KatrinaGrace Team VI - The Compassion Team

Please pray for Team VI that's leaving for Trinity Church in Covington, LA early Sunday morning 28 May and returning on Sat 3 June. The Team is

• Allan Kiang
• Becky Rocco
• Douglas Morin
• George Murrill
• Jessie Royster
• Mary Lou Gradisek
  
• Stephen Shields - Team Leader

This team is called The Compassion Team because they are going to be spending 5 days doing pastoral follow-up meetings with just a few of the over 4500 people that Trinity Church and Compassion have helped since the storm.

Suicide Prevention

I've built a new page on faithmaps.org that focuses on Suicide Prevention as a resource for those who go to LA and MS (or are there already) to work with survivors of the storm.

"Number of Deaths From Katrina Rises"

"Louisiana raised its Hurricane Katrina death toll by 281 Friday to 1,577 after including more out-of-state evacuees whose deaths were deemed related to the storm or its grueling aftermath."

- full Associated Press Story

Photos and Thoughts from the April Cooking Team

Len Thompson recently sent us some pictures of the April Cooking Teams trip to Trinity Church where they cooked for the many volunteers working in the Covington, LA area. They were down in LA April 16-22. You can see the pictures here.

Len also shared some of this thoughts about the trip:

I stayed at a church in Covington, LA, which is across Lake Ponchatrain
from New Orleans. There were about 60 folks there from all over the US.
It was a light week because of Easter; normally they have over 100. The
women slept on the floor of a Sunday School classroom and the men on
the floor of the sanctuary. We all ate at a makeshift cafeteria on the
other side of the sanctuary. I was part of a team that prepared and
served the meals.

The effort is coordinated by Compassion Ministries in cooperation with
Urban Impact. .

Most striking, and appalling, was the lack of progress in the clean-up,
and the extent of the damage. Of the thousands of destroyed homes, only
a handful have or are being rebuilt. Large neighborhoods are utterly
abandoned.

I did get to go out one day with a work crew. The work right now is
entirely demolition. Before a home can be rebuilt - assuming it's in
good enough shape structurally to be rebuilt- it has to be stripped to the
two-by-fours. First they haul out appliances, furniture, and personal
possessions (everything is just piled up outside). Then they tear out the drywall, carpeting,
and linoleum. It's hot, dirty, and dangerous work. Shots for Hepatitis
B and tetanus had been required, but now only tetanus. Most work sites have no
electricity and no sanitary facilities.

A tough week, but I'd be willing to go again.