Lutheran Students Bring Hope to the U.S. Gulf Coast

ELCA NEWS SERVICE
March 14, 2007
07-034-MRC

NEW ORLEANS (ELCA) -- Dressed in white a hard hat with arespirator over her face, Lisa Evans, a senior at Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Ind., said, "We're here to bring hope. We can make a big difference in just one week." Standing in front of a Hurricane Katrina-damaged house March 5 in New Orleans, Evans joined more than 800 college and universitystudents participating in "What a Relief!" during the 2007 spring break.

What a Relief! is an opportunity for students and others in campus communities to spend their spring break helping survivors of the 2005 hurricane season rebuild. Lutheran Disaster Response is organizing What a Relief! Students participating in What aRelief! this year represent some 34 U.S. colleges anduniversities, 13 of which are affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). They're working in Alabama,Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas between February 25 and March 31.

With eight other students and two adult advisors fromValparaiso, Evans "gutted out" houses March 5-9 in the New Orleans area. Valparaiso is an independent Lutheran university.

"I came down last year and saw how much of an effect we made in just a matter of a couple of days. We got to meet the homeowners of the house we worked on, and I (witnessed) the difference we had made. So, I just wanted to come back again this year." Evans said her volunteer experiences with What a Relief!"really opened my eyes. The world isn't as bad as we may think. People really do care, and you can help somebody else."

"What a Relief! is a great thing," according to Jessica Vermilyea, Metairie, La., state coordinator for Lutheran Disaster Response -- a ministry of the ELCA and Lutheran Church-MissouriSynod (LCMS). "It gives so much credence to what (Lutherans) are doing here. It gives the ability (for people to understand) what we're going through here, so they can go back home and share the experience with other people," she said.

"The majority of our volunteers are repeat volunteers. We depend upon them to make connections with homeowners here. It's not just about the house, it's about the person. When (students) make those connections, they go home and share it with family or with other students. They (develop) a passion for (volunteer work). "

Keith Aumend, senior, Valparaiso University, is a repeat participant in What a Relief! In 2006 "we worked in New Orleans' Ninth Ward, right next to the levees. That was one of the greatest experiences in my life. I've never experienced (a disaster) so earth-shattering. (It was) that experience that instigated me to come back here again. Also, I'm from Florida, and I've been through many, many hurricanes. I've seen a lot of damage happen. But when I saw what happened here, I knew that we really had to get in and help people, because (help) is just not coming fast enough for them."

Aimee Tomasek, assistant professor of art, photography, Valparaiso University, helped to "round up" the group of students from Valparaiso for 2007 What a Relief! "I've been photographing New Orleans for about 14 years," said Tomasek. "When (Hurricane) Katrina hit I was very affected, because I have a lot of friends in the city, and it was a logical choice to come and help." Tomasek said volunteer work "is a very humbling experience and also a great teaching device because my students, for themost part, don't know how to do any handy carpentry work," saidTomasek. "The motivation of the trip is education," she said. "New Orleans is always the (point) of ridicule in terms ofmorality. People kind of see this town as a den of sin, and it's not. There are people who live here that are no different than people in other places. They raise their families here, have good values, go to church, help their neighbors, and invest in cultural and ethnic events. I think that's very often lost, based on what we see on television. I want to teach my students that this place is no different than other places when it comes to issues related to family, taking care of your neighbors and being a good citizen." Tomasek said.

Through What a Relief! more than 40 students and adult advisors from Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa, worked March 5-9 in New Orleans and Slidell, LA. Wartburg is one of 28 collegeand universities of the ELCA.

"I'm learning a lot about technical construction work, such as installing windows and repairing exterior wall frames," said Jessie Carver, a junior at Wartburg. Carver said this is her third trip to the U.S. Gulf Coast. "My first two trips were spent mucking out homes. On this trip, it's exciting to see actual rebuilding work taking place. It's amazing to be part ofthis process," she said. About 10 percent of Wartburg's student body is engaging in some kind of volunteer work across the country during the 2007 spring break, Carver said. Aaron Hagen, a senior at Wartburg, is writing about the work of his peers for the school's newspaper, "The Wartburg Trumpet." Roland Ferrie, a student photographer from Wartburg, is accompanying Hagen.

