Posted: 9/01/06

Miracle Farm offers refuge
to Hurricane Rita evacuees

By Courtney Cole

Miracle Farm

BRENHAM—When Hurricane Rita struck southeastern Texas, residents of communities near Orange found shelter from the storm at Miracle Farm. And everyone involved believed the provision was a miracle—or at least a divine appointment.

“We had extensively planned and were prepared to minister to families that had been displaced by this catastrophic storm,” said Jack Meeker, executive director of Miracle Farm, a childcare agency for boys operated by Children at Heart Ministries. “We soon realized that God had hand-picked a special group to be directed into our circle of care.”

Steve Griffith, coach of the Little Cypress-Mauriceville Bears baseball team, agreed.

“Finding a place to go wasn’t hard, because it was meant to be,” he said.

The team and their families searched and prayed for a safe place to flee as Hurricane Rita turned their town upside down. Griffith believes God responded by directing him to Brenham’s high school baseball coach, Jim Long, who referred him to Miracle Farm.

“It became clear that as we were looking for someone to help us, they were looking for someone to help,” Griffith explained.

Within a few days, 70 people relocated to their new home in the Miracle Farm Retreat Center bunkhouses. They shared meals with staff and residents.

“For more than two weeks, our staff and boys had the unique privilege of hosting and ministering to these special guests,” Meeker said. “Our prayer was that Miracle Farm could not only provide a safe haven, but that they would also experience an outpouring of God’s love while they were with us.”

Individuals and churches from Independence Baptist Association helped by contributing groceries, preparing and delivering meals, giving financially and collecting personal care items, paper goods, linens and pillows.

“We are truly thankful for each person who helped make this special group’s stay not only meaningful and comfortable, but also confirmed that God is working through his people,” Meeker said.

The displaced Golden Triangle residents responded by helping out with campus projects, giving back financially and encouraging the boys at Miracle Farm.

“The great people at Miracle Farm went above and beyond the call in an outstanding way to care for us like we were family,” Griffith recalled. “We have established many friendships that will last a lifetime.”

His wife, Lana, added: “Never in my life have I experienced such an outpouring of concern and Christian love than what we received during our stay … by the staff, the residents and the community. Our family is forever changed and grateful. We feel blessed to call you all friends.”

Griffith’s baseball team returned to Miracle Farm several months later while traveling to a tournament.

They presented the children’s home with a mirrored tile as a token of appreciation.

Miracle Farm benefited from its ministry to the storm victims, Meeker said.

“We thank Coach Griffith for trusting us to touch the lives of those closest to him,” he said. “They all touched our lives as well in ways we will always remember.”

Posted: 9/01/06

Nederland church marks
new beginning in new sanctuary

By Elizabeth Staples

Communications Intern

NEDERLAND—Hurricane Rita des-troyed the facility of First Baptist Church in Nederland, but it also reinforced the importance of unity among the congregation.

Winds from the Sept. 24, 2005, hurricane stripped the roofs off all the church’s buildings. The steeple fell through the roof, allowing water into the sanctuary and ruining the carpet. Most of the pews, the steeple and carpet in other buildings needed to be replaced. The building suffered nearly $1.5 million damage.

Pastor David Higgs prays with a couple who joined First Baptist Church in Nederland. The decision took place during the re-opening of the church’s sanctuary. View a video clip from First Baptist Nederland here.

The congregation immediately set to work when the city re-opened after the hurricane. The church rented a tent from the Ohio State Fair and met in a parking lot until it could move its Sunday services into its education building.

“Church is the people of God coming together for a common belief, to trust him, to serve him, and to go out and do the things that he would have us to do,” Deacon Bubba Martin said.

Although there was much to do in the restoration process, the project inspired members of the church and people in the community to work together and rebuild.

“People have a tendency to come together in a time of need and a time of disaster,” Deacon Bruce Stracener said. “We saw different groups of people coming together that probably otherwise never would have met one another, never would have worked together. It’s actually been a time of building good relationships—not only with one another, but also depending more on God.”

During the intervening months, many changes have taken place at First Baptist Church. More than 150 volunteers came together from the area to help restore the church.

“What God takes away, he replenishes twofold. And someday we’ll look over our shoulder at this and thank God for what he has done for our church and for our community,” Stracener said.

The congregation was filled with emotion as it anticipated its first time to see the sanctuary restored with new colors and new design. The renovations not only impacted the church, but also the community as a whole.

First Baptist Church “is a lighthouse,” Martin said. “It stands out in this community as a place where people are worshipping God.”

“Our preacher has called us to a time of prayer that we would all be in one accord, that we would all lay our own agendas aside to pray and put our focus to what God wants our focus to be, and that’s to win our community for Christ,” said Phyllis Mosely, a member of First Baptist Church.

The church “is on Main Street. It’s been here. It’s well known, and that’s our vision—that we would win the lost people of Nederland for Christ,” she said.

Help from the Baptist General Convention of Texas brought hope to First Baptist Church in Nederland, as well as much of Southeast Texas, said Montie Martin, executive director of Golden Triangle Baptist Association.

The prayers and support from Texas Baptists have played a huge role in rebuilding the community.

“We would not be opening this sanctuary within eight months if it had not been for the help of Texas Baptists,” said Pastor David Higgs.

“The BGCT came with monies and other support for our people. They also supplied some relief efforts. They came with a chainsaw crew and also made funding available to people who needed funds to buy food and clothing and things of this nature.”

Even though the sanctuary has been repaired, still other buildings are in the process of being restored, Higgs said. It may take years to restore all that has been lost, but the sanctuary, the community and the ways God has met needs have brought hope to the congregation.

