FINAL Report from Biloxi

One last word, I promise!

It's 4 a.m. Friday, I've slept well on the church floor, but I can't sleep anymore before we actually get going at 4:45, and there were a couple of incidents last evening.

Jay and I drove down to the far east end of Biloxi to view the US 90 bridge over to Ocean Springs that was wiped out by Katrina. These massive sections of concrete and steel highway just toppled over like dominoes! A man and his wife were sitting there, enjoying the very pleasant afternoon air; they live here, there were an elderly Japanese couple, very friendly. They tried to make conversation with us. We think they asked us, "How long before it will be rebuilt?" I took a guess and said 6 years, which is probably not far off.

Then we toured the east end where many of the Vietnamese shrimp fisher folk lived -- many, many lots bare of houses, a few FEMA trailers sprouting up. We went on the the house where we had helped with some painting on Saturday, the home of Mrs. Bourgeoise. The volunteers who had done her dry wall had written their blessings and names on a bare stud that was in a closet opening, that would have to be covered with wood trim. She wanted so badly to keep that as a memento, so Jay took some photos of it and intends to have Kinkos do up a nice photo strip for her to affix to the trimmed and finished frame.

Well, we were in an office here at church trying to find her correct phone number to tell her, since she hadn't been home when we stopped by. A site manager came rushing into the office saying, "Oh, good you're still here, two pastors, just what we need! There's a call in from a potential suicide. Can one of you take it?" Well, I took the phone and spent a very harrowing and exhausting half hour trying to hear/understand/reassure this woman. Multiple medical problems, plus family problems, some house damage, and on drugs. Jay sat nearby coaching me with notes to me (he specialized in Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Work when he worked full-time in Ann Arbor). He asked me to get her to commit to coming into our clinic tomorrow, and since I won't be here anymore, to tell her that I would call the clinic from Ann Arbor to see if she had come. She didn't want to give me her last name. "Why do you want it?" I told her so that I could be thinking about her and praying for her. I ended this crisis call by praying with her, then let out a very deep sigh of relief. I've really not done much crisis intervention like this in my career, and several times I just wanted to hand the phone to Jay and tell him to take over. I wrote up my notes from this call, passed them on to the site manager, and Jay and I suggested the kinds of people who should be prepared to intervene with her. Happily, Dr. Bob will be her today; I understand that he is most compassionate and should be able to engage this woman's trust, since this is such a complicated situation. Also happy that a pastor will be on duty at the clinic -- the pastor of our Lord of Light '05 graduate from Whitehall, MI, Sally Hollister.

The most joyous part of the evening was when a retired pastor and his wife and two church members from Kentucky asked Jay and me to take pictures of them making a presentation to Pastor Jerry and his wife Judy. First they had them open a box, which contained a hand-made pastor's stole, green for the long Church-season from June through October. On one end of the stole was the symbol of the church in KY: three crosses. On the other end was the symbol of Biloxi: the Biloxi light that withstood Katrina. That wasn't the end: they presented a check from their rather small church in the amount of $7,000.00!

Such examples of outpouring of love for the folks down here is truly amazing and heartwarming. And although it saddens us to see volunteer crews leaving, and for us to leave, too, with all the work that remains, we see the continuous flow of new crews coming in last night and later today to take up the work.

Take heart up there! Enjoy your day! Next week is Holy Week and Good Friday, BUT, Easter is coming!!!

Roland