Final Report from KatrinaGrace Team VIII

from Liz Beachum:

Wow! What an amazing week we've had! I can't believe we are home again! It has been a great experience working with the local Habitat for Humanity in East St Tammany Parish and also with Trinity Church in Covington who gave us a home away from home. Everyone was friendly and hospitable, and we've met some new friends.

We spent our last 2 work days installing laminate flooring at the house in Lacombe. They told us ahead of time that if we did not know a skill when we arrived, we would definitely go home having learned a new skill. Many of us learned to install laminate flooring for the first time. A few of the men went to another site in Lacombe to do some foundation work and also in Pearl River to hang insulation.

Someone asked me who qualifies for a Habititat home. Basically, they complete an application and attend an orientation meeting that is held twice a year. They must have a steady income. Since Habitat does "not give a hand out but a hand up", the prospective homeowner is required to complete 200 hours of "sweat equity". Sweat equity can be earned by working on a job site and/or working in a Habitat kitchen to provide meals for the volunteers. After they complete the first 50 hours, the process for building a house begins. Then after they've completed 100-150 hours, they can move in when the house is completed. They are also given a 20-year interest free loan.

Early Thursday evening we drove down to the Lower 9th Ward to see some of the devastation from Katrina. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. What once used to be vibrant neighborhoods, with kids playing outside and riding bikes up and down the streets, have been abandoned to a great extent (understatement).

We saw many houses and businesses that were uninhabitable. Some houses had been swept off their foundations and were no where in sight. Some of the empty parking lots have been converted into FEMA trailer parks. We met a man named Keith who was living in a FEMA trailer parked next to his house. He was so happy to see us and he gladly shared his story with us. Most of his neighbors live elsewhere, and sadly some have drowned. He said the flood waters rose
2-stories high. He lived in a 1-story house. Thankfully, he was able to stay with his brother down the street who lived in a 3-story house. At the end of our visit with him, we joined hands in a circle and prayed with him. He prayed too and, wow, can he pray! As we listened to his story, we were hoping to be an encouragement to him. Ironically, he was an inspiration and an encouragement to us. ln spite of his great loss, he had great faith, a positive attitude and a hopeful outlook on the future. As we drove out of the city to go back "home", the van was very quiet. No one was talking. Everyone was reflecting on what they had seen and heard. The need is truly great here.

We had a great team of 14 volunteers that came with us. Most attend Grace Community Church but we were delighted that some folks from 3 other churches came with us, including members from Calvary Community, Living Hope Presbyterian, and Cedar Ridge Community Church. Everyone came ready to work, willing to be flexible, and eager to make a difference. We are the 8th team from Grace that went down to the Gulf Coast region to help with the Katrina recovery. More teams are preparing to go down in the months to come. The KatrinaGrace web site is an excellent resource for all the great work that is being done by Grace Community.

Thank you all for your prayers this week. Everyone stayed healthy and safe this week. Please continue to pray for us as we return to our own reality.

Liz

PS

I will be uploading more pics in the days and weeks to come here.

Team VIII: Report from Day 2

Team VIII gets the Award for Best Communication with the Mothership!

This from Liz Beachum after Day 2 working with Habitat for Humanity in Louisiana:

Hi, everyone!

We had another great day in N.O. on Tuesday. We went back to the house in Lacombe to do some more inside painting. We should finish the painting tomorrow and still have time to hang the inside doors and trim before we finish for the day.

Lunch at the sites are provided by the eventual homeowners of the houses. This is one of the ways they can earn their 200 hours of "sweat equity" toward home ownership.

Trinity Church, where we are staying, cooks breakfast and dinner for us each day. The cooks are volunteers too and they are good cooks! There are several teams from around the U.S. that are staying here. But we are the only group staying here this week that is working with Habitat. The others are going into the city to do gutting and cleaning.

When we signed up for this, we were told how important it was to be flexible...which it is because things can change. But what is amazing to me is how 14 strangers can have so much FUN working together.

I uploaded some more pictures.

That's it for now...

Liz

On-Site Report from Katrina Team VIII

Liz Beachum writes:

"Hi, everyone!

We all arrived in New Orleans safely and ahead of time (yea! Southwest) on Sunday. There are 14 of us. Click here to see a picture of our team. This picture was taken down at the French Quarter on Sunday. That's the Mississippi River behind us. I'll upload more photos as I have time.