“The greatest thing Texas Baptists can do is to continue to lift us up in prayer,” Montie Martin said. “When the state of Texas lifts us up to the Lord in prayer, there is no greater thing they could possibly do.”

Rebuilding the sanctuary marks a “new beginning” for First Baptist Church, its members and its community, Higgs said.

“I have truly begun to realize that with God, nothing is impossible. When we came back from the hurricane, everything looked impossible. It looked bleak. Everything was in ruin. And now we see firsthand that truly everything is possible with God. He truly can make beauty out of ashes, and he is a God of restoration.”

View a video clip from First Baptist Nederland here.

Posted: 9/01/06

Nehemiah’s Vision helps
Southeast Texas recover from Rita

By Elizabeth Staples

Communications Intern

VIDOR—Texas Baptists continue to help restore homes destroyed by Hurricane Rita, even as Southeast Texas residents make their way through another hurricane season.

This summer, volunteers from around the state lent a hand through Nehemiah’s Vision, a nonprofit organization facilitating disaster recovery ministry in Southeast Texas.

“Nehemiah’s Vision has given our entire Southeast Texas region a focal point to work in channeling those resources,” said Charles Pierce, a member of Nehemiah’s Vision board of directors. “It’s the coordination and focus for folks who want to donate goods, services, building products or food. We work with a lot of organizations, and we are the focal point for relief coming in.”

Golden Triangle Baptist Association leaders started Nehemiah’s Vision to share God’s love by assisting in recovery efforts in Texas and in future crises elsewhere. The Baptist General Convention of Texas assisted the groups’ launch with disaster response funds.

“It was born in the midst of a very acute thing that happened with Katrina and Rita hitting the same summer and overwhelming our nation’s ability to cope with disaster,” said Andy Narramore, executive director of Nehemiah’s Vision. “Our Baptist people were able to give hope and respond to those people who had no answers because it was such a big thing.”

Since Hurricane Rita hit, Nehemiah’s Vision has completed 125 jobs.

“Directly, we have received 375 requests, with numerous others coming indirectly, of names and information of people asking for our help,” Narramore said. “Our goal is to rebuild a hope in families that are hurting in disasters and point to Jesus in that process.”

Volunteers from churches, associations and Baptist Student Ministries continue to call Nehemiah’s Vision, asking how they can help. The association then finds the strengths of specific churches and sends them where they will be needed most.

A nursing home in Vidor was donated to Nehemiah’s Vision as housing for volunteers. When reconstruction of the nursing home is completed, it will provide lodging for up to 175 volunteers.

“God used hurricanes Katrina and Rita to accelerate and clarify both the needs and a means to meet them,” Narramore said. “Nehemiah’s Vision provides an avenue to go beyond relief into rebuilding and recovery.”

Volunteers are able to clean up the damage and form relationships with people who are “not only accepting the help but the gospel,” he added.

An emergency food-service unit is being built to feed between 8,000 and 10,000 people each day.

Mobile shower, laundry and sleeping units also are being built to be used by volunteers and workers, allowing them to serve longer periods.

Texas Baptist Men has helped Nehemiah’s Vision with the rebuilding, as well as providing disaster-relief training for local volunteers in specialized areas, such as work with chainsaw and mud-out crews.

The local Red Cross asked Nehemiah’s Vision for volunteers to help replace the blue roofs put on homes soon after the storms hit. The old tarps are tearing and shredding and will not stand up against upcoming storms.

To serve through Nehemiah’s Vision or for more information, call (409) 769-1616, e-mail nehemiahsvision@sbcglobal.net or visit www.nehemiahsvision.com.

Posted: 9/01/06

New Orleans churches
radically changed by Katrina

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

NEW ORLEANS (ABP)—In once-vibrant New Orleans, the liveliest things in vast swaths of the city seem to be weeds exploding from once-manicured medians, lawns and parks.

And the rats, mosquitoes, mold and nutria—huge rodents that thrive in the Louisiana swamps—are the only other creatures swarming neighborhoods that—a year after Hurricane Katrina—still are largely devoid of human beings.

Despite that—and the continuing disappointments stemming from human mismanagement of a continuing disaster—Joe McKeever sees hope in the devastated Crescent City.

“We have a saying: This is a good time to be Baptist in New Orleans,” said McKeever, executive director of the Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans.

After Katrina made landfall Aug. 29, 2005, resulting floods ended up inundating about 80 percent of the city and drowning more than 1,500 people.

Baptist disaster-relief teams that converged on the heavily Catholic area—legendarily difficult mission territory for Baptists and other evangelicals—often were the first religious presence many New Orleans residents saw after Katrina.

The Baptist presence has continued in New Orleans’ long-term recovery efforts, and Katrina’s aftermath has brought both ruin and rebirth to many area churches. Nonetheless, it continues to be tough for McKeever and the congregations and city he serves.

“I’m not really (an associational) director of missions. I’m a pastor,” he said. McKeever barely had been on the job a year when the hurricane struck. He previously had been a successful pastor at a large suburban New Orleans church and was puzzled why God would call him to the associational position.

But after Katrina hit, he realized the association’s churches and the pastors needed a pastor. “They did not need a great administrator. They did not need a mechanic. They needed a pastor,” he said.

A visit to a recent monthly meeting for the association’s pastors illustrates why so many ministers needed ministering in the hurricane’s wake.

Many had to evacuate. Jose Mathews, founder and pastor of Discipleship Baptist Church in the heavily flooded New Orleans East area, said his church and parsonage took on more than six feet of water.

“Most of my congregation were renters, and they’re spread abroad, and they’ve vowed not to come back,” said Matthews, who recently became pastor of a church in Baton Rouge, La.

