“Katrina Blew the Holy Spirit into
Gautier, Mississippi“
Presented by Mission Team Members
At Palma Ceia Presbyterian Church
On July 9, 2006
VICKI SCOTT:
Prayer: Thank you for the opportunity that we had to participate in this mission trip. We lift up all those who have suffered losses as the result of storms and other natural disasters. Please give them the hope and strength to rebuild their lives. Thank you for the love and joy that the members of the Gautier Presbyterian Church have sustained through their faith in you. Thank you that they shared that love and joy with us. We went to minister, but came back more blessed than when we left. We pray that everyone who has a desire to take part in a mission trip will have the opportunity to do so. Continue to work through us and through this church, to help others who are suffering and in need. And now may the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable unto Thee, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
The second scripture this morning comes from a brochure that I saw in Gautier. When we were staying at the church, there were several other mission groups there at the same time. One was a group of about thirty, mostly young people, from Chicago. I was able to pick up one of their little brochures that they had made for the trip. It was their devotionals and Bible studies fore the whole week. The first page was scripture, and it was that scripture that they used throughout the whole week as a basis for their devotions. I would like to read that to you now.
Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.
II Corinthians 4:1, 5-7
Every time I see a group come back from a mission trip, it seems like we hear the same things. We get to wear these cool t-shirts. Comes with paint spatters. Seriously, they come back and they say, “What a wonderful experience it was,” and how everybody should take advantage and do it, and how they received way more than they ever gave, and what a great opportunity it is to meet other members of the congregation that you might not otherwise have ever met. Well, I’m here today to tell you it’s all true. So please listen to our team members as they tell you about our experience.
B.J. Johns :
The title of our message today is, “Katrina Blew the Holy Spirit into Gautier, Mississippi.” This is what we were told by the members of Gautier Presbyterian Church as they take what they have learned and spread their love and grace into the community. Today we are excited about the opportunity to share with you the experiences of your mission team, who represented Palma Ceia Presbyterian Church June 10th through the 17th in the community of Gautier, Mississippi. As you look at the slides, you will see the progression of our week. After sleeping in what used to be their Sunday School classes on Saturday night, we started our week by worshipping with the members of Gautier Presbyterian Church. Later that afternoon, one of their members, Mary Ditmon, gave us a tour of the community that was impacted by 25- to 35-foot tidal surges, and category 4 winds of Katrina. This included seeing the slab where Mary’s home once stood, a home very similar to what you would find here in south Tampa.
We have several goals today. We want to show you the destruction that is still present today, ten months after the initial impact of Hurricane Katrina. We want you to know that this area is very similar to south Tampa – a peninsula with lots of canals that they call “bayous.” Our hope is that you can experience the impact that we felt as Mary showed us around and shared the stories of herself and her neighbors from Gautier to Ocean Springs. We felt empathy for these people and what they had gone through during and after the storm. We also became very aware that this could happen to our homes in south Tampa, should a hurricane come our way. We want to tell you the joy we had working with BertaMae Hancock, the person who was our Adopt-a-Family. Her son Randy, and daughter Betty. They graciously shared pictures of their home that they had taken shortly after the water had receded. Mae’s home was almost well over a mile from the Gulf, and they reached over four feet of water in her home. In fact, there is one picture where Randy had sawed a hole into their ceiling and had climbed up to escape the rising waters. You will also see slides of one of the Presbyterian Disaster Villages. There are six PDA villages and two Presbytery villages throughout Mississippi and Louisiana, where 50 to 100 volunteers per week live while serving the area. The people of Gautier Presbyterian Church housed over 80 volunteers the week we were there, a church of 45 members. Other churches in the area are doing the same.
Finally, the people of Gautier Presbyterian Church are amazing in their commitment to serve the neighbors and the volunteers who are living in their church, as they cope with the task of repairing their own homes and lives. They shared their hope for the future and their belief of God’s presence during and since the storm of 2005. As you watch the slides and you listen to the team sharing today, listen to the stories of the people and hear the presence of God working in their lives and in the lives of the people of Gautier, Mississippi.
