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Worldwide Trips
> Volunteer Journal > Gulf Coast Community trip - Janet's Journal
Gulf Coast Community trip - Janet's Journal
Janet Snyder - Thrivent Financial for Lutherans member, Hawaii
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| Janet Snyder, journal writer |
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| Team gathers in Yankie Stadium |
Monday, December 3
Most of the day before checking into Yankie Stadium (the Salvation Army volunteer village in Biloxi) was spent with Bishop Adell and Dr. Sybil Whitenburg. The couple, both ordained ministers, run a rambling volunteer hostel in nearby Pass Christian and the night before I was the only overnight guest. They came to the Gulf Coast a couple of months after Katrina devastated the area in August 2005, with the intention to help the people in their painful recovery.
The Whitenburgs had a church in South Carolina up to then, and managed to get possession of a 17-bedroom house that had been the home of 41 foster children and the single woman who adopted them. The couple turned the place, whose residents moved out of state after Katrina, into a B&B to house the many volunteers who come to Mississippi to help rebuild the Gulf Coast. They charge $30 a night for a room with private bath including meals (!) and are as warm and welcoming as a loving family.
After showing me a video made by one of the residents right after the storm, Dr. Sybil took me around the area on Monday afternoon to see the worst-hit areas: Waveland, Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian and other small towns near Biloxi that were hit twice by the eye of Katrina on August 29, 2005.
A sign in Bay St. Louis in a field that once housed a church: "Katrina was big, but God is bigger." Another sign near one of many FEMA trailers declared bravely: "We WILL rebuild."
There is an indomitable spirit of hope among many of the survivors, but a darker tale lurks as well. Dr. Sybil says there are many suicides, divorces and altogether too much family violence in the aftermath of Katrina, two years on.
I say goodbye to Dr. Sybil at the front gate of Yankie Stadium, my home for the next week. After checking in and receiving a red Thrivent Builds T-shirt and a white "I Helped Rebuild the Gulf Coast" T-shirt, I proceed to the women's bunkhouse our team has been assigned. There I meet my new friends, team leader Julie Bargholtz and co-leader Sue Pomplun, along with teammates Diane Burgmeister, Leslie, and namesake Janet Slater. There are women from two other Thrivent teams sharing the bunkhouse, along with Americorps kids and individual volunteers.
After our first meal together, lasagna and salad, a bunch of us in Julie's team pile into our rented van to Wal-Mart to stock up on essentials we forgot back home.
Tuesday, December 4
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| Mikey's on the Bayou |
Freezing cold in the 40s as we arrive at Rosemont Street, the site of our house project. My blood has definitely thinned since moving to Hawaii in 1999 I haven't been in cold like this outdoors for any length of time in years. Everybody else on the gig is bundled up except the father and son team Carmen and Andrew, who wear shorts and are all set for the beach.
Our work supervisor Greg Hewins briefs us on safety, then we hear the opening prayer to kick off the work week. Within short order we're hammering parts of the house frame, creating the exterior walls. What a rush we get when we all together lift the frame of the first wall. The day progresses, with us building all after all of the bedrooms and baths, closets, etc. It's truly an emotional experience to be part of this process of building somebody's home. We have lots of experienced builders on this, and we less-experienced hands get help and advice from two young guys from Americorps, Heath from Florida and Dan from Springfield, Mass.
Dinner at Mikey's on the Bayou, oyster po'boy, shrimp, crab and other Gulf Coast delights. Very local style chow with a Cajun accent.
Wednesday, December 5
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| Building King Jack studs |
Day Two and we're making phenomenal progress on the framing today. Just looked at Mike our photographer's pix taken the first two days. Janet and I spend a lot of our day bolting down the frame to the concrete foundation. This 1,200-square foot house, which will have three-bedrooms and two full baths, is in a pretty wooded cul-de-sac. Next door another Thrivent Builds team is racing to build their house, which is slightly smaller than ours at around 1,100 square feet. Today was warmer than Tuesday and sunny all day. Andrew, our youngest member, had twisted his right hand while working a power drill yesterday and has just been diagnosed with a fractured finger. Poor guy he's out of action for the week, bandaged up like the Mummy.