He came to the meeting of his former colleagues in New Orleans to bid them farewell.

“It’s been hard, but it’s been interesting to see the hand of God in all this destruction,” he said. “Just hold onto God’s unchanging hand. There’s one thing we can depend on in life, and that’s change.”

That definitely was the case for Jerry Garvey, pastor of One Faith Baptist Church in New Orleans. His devastated congregation still meets, but they’re doing it in Texas.

“What I’ve been doing for the last 11 months for the most part has been ministering to a congregation that went with us to the Houston area,” he said. “We’re meeting from house to house still.”

Like many Katrina evacuees from flooded areas of New Orleans, Garvey and his church members have not been able to return to their homes. Nonetheless, he drives back once a week to maintain a connection to the city, in hopes that he and his people may one day be able to return.

“It’s my understanding … that the Lord wants me here, and that’s why I make that trip back and forth,” he said. “Many of us in this area find that New Orleans is in our DNA. But more than just what’s in our DNA, I have a love and a great concern for the people of God here. … I do believe that this is where God wants me.”

The Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans went from about 140 member churches before the storm to 35 operating a few weeks after Katrina, McKeever said. Now, the figure of operating churches is back up to about 80. But many of the former congregations likely will not rebound.

“Every one of the churches has gone through, is going through, some sort of radical change,” he said.

Occasionally that change is positive.

Jefferey Friend, pastor of Hopeview Baptist Church in St. Bernard Parish, just east of New Orleans, said his church building took on 13 feet of water and industrial waste from a nearby Mobil Oil facility. His congregation decided to combine with Suburban Baptist Church in nearby New Orleans East. Friend became co-pastor alongside Suburban’s pastor, Jeff Box, and both congregations meet together at Suburban’s facility.

Friend’s church is historically black; Box’s church historically white.

“Before the storm, it was all chiefs looking out for individual entities; now it’s about kingdom-building rather than building our own individual kingdom. There’s no need to have three churches in the same community when you barely have enough for one building,” Friend said.

There are other signs of hope. A Spanish-speaking church in New Orleans’ western suburbs has started a Portuguese-speaking congregation for the hundreds of Brazilian migrant workers who have come to the city to do construction.

A tiny Baptist mission on heavily Catholic Delacroix Island, southeast of New Orleans, has exploded in growth following the storm—even though its building was wiped off the map and the church has been meeting outdoors in stifling heat.

But there’s still plenty of trepidation in New Orleans. “The first thing that concerns us is that we better not have another hurricane in the next year or so,” McKeever said. “If we do and it’s a major one, this will be a ghost town.”

Posted: 9/01/06

Churches become rallying
points for New Orleans recovery

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

NEW ORLEANS (ABP)—Hurricane Katrina is changing New Orleans’ churches as surely as it changed the face of the flooded city itself—and some of those churches are serving as rallying points in the city’s recovery.

On a recent sweltering August day, Steven Meriwether sweated through his white T-shirt as he knelt inside the living room of a shotgun home on Toledano Street in the Mid-City neighborhood.

Meriwether, pastor of the city’s St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church, was attaching squares of prefabricated flooring designed to look like parquet in a house that had taken on six feet of floodwater after Katrina. Volunteers from his church, along with visiting mission teams from churches around the country, had gutted the home.

Meriwether, who before the storm served a well-heeled congregation of about 140 regular attenders in the city’s genteel Uptown area, now is employing his exper-tise in home renovation about as often as his expertise in homiletics.

“We’ve gutted and cleaned out about 30-something houses,” he said while using a table saw to cut a piece of trim for the Toledano Street home. It belonged to Estelle Smith, a longtime nursery worker at St. Charles Avenue. A team from Binkley Memorial Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, N.C., worked with St. Charles Avenue on the project.

St. Charles Avenue opened up its facilities to house visiting home-renovation teams from churches like Binkley Memorial.

Meriwether said his church first began gutting and renovating homes in the storm’s aftermath—using their own money and donated funds—by starting with the houses of church members and employees who had sustained flooding. Even many middle-class homeowners in New Orleans did not have sufficient insurance to cover the damage to their homes. Many homes sat for weeks, even after the floodwaters receded, with mold eating away at their interiors.

Government funding for such clean-up work and repairs has been slow to arrive. Less than half the city’s pre-Katrina population of 450,000 has returned to their homes.

St. Charles Avenue Church experienced only a 25 percent drop in attendance due to members who left after Katrina. But its life as a congregation is vastly different.

Meriwether, who now is the church’s only full-time staff minister, spends much of his time coordinating and working with new disaster-relief teams. The New Orleans Habitat for Humanity chapter, needing additional office space in the wake of Katrina, took over parts of the church’s educational buildings.

Meriwether remains unsure about the city’s future.

“We still probably don’t know what the bottom is in the city, as far as what’s coming back,” he said.

Meanwhile, across the Mississippi River in New Orleans’ Algiers section, another Baptist congregation is re-envisioning its role more as a volunteer center than the large suburban congregation it had been historically.

Oak Park Baptist Church sustained only minor wind damage from Katrina and was located in one of the few parts of the city to avoid flood damage. Algiers also was the first New Orleans neighborhood to regain city services in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane. The New Orleans Police Department even used it as a headquarters briefly during that chaotic period.

The hurricane simply exacerbated the church’s longstanding trend toward statistical decline. Interim Associate Pastor Joseph Kay said attendance dropped from about 350 to about 150, but the church has educational space for 1,000.

The church decided that, with minor repairs, it could convert its educational buildings into a volunteer barracks of sorts. Members installed bunk beds and bathrooms—complete with showers—in former classrooms.

Now the educational buildings can house upward of 300 volunteers a week.