The weather is beautiful here, 80s during the day and 60s at night. On Monday we went to Slidell to help frame a house. We actually put hurricane staps on the outside frame and also inside where the roof is going to put on. This is part of a new building code for N.O. After lunch, we went to Lancomb to paint the inside walls with primer.

We are having a blast! We are having alot of fun getting to know each other as most people don't know each other. Everyone on the team is working together very well and everyone is constantly looking to stay busy at the job site. We leave at 6am in the mornings to be at the HFH headqtrs by 6:50 in Slidell. Then we head off for the job site. There are several groups from around the US that are working with the local HFH chapter here and there are several houses that are currently being built. Thankfully all 14 in our group are able to work on
the same house. More later..."

Please pray for KatrinaGrace Team VIII

Our 8th Team took off this morning to Louisiana to work with Katrina relief. This team will be staying at Trinity Church in Covington, LA but will be building houses in Slidell, LA with the East St Tammany Habitat for Humanity! They'll be returning next Saturday. The Team is

• Roger Beachum - Team Leader
• Liz Beachum
  
• Matthew Guy
• Len Thompson (his 2nd trip)
• Jeanne Springer
• Stacey Spione
  
• Tony Kim
• Peter Lee
• Dana Honda
  
• John Albert
• Kerry Rye
• Steven Lilly
• Russ Dickens
• David Kapuscinski
  

Please pray for them this week!

Frequently Answered Questions for KatrinaGrace Trips

can be found here.

2 Books on Katrina

I'm mostly done withTulane professor Douglas Brinkley's massive treatment of Katrina - The Great Deluge. His menu of stories is well-worth reading, if a bit all over the place.











Tim Challies also brings our attention to a new Marvin Olasky work called The Politics of Disaster and provides a fine summary.

"faith in action" - one year later

Nice article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about what faith-based orgs have done and are still doing in areas ravaged by Katrina and Rita.

Katrina Sunday - Aug 27

some pics from Sunday's Katrina Event.

Building 100 Homes in Slidell, LA

The East St Tammany Habitat for Humanity has decided to build 100 homes in 2007 in Slidell, LA, a town on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain that was devastated by flooding after Hurricane Katrina.

KatrinaGrace plans to help by sending down 6 or 7 teams of 20 folks between now and the end of 2007. We are partnering with Trinity Church in Covington, LA in this effort and this is where our folks will be staying when they're in the New Orleans area.

If you are interested in working on one of these teams, please email Beth Shields or Sandra Clabough.

Pictures of Trinity and Compassion Staff in Covington, LA

can be found here!

We've also linked to these under "Links and Information" in the right-hand column of this site for your future reference.

Most of our times have stayed at Trinity Church and worked thru Compassion Ministries as we've worked in the New Orleans Area.

Biloxi 1 Team from November 2005

• Adam Fry
• Craig Wampler
• Sarah Wampler
• Gadget Ambuel
• Chad Manifold
• Jeromy Smith
• Kim Smith
• Karen Royer
• Nicole Ambuel
• Steve Royer

Bilox 2 Team - April 2006

Gadget Ambuel
Larry Ambuel
Margaret Ambuel
Nicole Ambuel
Chad Manifold
Matthis Wecker
Brett Wiuff
Karen Royer
Steve Royer

katrina by the numbers, part 2: 1 year later

USA TODAY poll in today's paper:

• 16% - those who say that their lives are back to normal one year later
• 56% - those with kids under 18 who say that their kids have been negatively affected by the storm
• 25% - those who have not moved back
• 20% - number of those who have moved back but believe they may need to move out again
• 14% - those currently unemployed
  
  
• "those who say they are experiencing a great deal or quite a bit of"
  
  
• anxiety - 27%
• trouble sleeping - 26%
• depression - 23%
• "difficulties in marriage or other family relationships" - 18%
  
  
• Top 5 Most Difficult Things to Deal with Since Katrina:
  
  
1. damaged property
2. financial problems
3. mental or emotional sate
4. "getting our lives back on track"
5. "no longer having a job"
   
   
• Top 5 Types of Help Most Desired to Recover from Katrina
  
  
1. $
2. help with damage or contractors
3. more FEMA help
4. "a place to stay"
5. a job

Recent stats from Compassion Ministries which works thru Trinity Church in Covington, LA. This is where we've sent most of our Work Teams:

• # of volunteers: 5,458
  
• volunteer work hours: 206,350

- USA TODAY related story.

