove with his two dogs. The stove started to float, but he managed to settle it down. HIs favorite Lazy Boy chair was ruined by the water, but he still used it, since that's the only place he can comfortably sleep. Along came an SUV full of volunteer women to visit him, and they were so touched that they went out and bought him a new Lazy Boy. On Tuesday, our Pastor on duty and another volunteer were called to do a home visit...to Frank. The found him still quite down, and later I heard one of the team talk with one of our dry-wall experts about getting out to do his work. All these kinds of stories are so touching!

For the past day or so our free phones and internet connections have been out in order to do some more proper reconnection. Our local coordinaator asked me to be the handy man for a more expert volunteer as he worked with cables, switch boxes, power adapters and more. I did some climbing around in the church attic, and thankfully, my back didn't holler out.

When were here a month ago, Judy wanted the collection of good crutches, canes, walkers anda a wheel chair to be taken down the street to "Hands On Center," where they might be better used. The day we left, I thought I had arranged for someone to do that. Lo and behold! when we got here last week, those things were still piled up in the hall. I put them in our car and drove them down. Then at the work site yesterday, I got a call to ask if I knew where there was a walker for one of our clinic folks. So, I stopped at Hands On and they said all the crutches, canes and the wheel chair were gone, but all the walkers were still there. I was happy to pick out one and bring it to the clinic for this patient. Small errands, small chores, but everything everyone does around here fits into the bigger picture of "being the hands and feet of God" for just one more day.

This afternoon I'll put on my clergy shirt/collar and go down to the Distribution Center a mile away to work with a couple Intake volunteers as people come for their food/clothing/other needs. Apparently there is a great need for pastoral work down there. Jay has been back to wearing his Social Worker hat in our free medical clinic, during which I observe that he also is very much the pastor that he is pleased to be. Then this evening Jay and I will pack our gear for a 4:30 a.m. arising to g et us to the airport for our return home.

See most of you very soon. Blessed Easter to you all!

Roland