For a week in August, I had the privilege of traveling to Long Beach, Mississippi, to help folks who are still rebuilding their homes and lives following a category 4 hurricane. Let me share with you a few statistics. Hurricane Katrina was responsible for $84 billion in destruction and at least 1,836 lost lives. Mississippi officials calculated 90% of the structures within a half-mile of the coastline were completely destroyed. The storm surge peaks in Gulf Coast Mississippi were 42 feet. Since Katrina hit, more than half a million people in the state of Mississippi have applied for assistance from FEMA.

Camp Coast Care is operated by a joint mission venture between the Lutheran and Episcopal Dioceses of Mississippi (LESM). CCC began operating just days after the storm and was first a distribution center and now works toward long-term recovery (rehabbing and new construction). To date CCC has provided room and board for over 11,000 volunteers from over 8 countries. They have rehabilitated over 376 homes. On average, 100 new clients seek assistance per month in Mississippi. So their work is far from over. I would love to organize a group from St. James to go down next year!

My week consisted of a variety of assignments. I painted walls, ceilings and trim, caulked in the bathroom, moved fencing, mowed lawns, cleaned rooms and spread a very large pile of sand underneath a house to try to help absorb some of the water and muck. This work was done on my hands and knees and believe me, there was a great deal of praying that went with the job. Praying for patience, for relief from sand grinding into my knees, praying that I would stop raising my head up and smacking it on the floor supports, praying that the very ugly spiders were more afraid of me, than I was of them. (It turns out they apparently were!)