- katrina by the numbers, part 1: the impact of the storm

New KatrinaGrace Resource

The Evangelical Free Church of America Katrina Project has launched a new website in support of their Katrina relief efforts in the New Orleans area. Most of our Teams have been working with this project and Trinity Church, which is an Evangelical Free church.

It features:

• the Latest Stats of the effort (now current thru 7/21/06):

Work Hours: 206,350

Volunteers: 5,458

• a project blog
  
  
• information about sending a team
  
  
• and they'll be adding more features to the site as well in the future.
  

"Churches battling post-Katrina depression"

"But only 22 of the 196 psychiatrists who practiced in New Orleans have returned, according to a report published this month in the
Journal of the American Medical Association.

A state-run psychiatric hospital re-opened last week with 10 adult beds, a fraction of what was available before the storm.

As the city waits for its share of $80 million in federal relief funds allocated for rebuilding the state's mental health care infrastructure, local pastors are being called upon to fill the void."

- link

Katrina By The Numbers

While we were in Covington, LA in June, I picked up Tulane University's Professor of History Douglas Brinkley's The Great Deluge where he chronicles events surrounding Hurricane Katrina from Saturday 27 August (Katrina hit LA and MS on the Monday 29 August) to Saturday 3 September 2005. As I've been reading, I've been jotting down some of the numbers (some of these numbers are from other sources as noted, primarily the wikipeida article on Katrina):

• 90,000 - the number of square miles declared a federal disaster - this is almost the size of Great Britain
• 1836 - estimated deaths
• 705 - number of still people missing as of 19 May, 2006
• 460,000 - the population of New Orleans before the storm
• 230,000 - estimated population of New Orleans in June 2006 [from Reuters via Wikipedia]
• 125 miles per hour - top sustained winds when Katrina hit the Louisiana coast
  
• 150 miles - the number of miles inland Katrina traveled before she lost hurricane strength
• 80% - percentage of New Orleans that was flooded (Daily Kos)
• 23,000 - estimated number of people who took refuge in the Superdome (ABC News)
• 34 - height in feet of the storm surge in Western MS (ABC News)
• 10 - number of miles inland reached by the storm surge (ABC News)
• 2,430 - number of children separated from their parents
• 112,000 - the number of New Orleans residents who didn't own cars
• 1,500,000 - the number of folks who requested FEMA assistance after the storm
  
• 27.9% - percentage of New Orleans' population below the poverty line before the storm
  
• 11.7% - percentage of New Orleans' population 65 or older before the storm
  
• 181 square miles - size of New Orleans
• 50,000,000 cubic yards - estimated amount of Gulf Coast debris (equivalent to 400 football fields stacked 50 feet high)
• 350,000 - number of automobiles destroyed in New Orleans by Katrina
• 35,000 - number of boats destroyed in New Orleans by Katrina
• 230,000 - number of Katrina evacuees who went to Texas
• over $150 billion - possible total economic impact
• 500,000 - number of people govt officials estimate "may need mental-health assistance to deal with higher rates of anxiety, depression and hostility" (Charity Navigator)
• 1.3 million - acres of forest lands that were destroyed (Charity Navigator)
• 
  

NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team at Goddard Space Flight Center

Recent Video and Pics of New Orleans

Parnell Goodyear and some friends just got back home from New Orleans. Here, Parnell links to blogpost and a video of what they saw and experienced.

from Mark Lewis

Mark is a Director for Compassion on site in Trinity, where we have sent most of our teams.

"I had to share with you a few things from the last 2 days. I had the
privilege of hearing Sara's story tonite on how she got here. She is a
late teen/early twenty something from IN, here with a group of teens and
college/carrers. she shared that when she saw the opportunity to go on
the trip a few months ago, her heart jumped. she got an application and
signed up that day and was thrilled that she was going to be able to
come and serve God and help people. but as the summer wore on, and the
deadlines approcahed for paying the costs for the trip, she realized
that maybe she wasn't to come, as she was working to save money for
school, and really could not afford it. so one nite as she was
waitressing, a group from her sunday school class came in for dinner. it
was a slow nite so she was able to vist with them a good bit. she went
back to the regsiter to ring up the bill, she turned and found her
friends were gone, without a goodbye. bummer. she went to the table and
under there was a note that said how much God and her friends valued her
and special a person she was, and under the note was the exact amount of
money that she needed for the missions trip, her tip.