Like many New Orleans residents, the church’s entire pastoral staff left the city and decided not to return. So the congregation asked Kay—who served as Oak Park’s minister of music during a more statistically favorable part of the church’s life in the 1970s and ’80s—to take a leave of absence from his job as a music-software developer in North Carolina and return to Oak Park on an interim basis.

“It’s the most rewarding ministry I’ve ever had,” Kay said. “There’s a higher level of commitment here now than there was in my previous years of service,” he said.

As an example, Kay noted that, although Oak Park’s Sunday attendance is only a third of what it was prior to Katrina, its donations have not dropped proportionately. That’s come in handy, for instance, in paying the church’s utility bills, which have increased exponentially due to the hundreds of people staying in its facilities each week.

Sarah Parnell, another former Oak Park employee who came out of retirement to serve again as the church’s secretary, said the congregation housed 410 volunteers in one week last month. “We’ve really had to stretch it to get them in,” she said, with a laugh.

The volunteers come from youth and adult mission teams coordinated through the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board. Many of them are doing reconstruction work in the 80 percent of the city that was flooded.

“We expect to be a volunteer center for some time to come,” Kay said.

Posted: 9/01/06

Baptist volunteers make impact on Crescent City

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

NEW ORLEANS (ABP)—After serving the homeless for decades in New Orleans, Tobey Pitman finally is making significant inroads among leaders and homeowners in the predominantly Catholic region.

That’s not to say he hasn’t had noteworthy success with his Brantley Mission Center for the homeless. But since Hurricane Katrina hit, the Baptist missionary has led volunteers to help storm victims in ways other groups—religious or otherwise—have not. And that has made all the difference.

“Baptists have arrived,” Pitman said. “We’ve given carefully for so many years. But since the hurricane, we’ve given wholeheartedly. Homeowners tell me that if it weren’t for church groups, nothing would be different.”

Pitman is the executive director of Operation NOAH Rebuild, a North American Mission Board organization that coordinates, houses, feeds and debriefs volunteers who come from across the country to help rebuild New Orleans.

The organization provides the framework and oversight for reconstruction, while local congregations and state conventions do the work of rebuilding. NOAH leaders plan to help churches rehabilitate 1,000 homes and 20 churches. NAMB is funding the two-year Southern Baptist project, which has received positive feedback from homeowners and municipal leaders.

“You’re nobody in New Orleans if you’re a Baptist person, but if you’re a Catholic, you’ve got it made,” Pitman said. “Baptists have been here for many years, trying to earn our place at the table and (contribute) input and value in the eyes of the city.”

Cathy Pitman, his wife and co-worker, agreed. She said while municipal committees spend time attempting to cut through bureaucracy and inefficiency, church-led groups have demonstrated the love of God in tangible ways.

“When our city wasn’t there, the churches were there to help,” she said. “When the churches were working, the city (boards) were waiting to come to a decision.”

A significant manifestation of that servant-attitude is NOAH’s Volunteer Village—three floors in the downtown World Trade Center that serve as a base camp for hundreds of volunteers who trek to the city each week. The village opened in early July and immediately housed more than 800 people working on 46 projects.

The formerly empty space consists of large windowed rooms with cement floors, wooden bunks, and specially made shower stalls lining the walls. A local businessman has donated 24,000 square feet of expensive, hotel-quality carpet, which is partially installed. Complete with an industrial-sized kitchen and parking accommodations, the area sits a block from New Orleans’ nightlife. It’s the perfect place to house large groups of enthusiastic volunteers.

Pitman secured the floors from a businessman that originally had planned to use them as a hostel for construction workers. When few workers showed up to use the place, however, he agreed to sell Pitman the beds, showers, linens and other living accoutrements. Now Baptist workers pay $20 a night for a bed, three meals a day, parking spaces, insurance and construction badges. Not bad, considering that parking alone in the French Quarter costs as much as $27 a night.

And while the village acts as the main home for volunteers, it by no means stands alone. Operation NOAH Rebuild’s 13 staff members support the effort through the office, construction, warehouse and chaplain divisions. Pitman expects eventually to hire more than 20 people for the project.

In his change of focus from the homeless center to NOAH, Pitman said, he simply waited for the city’s biggest spiritual need “to come to the surface.”

“New Orleans is no different than any other mega-urban city in America,” Pitman said. “New Orleans has learned to run their sin up the flag pole and make a buck off of it. The others just sweep it under the rug.”

Plus, Pitman added, the Bible says where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. “I work in the most graced city in America,” he said with a smile.

Ideally, that grace will abound in the form of skilled electricians and a steady flow of workers. The success of the NOAH program depends on volunteers. Workers certified as electricians or plumbers make home reconstruction go even faster, since electricity and plumbing are needed before interior parts like drywall and flooring are added.

As work crews continue to cycle through Volunteer Village, another hurricane season is under way—quietly so far. How dangerous the season becomes could determine how fall and winter reconstruction efforts fare, Pitman said. But the next hurricane is a subject people have learned simply to avoid.

“Mum’s the word,” he said.

Posted: 9/01/06

Volunteer director feels
calling to restore Mississippi town

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

PASS CHRISTIAN, Miss. (ABP)—When Amy Hardee came from North Carolina to what locals call “the Pass” immediately after Hurricane Katrina, the place was a mess.

A year after Katrina’s monstrous storm surge virtually wiped Pass Christian, Miss., off the map, it’s still something of a mess. But thanks in part to Hardee, at least it’s a far better-organized mess—and one she is working diligently to return to its former glory as a Southern beach town.

“The real problem is that our volunteers are drying up—that people think a year is long enough … to be able to recover. And it’s not,” she said. “We’re just getting the debris picked up. We’re just getting to the edge where we’re going to start building.”

