On
March 1, 2006 nine volunteers with carpentry, roofing, electrical and
drywall/painting skills left the Washington, DC area in our converted
27’ RV Disaster Relief Unit, a trailer of supplies and our van to spend
12 days in Bayou La Batre, Alabama. Our team was made up of volunteers
from our Williamsport, PA Corps, our Canton, Ohio Corps, the Washington,
DC Corps and my brother-in-law from Ashburn, Virginia who used up his
limited vacation time. He felt, as the rest of us did, that it was
simply the right thing to do. It is my prayer that God blesses each of
them for the sacrifice that each of them made to make this trip. They
are:
Mr. William
Cantner, Mr. Randolph Allen, Mr. Eric Hendrix, Mr. Roy Mundorff, Mr.
Jeffrey Twist, Mr. Paul Martin, Sgt. Tory Shaw, Sgt. Brian Davis and
Maj. Byron Martin.
We would also like
to thank the organizations below for their partnership with us by their
kind gifts of support;
New Home Baptist
Church, Perfecting of the Saints Deliverance Ministries, ARW
Williamsport, PA Corps, ARW National Headquarters, and the ARW DC Corps
Community Church Congregation.
We
were originally slated for Baton Rouge, Louisiana but were later
targeted to a small fishing town in southern Alabama. As a Christian, I
have learned to make definitive plans...but not to the exclusion of
following the leading of the Holy Spirit. Even after cutting ten
information spots on WAVA FM 105.1 that detailed the work we would do in
Baton Rouge, we were re-routed to Alabama. I, for one, am glad we
were
sent there.
Our first stop was
in Monroeville, Alabama where we met
Rev. Freddie Lindsey
of
His Place Ministry.
Working with the
Nazarene Compassion Ministries,
Rev. Lindsey has a distribution center for
food, water, clothes, and furniture. He is also working to help replace
books that the local libraries lost thousands of in the hurricane
damage. A Nazarene Preacher whose passion drove him to take on the
restoration process in a full-time endeavor, Rev. Lind sey
is a dedicated, sincere Christian whose heart is on fire to reach out to
those devastated by the natural disasters of 2005.
We unloaded
supplies of Emergency Care Kits and cleaning supplies at the
distribution center. Our order from the Southern
Alabama Project Manager was to first see what we could do to help Rev.
Lindsey with problems at the distribution center before continuing to
Bayou La Batre so we spent the day correcting carpentry and electrical
problems at the center. We were rewarded by Rev. Lindsey with an all you
can eat Catfish dinner we will not soon forget. We exchanged numbers and
made plans to work together in the near future to continue ministering
through his distribution center.
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We then headed to
the
Bayview Nazarene Church
in Bayou La Batre which would serve as our base camp for the remainder of our time. The church family was gracious and even provided a dinner for us
and a group of teens from Olivet Nazarene College who chose to spend
their spring break doing something for others.
Rev. Charles C. Martin
is the
Disaster Relief Project Manager
for the Nazarene Compassion Ministries in southern Alabama. Along with
pastoring his own church in Montgomery, Alabama, Charles and his wife
spend their work week in Bayou La Batre to set-up jobs, provide
materials, match crews with the work and manage the jobs to completion.
He too was a man on fire for those left homeless by the hurricane. I
want to pass on to you what he shared with me. The fact is that
even though the news stations no longer cover the work that is being
done and must continue to be done, the re-building along the coast
is going to take at least two years.
Charles was a
pleasure to work with as he led us to the homes and families that he
seemed to know by now on a first-name basis. He always had a smile, a hug and a kind word. He was able
to keep a good attitude against overwhelming odds with a dry sense of
humor that more than rivaled my own. We made instant friends and I look
forward to seeing him again on our next trip.
We split into three
teams and accomplished a great deal. We completed four shingled roofs,
two floor projects and two drywall and finish projects. The roofs were
complete roofing projects and the drywall and finish work was two
complete homes.
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