i held back tears then as i heard this story, and now as i type the
story, of God's faithfulness, His provision, and a caring, supporting
christian community. it's only tuesday, and her testimony was that she
will never forget this experience, 'it has changed my life'....and maybe
mine a bit too.

another young lady came up to introduce herself to me and give me ahug.
she wanted me to meet her specifically because she wanted me to remember
her when she came back, because she tols me, 'i am coming back'. she was
with the same group. she did not want to come. she said no 4 times to
the team leader when he asked her to come on the trip. she had had bad
experiences in high school in some church youth activites, not being
accepted, and confessed that her family has really not been going to
church with any regularity. she told me that she had never really read
the bible. she had told her team leader all the resons that she could
not go, the main one being that she could not get off work. but he was
persistent and called her at work one day and had her ask her boss, even
though 2 other s were already off work at that time. the boss listened
and then went to one of the others who had asked off, told the guy what
this gal was going to do, and the guy gave up HIS week of summer
vacation for her, so she could come. she lsot her last excuse, so here
she is. she confessed that she has made some of the best christian
friends, in 3 days time. as i left tonite, she was sitting down with
her group for a bible study time...with her bible open!

it is awesome to see what God is doing in people here, much less
through them.

for those of you in the harrisburg area, i wanted to let you know that
denise and kara and caleb will be at community free church on sunday for
the 930 and 11 services, emily and i are here in la. they would love to
see/meet you guys if you could make it. denise will be sharing for a
brief time in the service. just what she like to do, stand up in front
of people and talk...now me on the other hand... the church website
for directions/addr if you think you can make it.
www.communityfreechurch.org/

we are working a lot now on planning for the next year of work and
ministry. we are doing a more focused training and equipping cirruculum
for the evenings in the fall for teams to learn more about issues of the
poor and the need for ministries of compassion in our own neighborhoods,
as there are hruting people all over, not just here. although they sure
are messed up here. we got a call today from a very upset lady who had
a good friend of the family working to rebuild their house, which was
now going to be a double wide on a slab. the guy was to pour the slab
next week, but the family found out yesterday that he hung himself.
they lost their home in the storm surge, and now they lost a friend and
the person who was going to get them back into a new home. we have not
had a skilled concrete guy in for months, but as the Lord would have it,
we also found out today that we may have a skilled guy in that area
coming next week. it's amazing how God show's a need and then provides a
way to meet it, and why he frequently seems to do it here on like the
same day is beyond me, but it sure is awesome to sit back and watch.

we are really looking for folks who will pray earnestly for workers to
keep coming here to do the cleanup and reconstruction. (it's a biblical
command for us to ask this of the Lord...see mt 9:38) the volume of
volunteers for the fall seems to be slowing some, as i'm sure most folks
think there's nothing or little left to do as it is out of the
news.amazingly , we got a call today from slidell from a lady who needs
her home gutted. this area had gutting mostly done by last november. we
are also getting an increasing rate of calls again for gutting in new
orleans. so many folks still have not even gotten the contents out of
their homes, and fewer and fewer churches are continuing to do this
work, as they are not having enough volunteers, or are just wearing out,
or are running out of funds to sustain the recovery efforts.

but we are planning for ongoing efforts well into 2007 in the area
around covington, and beyond into 2008 in central city new orleans, and
need you and your teams to come and be a part of God's work here.

we are also going to be doing lots of planning for the ongoing crisis
response ministry too in the next 2-3 months. thanks for being a part of
it all and for your care for us... ml"

Pictures from KatrinaGrace Team VII

This Work Team left on Sunday 2 July and returned on Saturday 8 July. They were:

• Eric Heflinger
• Terry Gallion
• Jeff Maddock
• Daniel Rizza
• Gregory Klassen
• Jeff Klassen
• Matt White
• Robert Flowers - Leader

Pictures from the trip can be found here!

• Album 1
• Album 2
• Album 3
  

Lower 9th Ward Gets Mail!

USA TODAY reports that the Lower 9th Ward has finally gotten mail!

KatrinaGrace Team VI was just down there about a month and a half ago (pics here) and the place looks like a nuclear bomb went off. Though the area was very poor, 60% of Lower 9th Ward residents owned their home.

This is another step of the region back to normalcy.




image courtesy of stock xchng and melvinpiro