Hardee has become one of the organizational gurus at a small temporary building locals have dubbed the Gray Hut. It is the decimated town’s volunteer coordination center, where residents go to request help gutting a home and volunteer groups visit to find out what should be done to help ongoing recovery.

Sitting in the building, the minister and former Cooperative Baptist Fellowship missions volunteer from Hillsborough, N.C., recalled how she has given virtually all her free time the past year to help a town nearly 800 miles away recover from oblivion.

Less than a month after the hurricane’s Aug. 29, 2005, landfall, Hardee—who currently serves as minister of education at a Presbyterian church—accompanied a truckload of emergency supplies donated by Hillsborough’s citizens and destined for Pass Christian.

She fully intended to return to North Carolina after that.

But what she found compelled her to stay for awhile, and then return nine times in the past year, including a stint that began June 1 and lasted through the first week of August.

Pass Christian and the nearby towns of Bay St. Louis, Waveland and Long Beach were Ground Zero for Katrina’s storm surge. The wall of water broke records for the area, with churning water at heights estimated at 30 feet or more above mean sea level, flattening almost everything within a half-mile of the beachfront.

When Hardee arrived, there still were two-story-high piles of debris from beachfront antebellum mansions, historic churches and the shotgun houses of the impoverished. Around town, she found several points of distribution for emergency supplies with lots of donated goods, lots of people who needed help and lots of volunteers. But there was little accompanying coordination that could link residents’ needs with outside resources to meet them.

A natural organizer, Hardee decided she had better coordinate the relief efforts. “I went by and asked everybody for their spiral notebook” that various supply-distribution sites had been keeping, she said. They contained the names of residents who needed help and names of volunteers with skills or resources.

Those scattered spiral notebooks have been turned by Hardee and her fellow organizer—Pass resident Mariah Furze—into a computer database. The various points of distribution and volunteer coordination have given way to the Gray Hut, now the nerve center of the town’s reconstruction effort. A “tent city” of eager college-age AmeriCorps volunteers is across the street.

Volunteers who have passed through the Gray Hut have managed to finish projects requested by local residents at 114 sites in the Pass. But now, Hardee said, the really hard work begins.

“Now we’re reaching the point where all those little jobs are done,” she said—and by “little jobs,” she means everything from lot-clearing to gutting flooded houses. “Now we’re trying to figure out how to get plumbers paid for, how to get electricians paid for.”

Hardee said the town desperately needs skilled volunteers. While hundreds of workers from church youth groups and civic organizations came through this summer, she said, professionals and artisans who can begin reconstruction work in earnest are needed.

“So, the volunteers who came were greatly appreciated, but we’re in need of skilled labor now,” she said.

She also needs a long-term recovery plan and a group to implement it. Now that federal dollars for reconstruction finally are beginning to trickle down, she said, Pass Christian officials and others on the Mississippi Coast need to spend them wisely.

Hardee is working with government and Red Cross officials to get a long-term recovery committee up and running in the Pass. That group can help deal with many other post-Katrina problems she’s run across.

Posted: 9/01/06

Sabine Pass churches
focus on rebuilding community

By George Henson

Staff Writer

SABINE PASS—Sabine Pass lost both its Baptist churches to Hurricane Rita. Nearly a year later, the two congregations are looking to rebuild a community as much as they are their church buildings.

Dale Martin, pastor of Sabine Pass Christian Fellowship, has put his emphasis on rebuilding homes lost at the same time the hurricane destroyed his church’s facility.

His congregation worships in a trailer supplied by the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Hurricane Rita lifted the congregation’s previous home off four-foot piers and then dropped it back down, splitting the building in half.

Bible recovered from the disaster's remains.

While plans are to rebuild the building for the congregation that once again numbers about 30 people each Sunday, that is not Martin’s focus.

Of the 258 homes in Sabine Pass, 116 were destroyed, and that’s where Martin has concentrated his attention.

“I’ve always said that God will provide for the church if the church will provide for the community,” Martin said. “My philosophy has always been that you build a church by building a community.”

Churches from across the state have contributed to the recovery, including a church in The Woodlands that donated $200,000 and churches in Groves and Simonton that donated $10,000 each, Martin noted.

Volunteers from across Texas and other states also have supplied manpower that was greatly needed and appreciated, Martin said.

The need for volunteers is as great as it ever was, however.

“We need folks that are able to do just about everything. We need carpenters, electricians, people who can make curtains—really anybody who wants to work, we have a job for them,” he said.

George Hill Jr., minister of music at First Baptist Church, said it was hard to see the church’s previous building go. The 143-year-old structure still was standing after the floods receded, but its condition was so bad it had to be torn down.

“That was a very, very hard thing to do,” he said.

The congregation now meets in a nearby Methodist church, but Hill said reconstruction efforts on a piece of property across the street from the former site are well under way.

The sanctuary will sit on piers 12 feet off the ground to try to prevent flooding a second time. The new structure will be about three times larger than the previous building, and church leaders hope it will be completed by Thanksgiving.

A ground-level floor is planned that will provide a place for the community to gather he said. Plans include a room where movies can be viewed, a game room and other facilities to help people in the community know there is a place for them.

“There are no picture shows or anything around here for anyone to go to, so this will give the people in Sabine Pass a place to go,” Hill said.

The ground floor will have “break-away walls, so that if another flood comes, the walls will just break away so the water can pass on through,” he explained.

Those plans are long-range, but Hill said what has been accomplished so far could only have been done through the help of people across the country. Financial aid has come from as close as Westgate Baptist Church in Beaumont, and as far away as St. Louis, Mo., where First Baptist Church provided $30,000 to help with the reconstruction.

