From Sue
Sue’s Reflection for Youthspace
The pictures do not tell the story; not even seeing the scenes up close. It is important to touch a person’s life and hear that person’s story to understand the situation.
During the second week of July, 13 youth and 4 adults from our Diocese joined with a much larger group from the Diocese of Georgia for a mission trip to the Gulf Coast. Our task: to come together as a group, to share our faith, and to attempt to assist some of the victims of Katrina. Without a doubt, we did all of the above; but what we came to understand was so much more.
Each day eight different groups of 10-12 young people and adults journeyed to different homes throughout the coast areas of the two panhandles of Alabama and Mississippi. Most went to the same sites each day; some to different sites. In some places the homes showed little damage, in others the devastation was unbelievable. All learned new skills— repairing floors; laying carpet; hanging drywall; tapping and mudding AND sanding; and, still, even some demolition.
It is hard to take in all of the destruction; to come to terms with the reality that it has been almost one year since many of the victims of this storm have lived in their own homes, that many will never come back, and that these neighborhoods and communities will never be the same again.
Each day the group of young people I worked with drove into Mississippi and the community of Pascougula to the rental home of a middle-aged woman. All around us were the sounds of construction; only along the shore in the big houses were these sounds made by official construction workers. The rest were generated by groups like ours—four on our block alone.
It became apparent early on that the home was damaged more than that owner was willing to acknowledge and this situation created some questions for all of us. Was the repair work we were doing covering up some things that really needed to be fixed? We made some choices, and didn’t cover up some things, but continued the work we were asked to do—hanging and tapping and mudding drywall.
The renter seems to be disinterested in what we were about, meeting us at the house on some mornings and then disappearing as quickly as she appeared. Finally, on the last day of our work as we were frantically trying to finish—three bedrooms, and the living room and dining room—she came by. I asked if she had been present during the storm, and she began to talk. I then asked if she would tell her story to the young people, and she agreed. We stopped our work and took seats on the floor.
She shared her experience of having gone to stay with a friend a few blocks away; both of their homes were about 4 or 5 blocks from the shore. She and many in the community had stayed through Hurricane Camille, so they believed they could stay for this storm as well. However, with Camille there was not the water surge that was present with Katrina.
She shared how the water began to come into the house. At first it was very calm; then it began to rise so quickly that within 30 minutes it was up to her chest and the wind and rush of water outside were extremely intense. She tried to get out many times—through the door that would not open, through windows that had been nailed shut—before making the statement to herself that she was going to die.
Finally she managing to kick out a window and jump into the rushing water, with debris flying and floating by—cars, trees, furniture, homes. The power of the water and wind were intense and ultimately carried her about 2 and a half miles. During that “swim” she looked back to see the heads of many people bobbing in the water. She saw a woman trying to save her two dogs and she thought, “That woman and her dogs will never make it.”
Finally she was able to reach out and grab and hold on to a pillar outside a church building, and the people on the second floor pulled her in through a window. She had cut her foot severely when leaving the house on broken glass of the window, and when she got into the church she realized it was much worse then she had thought. And she thought to herself, “I’ve been through all of this only to bleed to death!” A woman approached her, with scratch marks on her face and neck. It was the woman with the two dogs—all three had made it. The woman was a nurse, and she managed to bandage our storyteller’s foot.
She then shared that for four months she was on crutches, living in the backyard of her house in a tent, with no running water or lights, with vans of church folks from all over the country coming in each day to bring them water, food, and supplies. Finally in December of last year she was given a FEMA trailer, where she has lived up to now.
It was then that she tried to express what the work we were doing meant to her, as she stated that maybe tonight she would sleep in her house because the walls we had created made her feel as if she could see the way to coming back home for the first time. She wanted to give us something for our work, but said that in the matter of minutes she lost everything—home, possessions, car, job, livelihood, and, most of all, hope. She said that we had given her that, and we knew that the work we had done was worth everything and her expressions of thanks were more than we needed.
Please pray for Deborah, her neighbors and friends, and the many who continue to labor all along the Gulf Coast. And let’s not forget to continue to work with them so that they can restore their lives.