"Our goal is to inspire more students from Wartburg to volunteer in the U.S. Gulf Coast," said Hagen. "There is still alot of work to be done here. Many students at Wartburg don't quite grasp how rewarding this work can be. (Through our stories), we want to let students know that people can make a difference," he said.

At the start of a work week, students are led through devotions and an orientation about what to expect during their volunteer experience, work safety tips, instruction on the recommended safety apparel and gear, and more. Kurtis Smith, manager of "Camp Atonement," Metairie, LA, encourages students and other volunteers to "hear the stories" that homeowners and other Louisiana residents have to share.

"The role I have here is to make sure that our volunteers are housed and equipped for the work that is to be done," said Smith. Camp Atonement is equipped to house 72 volunteers. It includes mobile bed accommodations, an outdoor dining tent and a work supplies tent. It is located on the property of Atonement Lutheran Church, an LCMS congregation.

"New Orleans has a way to go in rebuilding, and it's the volunteers that spend their time, energy and money to be here to bring hope. (Volunteers) are the ones bringing Jesus into the community by doing the work, whether it be gutting or rebuilding a house," he said.

Smith said many people across the United States "don't realize that there's still much work to do, and we continue to need people of all shapes and sizes and skills to come down and help." He said people are needed in camps, either to clean or cook for the volunteers that stay there, and highly skilled laborers are needed to work on plumbing, electrical work, roofing and anything else in between.

Other LDR volunteer camps in the New Orleans area include Bethlehem Volunteer Center, New Orleans East; Christ the KingLutheran Church, Kenner, La., a congregation of the ELCA; and"Dove of Peace Mission Center," located at Peace Lutheran Church, Slidell, La., a congregation of the ELCA.

Another Point of View

Marty Zimmann (pictured above), Pastor of St. John Lutheran Church, Dundee, Michigan, writes a daily devotion, "Peace It Together," which gives spiritual nurture to many. This week, Pastor Marty is part of a group doing disaster relief work along the Gulf Coast. I thank him for graciously permitting me to reproduce today's devotion here on our blog. ~ Pastor Sue


I told them that it didn't make any difference how much work one did that made one more valuable than another. One person may roof a whole house while another listened to a person who is hurting and gave them some comfort. They probably wouldn't remember the one who roofed their house except to say "Man, that guy could roof a house real quick," but they will remember the face of the person who looked into their eyes and comforted them.

-- Jimbo, Lutheran Disaster Relief Team Worker


Jimbo drove here two weeks after the hurricane from his home in Kentucky with a truck full of tools and hasn't been home since. If there is a saint here in the camp, he is probably it. He doesn't look like a saint-- usually he wears paint-splattered jeans and flannel shirts. He's on the phone a lot with people at work sites who don't know how to hang drywall or where to find a certain tool. He is indefatigable. And like most saints, he doesn't say much about himself, but he lives out an exemplary life of service and love. He once said (and somebody wrote it down): "We should go with the attitude that we owe [the hurricane victims] and this will help pay the debt. Everyone we meet? We are indebted to share the Gospel, so let's pay that debt and share the Gospel with everyone." I would also add a little quote from St. Francis-- "Proclaim the Gospel everywhere. Sometimes you may use words."

Today as I glued a vinyl floor together, I didn't feel as if I was sharing the Gospel. I felt a lot of physical aches and pains, and I wondered why the owner of the house (who was in the next room) wouldn't get off his couch and help me. Later, I felt humbled to find out that he worked nights, and was doing his best to simply stay awake and be hospitable. Another one of my assumptions bites the dust. And perhaps this tired man on the couch taught me a thing or two about the Gospel. I only hope my job on his flooring pays the debt.

Everyone here is either a college student on Spring break or an elderly retired person. Middle-aged duffers like me seemed to be somewhat of an anomaly. It's like throwing the movie Cocoon in with Not Another Teen Movie. Last night during the evening program, all the kids snuck out at 8 pm to watch "American Idol." And all the older people get up at 5:30 AM to be the first in line for the 6 AM breakfast, while the teens seem to come dragging in around 6:30 AM. In either group, you don't see a lot of people reading the Bible or preaching the gospel. You do see a lot of tired faces and aching hands and tired feet.