After dinner it was movie night at Yankie Stadium. We watched local TV station WLOX's documentary on Katrina. No one was immune from the worst storm surge in recorded history the high winds of up to 175 mph blew off WLOX's roof and sent the news team running for any cover they could find.
Thursday, December 6
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| Team leaves blessings for new homeowners |
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| Dinner at The Shed |
Today it really started to look like a house. We began right away to nail plywood to the frame to "wrap" the house. Diane and I nailed the whole far side of the house, the side without windows. If I have any criticism of the design of this house, it is that there are far too few windows. Let there be light.
We had help from our Americorps friends Heath and Dan, plus Don, Sr. from Tennessee (David of Minnesota's dad.) Some ladder work, some low-lying hammer jobs.
We nail up a panel above the front door with blessings and prayers for the future owners. God bless all who dwell here!
The two building teams were filmed by WLOX, although our crew had only a cameo role.
I for one am totally wiped out by the time work knocks off early at 2:30.
The Thrivent Builds teams are taken on a bus tour of Biloxi and Gulfport's coast flattened by Katrina. The bus driver is a former shrimp fisherman named Troy who told us stories of his own family's encounter with the hurricane. Troy belongs to the Mennonite Church, which was among the first relief groups to arrive in Biloxi after Katrina, along with the Amish from Pennsylvania Dutch country. Dr. Sybil had told me that the Amish with Mennonite help loaded up huge semi-trailers with building materials and arrived on the scene within a few days of Katrina long before FEMA got its act together.
After the bus tour we headed in our van to The Shed BBQ place, the barbecue mecca of the universe. We dined royally on pulled pork, barbecued chicken, the best baked beans I ever tasted. The staff and clientele were very friendly, typical of how we were treated everywhere in the Gulf. People were coming up to us to shake our hands and thank us for our help in rebuilding.
Friday, December 7
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| Janet and her newfound friends |
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| Thrivent Builds team members create their own Christmas tree |
Our final day of work. We put up the roof gables and trusses, slow going at first and very tricky because the job called for nailing up high on bouncing boards.
Carmen in his signature bandanna headgear climbed up the rafters as Mike and the "Y" guys slid the trusses across and into place. Diane and I worked together most of the day carrying trusses, ending the day hammering in hurricane straps to hold the trusses secure against high winds.
A very emotional mood among many of us as we wound up our week of building on Rosemont Street. Greg our supervisor says the house will be finished sometime in late January. The owner, who will be doing her turn of sweat equity labor on the house over the weekend, is a single mother with two kids whose mother will also live with them. They, along with some 22,000 other Biloxi area folks, are currently living in a FEMA trailer.
We unfortunately don't get to meet the lady and her family.
After our last looks at the still-unfinished house, we return to Yankie Stadium to find Bishop Adell and Dr. Sybil Whitenburg waiting for us! They stay for dinner in the mess hall, along with two families whose homes are being built by other teams.
Under the expert artistic guidance of architect Carmen, we draw the outline of each of our hands on the mess hall wall in the shape of a Christmas tree. Our names and our respective states are scrawled on each hand, with decorations added for good measure. We 15 stalwarts hail from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Tennessee, California and
Hawaii!
I frantically pack my stuff for a diabolically early departure of 5:00 am Saturday, bound for Dallas, Oakland and Hilo, Hawaii.
Diane, Mike and Dan from Wisconsin leave after dinner for their long drive home. Diane has to make it back for the Packers game on Sunday versus the Raiders in Green Bay.
It's very sad to say goodbye to everybody, but what a wonderful week to usher in the Christmas season. Aloha and Mele Kalikimaka (Merry Christmas) and Blessings to you all.
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