Volunteers have come from throughout Texas, as well as Chicago, New York and California, he said.

“It’s amazing the people we’ve met who have contributed to our rebuilding,” he said.

Hill is excited because the new building will retain a special relic from the former structure.

“One of the most wonderful things is that we got to save the bell from our old church that had been there pretty much from the beginning,” he said. “It’s got a crack in it now like the Liberty Bell, but we’re going to have a place for it in our new building. It’s going to be wonderful.”

Posted: 9/01/06

Gulfport members learn
church not just brick and mortar

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

GULFPORT, Miss. (ABP)—Members of First Baptist Church of Gulfport have learned a lot in the year since Hurricane Katrina destroyed their waterfront church buildings. Mostly, they’ve learned that a church is much more than an edifice.

“It’s an exciting time for us,” Pastor Chuck Register said. “Probably the most exciting thing for us has been being forced to rethink the New Testament (concept of) what really is the church. The church is not brick and mortar.”

Katrina erased much of Gulfport, a town of 72,000 before the storm, which hugs the Gulf shoreline. First Baptist was located a few hundred yards from the water, in the center of downtown.

A photo of the congregation’s decimated sanctuary was published around the world, symbolizing the response of faith to tragedy. It even inspired a country-gospel song about indomitable faith.

The sanctuary’s ruins are gone now. But the lessons of Katrina live on, Register said. Church members have learned the joy of fulfilling Christian responsibilities, namely to worship God, spend time with other Christians and tell other people about Jesus, he said.

The patience to refocus and reflect came gradually, though. After initial elation about surviving the storm, many church members became depressed with the seemingly hopeless state of their ruined homes and the partially abandoned town, Register said.

“We rode the typical disaster psychological profile,” Register said, adding that it began with the “euphoric, mountaintop, ‘we’re survivors’ mentality” and progressed to a subdued resignation.

“If you follow that curve, you get to a point where reality sets in, and you realize that this is going to be a long-term recovery,” he said. “There is a deep emotional cavern that follows. And then eventually you follow that out past the one-year anniversary, and things begin to pan out to a more normal routine. This is going to be a multiyear process.”

Founded in 1896, the church had to demolish its sanctuary that was built in 1967, and the three-acre plot of beachfront land where it stood is now up for sale. Demolition crews began tearing down other church buildings June 21, so current Sunday services are held at Gulfport High School’s auditorium.

Meanwhile, the congregation has bought a 34-acre site several miles north of the Gulf. Phase one of the new project will be finished in March 2008, Register said, and the church will raise money for the project with the help of profits from the three-acre plot sale.

Financially, Register said, the church has fared relatively well. Sunday morning numbers have dropped in recent months, often because people work on restoring their houses on Sunday, but the congregation has been “extremely blessed” in meeting its budget. They also have information posted online about how to give money for disaster relief and to the congregation.

Register also continues to lead the congregation in prayer to be more outwardly focused on the Gulfport community—something that could elude them as they begin a building project.

“The biggest challenge has been trying to help a community that is 80 percent unchurched to see that with Christ there is hope,” he said. “Through Christ, even in the midst of challenges, his grace is sufficient.”

Help from Southern Baptist volunteers has aided that outreach, Register added. The work has given Baptists an inside advantage in the community, especially when people see that “it’s Christians who put their roof on, who took the trees off their house. …”

“What we discovered is that when the church loves as she should love, we bring a sense of hope to those families,” he said. “They see that people do care. They are interested, and they want to help. With the help of our community and churches and our spiritual community, we will be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Posted: 9/05/06

Explore the Bible Series for September 10

Without faith, it is impossible to please God

• Hebrews 2:5-18

By Howard Anderson

Baptist University of the Americas, San Antonio

As we listen to God’s word, we are challenged to grow in faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. Faith is trust in an unknown future. Faith is the life-blood of the just. Faith is the shield of Christian armor. Faith is the guarantee of answered prayer.

Through faith, we can see Christ is perfectly qualified to be High Priest to all humanity. We can be certain Christ shares our circumstances, feelings and humanity in order to be the sacrifice for our sins.

God’s intentions for humanity (Hebrews 2:5-8)

The superiority of Christ to the angels is urged not only because Scripture testifies to it but also because of what Christ was and did during the days of his flesh. Psalm 8 speaks of the wonder of humankind as compared with the majesty of the heavens; God has made us a little less than divine and subjected all things to us. God gave humanity the dominion over all the earth; however that dominion can become tragically demonic if exercised out of relationship with Christ. This is God’s original design—giving humanity complete control of all God has created.

Some part of God’s creation is subjected to every individual, regardless of social status, race, ethnicity and gender. Each of us has authority over 168 hours each week. Each of us has an opportunity to tell someone about the goodness of God. You are somebody! At times, we probably doubt that by the way we feel.

God has a personal interest in you, and that is why he sent his Son not only as priest but also the sacrifice. Jesus becoming human is both psychological and sacrificial.

Our design as seen from a New Testament point of view is more meaningful. John writes concerning Jesus: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

Jesus’ identification with humanity (Hebrews 2:9-13)

Jesus, the Son of God, indeed was “made a little lower than the angels” for a time, because of the suffering of death. Angels are immortal and cannot die. It was necessary for Jesus to be capable of death that he might taste death for every human being. As a result of his death, we are cleansed in our consciences. Jesus Christ appears in the presence of God for us, on our behalf and in our stead, in human form, and his experience becomes effective for every person on this earth.

The people of faith must realize that glory is in the suffering and death of Jesus. It was suitable to divine wisdom, justice and the program of grace to offer Jesus as a sacrifice in order to bring many sons and daughters to “glory.”