They say the center here in Ocean Springs will be open for another three to four years at the least as people continue to rebuild their homes and the economy slowly returns from the less than zero status of September 2005. Perhaps then Jimbo will pack up his truck and head out for the next place where wise men still seek Jesus in the faces of the hopeless and the despairing. I hope I am able to meet him there, even if it is only for a week or so while laying vinyl floor in the house of someone who works the night shift.

Peace it together.

-- PM

Therefore prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed. --1 Peter 1:13 (NRSV)

Photos from Port Arthur

For those of you who aren't on Facebook, here are a few photos of our work in Port Arthur (in no particular order due to the limited technological knowledge of the blogger!):

Max and Ruth (from Iowa) measure sheetrock.

Caution: Pastor with prybar! Be gone with you, pink walls!

Karen earned a special place in Terry's heart by

organizing the contents of his trailer. The same

bucket that holds knives also contains band-aids!

Mary's dining room after gutting. The walls are solid pine,

what they call "ship lath." The lighter areas reveal termites'

favorite snack bars.

Max gets uncomfortably close to a live electrical line

while removing sheetrock from the kitchen. Don't worry,

though; he's an Eagle Scout! He'll be careful!

Karen taught us all how to float, tape and mud sheetrock!

She and Max did the windows!

Our group (plus Leon, minus Ruth) with Mary.

The Drill Brothers: Terry and Perry pose with power tools.

Casey & Karen look up from measuring and

cutting sheetrock for the bedroom.

We may not have raised the roof but we did raise the ceiling!

Hurry, Ruth! Our arms are getting tired!

(4' x 12' x 1/2" panels of sheetrock are heavy!)

The back of Mary's house.

Sermon for March 4, 2007 by Dr. Perry C. Francis

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

I am not going to preach on the lessons this morning. Instead I want to focus our attention more keenly on our season of Lent and the actions that we can take to help make Lent a growing season of giving.

It all started like this…a storm system formed at the tail of an old frontal boundary, where convection and low-level circulation around an upper-level low developed steadily for two days. A surface low formed near the disturbance, and the season's 18th tropical depression soon formed east of the Turks and Caicos, a group of islands of the British West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean. Less than a day after forming, the depression became the 17th tropical storm of the season on September 18th and was named Rita. As a result of this creation of a tropical storm, there was a mandatory evacuation was ordered for the entire Florida Keys.

Hurricane Rita, as it become known as, followed closely upon the heals of the devastating Katrina that washed out New Orleans. It made landfall early on September 24th, 2005. Though less destructive than Katrina, Rita caused extensive damage when it roared ashore in an area known as the “Golden Triangle” near the Texas-Louisiana border. As a Category 3 hurricane it had winds of up to 120 mph. Much of the hurricane-hit areas had been evacuated ahead of the storm, including Houston and Galveston. But what you cannot take with you in a truck or car is left behind in the path of a weather juggernaut that neither respects the history of one’s life in that place nor the home where that history is contained. Hurricane Rita apparently caused far lower insured losses than Hurricane Katrina, but it still proved devastating to the people in the “Golden Triangle”.