Jesus is the great Sanctifier, who sets apart and consecrates men and women to the service of God. They, who are consecrated and set apart to the service of God, are all one, in the same family, and called brothers and sisters.

The use of Old Testament quotations is interesting and instructive. Jesus Christ, as the fulfillment of God’s revelation, is seen as the speaker of the prophetic word through the psalmist and the prophet. When the author of Hebrews listens to the prophetic word of the Old Testament it is really the voice of Jesus that he is hearing.

Jesus’ intervention for humanity (Hebrews 2:14-18)

The Son of God was not by nature “flesh and blood.” He took upon himself that nature for the sake of providing redemption for humanity. “Power of death” is the ultimate purpose of the incarnation—Jesus came to earth to die. By dying, he was able to conquer death in his resurrection. By conquering death, he rendered Satan powerless against all who are saved.

For the believer, “death is swallowed up in victory.” The fear of death and its spiritual bondage was brought to an end through the work of Christ.

In verse 16, the author sums up his argument about Jesus being better than angels, declaring he did not take on the nature of angels, but became the natural seed of Abraham. It was necessary that he be made in all things like unto his brethren that He might be a merciful and faithful high-priest in the things of God, to remit their sins by his own atonement, and to represent them in time of temptation (vv.17-18)

The author shows the Hebrew people that Jesus had to be made a human being. He came from Abraham according to the flesh, and was one of their own people. Redemption could not have been possible otherwise. Jesus has to suffer to redeem, and he now is able to help and deliver all humankind who are tempted.

Prophetic preaching must portray Jesus as the one who overcomes the demonic host. His power to cast out demons, heal the sick, and cleanse lepers must be seen as the assurance that he has both authority and power to overcome the forces that hold humans in slavery. As High Priest, he not only represents God’s purpose in rescuing his creation, but also has undergone temptation and suffering and “is able to help” men and women who are subject to these afflictions.

Discussion questions

• How often in the course of a day do you realize your importance to God? Would that realization becoming constant in your life change the way you live?

• How does Jesus’ willingness to release his divinity change the way you live each day?

• Jesus came to earth to die that we might live. What do you need to “die” to so that others might have a clearer picture of the abundant life available through Jesus Christ?

Posted: 9/05/06

Pastor uses retirement funds to help restore church

By Carla Wynn

Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

NEW ORLEANS (ABP)—Pastor Lawrence Gaines has spent $35,000 of his personal retirement funds to help restore his church building, which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

“We’ve gotten to the point now where we just don’t have any other (financial) source to keep going,” said Gaines, pastor of Little Zion Baptist Church in New Orleans, earlier this summer.

But a partnership of Baptist groups stepped in to help rebuild some of the city’s deluged church buildings.

Baptist Builders International, a coalition that has been helping Katrina victims find housing, began rebuilding churches in July. The Louisiana-based group is a partnership between the Progressive National Baptist Convention, American Baptist Churches USA, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the District of Columbia Baptist Convention and the Alliance of Baptists—all members of the North American Baptist Fellowship, a regional branch of the Baptist World Alliance.

Previously, the organization had helped displaced laypeople and pastors find housing for their families or cover financial losses incurred in last year’s catastrophic hurricane. The group also helped reimburse churches outside New Orleans that housed or fed Katrina evacuees, putting a strain on the host congregations’ budgets.

In July, Baptist Builders began providing funding and volunteer labor to aid in the rebuilding process for at least five African-American churches in New Orleans.

The initiative involved volunteers from Baptist Builders’ affiliated groups working with local volunteers on church buildings and parsonages. Most of the churches already had started renovation, but they exhausted their resources and needed help completing the job.

“We hope to get a number of churches back operating to quicken the restoration of communities,” said Elmo Winters, Baptist Builders executive director, as the group started work. “We understand the church is a central part of the community.”

Early on, Baptist Builders made inroads among New Orleans pastors by providing more than 100 personal grants. With church members dispersed nationwide, many local congregations quit receiving offerings from parishioners, leaving a funding shortfall for pastors’ salaries and church rebuilding efforts.

“Nobody’s sending anything, so the only money I had to work with was mine,” Gaines said. Once Little Zion Baptist Church is restored, it will provide a worship space for not only his once-100-member congregation but also other African-American churches whose buildings were destroyed or heavily damaged.

The majority of funding for the $200,000 project comes in part from a financial contribution the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship received from Canadian Baptist Ministries for Katrina relief efforts. Canadian Baptists helped CBF volunteers restore the community of Lacombe, La., after the storm.

Restoring churches allows members to continue vital ministries like that of Greater Emmanuel Baptist Church, which before Katrina had a growing ministry among drug addicts.

“It’s devastating for us in the household of faith that were really trying to do our part to turn the city around,” said Louis Jones, Greater Emmanuel’s pastor. “We thought that we were just getting to the point of helping some communities. We were just getting people to find themselves and to also find the Lord.”

Only about one-eighth of Jones’ church members have returned to the city so far. The others are scattered across the country, but he’s still their pastor, calling often to check on them and having traveled several times to perform funerals for members who died since the storm.

Six feet of flooding in his church’s building left major damage, forcing the congregation to relocate its meetings to a Masonic lodge. To enable the church to minister again at full capacity, CBF and other Baptist Builders volunteers planned to help restore the church building and Jones’ house, allowing his own family—whom he had only seen twice in the last year—to return home from Dallas, where they evacuated.

Claudell Hampton, whose home was destroyed, bought a less-damaged house in New Orleans. But he hadn’t been able to restore it.

“I’m living in a (FEMA) trailer, and I thank God that I have a place to stay,” said Hampton, pastor of Triumph Overcoming Churches in Christ. “But it’s a lot of stress. I’m trying really to regroup. It’s stressful, but I thank God that I’m still alive.”