Communities in the “Golden Triangle” formed by Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Orange sustained enormous wind damage. Texas Governor Rick Perry declared a nine-county disaster area. In Beaumont an estimated 25% of the trees in the heavily wooded neighborhoods were uprooted. In Groves, the home of Texas' Pecan Festival, an equal number of the pecan trees were leveled. An enormous number of houses and businesses suffered extensive damage from wind and falling trees. Some areas did not have power for more than six weeks. The “Golden Triangle” area was spared a more devastating storm surge by Rita's slight eastward turn just before landfall, which placed most of the coastal community to the left of the eye and in the storm's least-damaging quadrant. And Rita's surge was contained by Port Arthur's extensive levee system.
Mary, whose home we were there to repair, stood about the height of a hobbit and looked to be older than her years. We did not see her on the first day, only seeing her hand come out of her trailer to accept lunch from the lady who delivered “Meals on Wheels.” She would eventually venture out and greet us and tell us a few stories about her family as she walked through her home to inspect what work we had accomplished. Mary’s home, a place that she had lived in for over 4 decades, a place where she raised her children, cooked Sunday suppers, celebrated the many milestones of a family’s history, was probably built in the late 30’s. It is situated in a part of town that is best described as run down and depressed. Even before the storm, the area was not the garden spot of Port Arthur and is located several miles from a bustling retail area. And yet, it proved quite a match for the winds of Rita. While it was still standing, the interior of the home was water stained and areas covered with dried mold that, once gotten wet again, would come back to life causing the many respiratory illnesses that plague the area.

As you walked through the home you would find the physical evidence that people had once lived there. Furniture piled high and the many mementoes of decades of living thrown on top of one another as people moved things around so that work could be done to salvage the home. In one room, the bedroom of the grandkids who lived there, there were pictures on the wall of a 13 year old girl named Alexis in a party gown, obviously taken during a happier time in their lives. The room was filled with those things you would find in a teenager’s room, except covered in the blanket of poverty. In fact, the entire home was covered in that same blanket.

As you drive through the area, you can still find numerous FEMA trailers. In the backyard of Mary’s home were two such trailers where she, her son, and two grandchildren lived. They had been in those trailers since returning after the storm.

This was where you would find me, Casey, Pastor Sue, Karen, and Max. This was where we would be tearing down walls, removing ceiling tiles, floating drywall (although I do not understand why it is called floating when you are struggling with a piece of sheetrock that, at the end of the day seems to weigh more and more), and throwing up joint mud to cover the many screws that hold the sheetrock to the walls. This was also the place where my Lenten journey would begin. Listening briefly to Mary’s story of her home and hoping to restore her to this same home so that she could return to some sort of normalcy of living.

While all this is occurring, the verses in the letter to the Hebrews kept running through my head… “Keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters” states the writer as he concludes the letter with final instructions for living. “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering” (Hebrews 13: 1-3).

For many, Lent is a time to forgo chocolate, eat fish on Fridays, or spend a little less time watching TV. All this in hopes that we can focus better on the things that we are called to by God through Christ, or as Jesus once stated, “…to love God with all our heart, mind, and soul, and to love our neighbor as ourselves…” But I want to invite you to a different Lenten discipline…one that involves a different type of action…one that involves a different type of relationship to God. One that was modeled for us by Jesus.

As you read the Gospel accounts of Jesus, you find yourself confronted by a God who is relentlessly seeking to have a loving relationship with humanity. A God who set aside all the powers of God to reach out and be a part of humanity. This can be your Lenten journey. To do as Christ and set aside more than the chocolate or the fish, or the TV, and reach out to others in loving compassion.
This reaching out can be difficult. I know it was and continues to be for me. I had to set aside my own desire to spend winter break at home and instead practice what I have been encouraging others to do for years. I had to reassure myself that I was doing this not out of guilt, but out of sense of calling to put my faith into action in more concrete ways.

This is what Lent can mean beyond the more traditional denial of worldly pleasures in hopes of strengthening our relationship to God. Instead, do as Christ did and build on the relationship you have with each other and in that building, you will entertain angels.

Now I know that the majority of us cannot leave work for a week and run down to Port Arthur and meet with Mary and rebuild her home. So I invite you to think more broadly. Whose life around you can you have an impact on…whose life around you can you affect in a positive way…whose burden can you make a little lighter…whose sin against you can you forgive…whose sorrow can you listen to…whose hope can you build…whose life can you touch? This can be your work of Lent…to help a Mary whose life can be made better by your presence, just as your life has been made better by God’s presence.

Where might you find courage to do this work…right here…today…in the nourishment of the Eucharist, where we all come to share in that relationship of the table, where we hold hands as one people, equal in God’s eyes and are called to ministry.

This can be your Lenten work, your Lenten journey, your strengthening of your relationship to God in Christ, who has done this for us.

Amen.