Hampton’s church and New St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church opened their sanctuaries for other congregations to use for worship services. St. Mark’s pastor, Ike Mayfield, worships with his church on the second and fourth Sundays of each month, leaving the remaining Sundays for another church to hold services.

“We had to have help—outside help from churches outside the city … and the state,” Mayfield said. “We could not have gotten back to our mission without their help. Outreach from other churches to us has helped us to outreach to the community—and not only to the community, but our members also.”

The pastors said they are committed to revival of their congregations and the city as a whole.

“We’re going to come back. Our church is going to come back,” Mayfield said. “We’re going to build our lives back. Not only that, but when we build our lives and the church back, the city will be built back.”

“I look into their eyes and see amazing courage,” said Reid Doster, Louisiana CBF disaster-response coordinator. “These pastors are not going to abandon their people but remain deeply committed. We would do well to honor, bless and learn from them.”

Posted: 9/05/06

Couple left family, friends
to run volunteer base in Gulfport

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

GULFPORT, Miss. (ABP)—It would take an act of God for most people to quit their jobs, move away from friends and family and commit to living for two years in a camper in Katrina-ravaged Gulfport, Miss.

Martha and Eddie Williams were no different, but they chose to respond to that act of God with cheerful hearts. Along with four other couples, the Williamses, who enjoyed a “comfortable, normal” life in North Carolina, moved to Gulfport March 1 to oversee Hurricane Katrina relief and construction operations for two years.

Although the Williamses had considered eventually working in missions in some capacity, they had planned to wait until after they retired. God, apparently, had other plans.

“We were just being obedient to the Lord,” Eddie Williams said. “We didn’t come for any honor, praise or glory. We came to help. We just wanted to be obedient.”

He and his wife supervise operations at the Gulfport National Guard Armory, the place where the North Carolina Baptist Men’s disaster-relief team has centralized operations to build 600 homes in the next two years. On loan from the city of Gulfport, the armory provides a place where the Williamses and a staff of 10 can house, feed and coordinate construction jobs for more than 400 volunteers at one time.

The Williamses first got permission to use the armory when, in providing as many as 13,000 meals a day to people displaced by the hurricane, they outgrew Pass Road Baptist Church. Once the group moved in to the armory, they completely renovated it as a functioning base camp, adding an industrial kitchen, a prayer garden and other structural renovations.

Improvement material, meals and supplies are funded completely by grants and donations from Baptists and other religious organizations, as well as the city of Gulfport. After the Baptist Men leave, the armory and its improvements will go back to the city as a “donation” from the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.

Until then, the Williamses and armory staff have their work cut out for them. So far, they’ve served more than 435,105 meals, completed more than 2,500 home-recovery jobs and provided emergency childcare for 480 children. They also have built more than 250 homes toward their goal. The work was done by volunteers from different denominations staying at the armory and in surrounding churches—nearly 1,000 people in the peak week.

“Volunteers just fall in love with the people here,” Eddie Williams said. “Word is continuing to spread. They just keep coming. We’re averaging over 300 people here a day.”

More than 14,000 volunteers have come from almost every state since Sept. 5, 2005, Williams said. Most come for a week, live in mobile homes lined with bunk beds and work long days to provide meals, house restoration and home rebuilding.

It hasn’t all been easy, Martha Williams said. She “wasn’t ready” for the devastation that would face them in Gulfport—her husband compared it to his work in Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami—and leaving family back in North Carolina proved difficult at first. The couple attended Liberty Hill Baptist Church in Spruce Pine, N.C.

“The hardest thing was coming to a place of peace” about the move, she said. “I had to leave a job I loved, … but each of our children was extremely supportive.”

And seeing displaced people learn about Jesus’ love through the construction work has made it all worthwhile, she said, adding people have told her they had no hope until they saw the yellow shirts and hats of the volunteers.

“We’ve had 252 salvations from homeowners,” she said. “That’s just through being a friend. We’re not going out and evangelizing. We’re just meeting a physical need, and it turns into meeting a spiritual need.”

Eddie Williams agreed, noting the mayor and city officials became supportive after they saw the good accomplished through the North Carolina Baptists. In his view, despite reports of more than 27,000 families in the Gulfport area permanently displaced due to the hurricane, the work done already has produced positive energy for the community.

“I think the city is encouraged with the help,” he said. “They had no idea they’d have so much help from so many places. The whole city really is encouraged. They’ve got a lot of fight in them.”

Now, the Williamses are focusing on a long-term push for the next year. Along with Gary and Edith Holland, Elmer and Barbara Farlow, and J. E. and Betsy Skinner, they work 15- to 16-hour days and have returned to North Carolina only for short weekend stints. Eddie Williams is trying to form a schedule so that each couple can return home for “a week every 60 days or so.”

Joyce Thrift is one of the relief helpers. She initially came to Gulfport planning to stay for a week. But when she returned to North Carolina and started missing her work down south, she decided to move there for a more permanent term.

“It’s God’s work. It’s such a blessing to see him working,” Thrift said. “If you stay home, you’re missing so much. You’re missing seeing the miracles that God does. There are miracles every day.”

Eddie and Martha Williams continue to rely on those miracles. Martha Williams said she often spends time praying in the prayer garden, and her biggest area of concern is “for the citizens.” Many of them face a gamut of emotions daily, she said, and deal with cycles of depression, frustration and anxiety.

“If we had a general prayer for everybody, it would be that they’d be encouraged and not give up,” Eddie Williams said. “Pray that they’d not rely on mankind but rely on the Lord. He’ll meet their needs.”