Joe McKell :
BJ has told you some of the things about the people. I think the thing that was most impressive to me was the spirit of these people. Their attitude was, “We’re going to be okay. We had a tough time and we’re having a tough time rebuilding. But we’re okay. We’re going to make it. God’s with us, and we’re going to be okay.”
Nobody complained, “…Oh, why didn’t FEMA come earlier….Why didn’t somebody else do something else….” Nobody complained. They had a hard time, but their attitude was, “We appreciate your being here. We want all the help we can get, but we’re okay.” I think that’s God’s spirit, the spirit within them.
The devastation in areas was unbelievable. As BJ was saying about some of the streets, there was one street that we drove down that was Beach Drive, which was their Bayshore. They had the same type of big mansions, and it was solid. There were about ten blocks, I guess, on this street. There were less that a dozen homes left, probably a half a dozen, that were left. The rest of them were slabs. There was nothing there. The ones that were left had major damage and were being repaired. Some of these houses actually were picked up and carried a block back and put down on the tops of houses a block away. That’s almost unbelievable that that could happen. And yet, they say, “We’re okay. We’re going to make it. Sure, it’s tough. But we’re okay.”
The Gautier Presbyterian Church had since, a couple of weeks after the storm, this little 45-member church, has taken over being the center for volunteers coming to work. They changed their Sunday School rooms into bunk rooms for people to sleep in. When we were there, a group from Chicago, 20-30 kids, slept on the floor of the sanctuary, in sleeping bags. There was another group of about half that many that slept on the floor of the fellowship hall. They weren’t very happy because the fellowship hall was where we ate, so they had to get up and get out of the way so we could have breakfast in the morning, so they couldn’t sleep in. But they were there, and these were kids from all over. There were about 80 people, all working somewhere in the area. The people of the church welcomed us. They invited groups of us out to dinner at their homes. It was an unbelievable experience, how these people live, what they are doing, and how their attitude was “Thank you, but we’re okay.”
One small incident that I think adds to this: Someone in the church told us that if we all want the best hamburgers that you will ever eat anywhere…. There is a little café about five miles north of town. Go there. So we did, on Friday for lunch. It’s a hole in the wall, in the side of a filling station. It had about six tables, maybe. We were there late, because we had worked that morning. Everybody had left that had been in there. But the lady who ran, who owned the place, sat and chatted with us. This café, in the first two to three months after the storm, served several hundred people every week. Free. People who had no homes. Other people brought food to them, and helped them with supplies. But they didn’t charge anybody. They were helping their own, saying that we’re a part of the community, and we need to help. She said, “I’d like to not charge you all, but you know I have to make a living, and I have to recoup some of what we did.” But that was the spirit of these people. “We will take care of our own. We accept and appreciate help, but you don’t have to do it. We’re okay.” I think that God was telling them, “You’re okay.”
Marti Rice McKeon :
I’m a new regular attendee to Palma Ceia Presbyterian, but a member of this community for about twenty years. I want to thank Palma Ceia for making it possible for me to go on this mission trip to get to know some of my new church members and to learn to evangelize through deeds, which is a new concept for me. I’ve been a practicing physician in this community for 22 years, and I’ve had this unique opportunity to lay down my stethoscope and to go get out a hammer and a piece of sandpaper. This is, unfortunately, my third trip post-hurricane. The first trip was after Andrew to rescue and recovery for three weeks, and it was quite brutal and there was very little time to reflect and no time to make relationships. Then again, two years ago I served as a relief physician in Arcadia after Hurricane Charlie, while other physicians repaired their personal homes. Once again, no time for relationship and no time for reflection. So I do appreciate this trip to Gautier, which sent me as a painter and a sander, and leaving my stethoscope behind.
The experience helped me build relationships, and I want to refer to a story that has always been in my mind since I started doing mission trips about 15 years ago. There was a story told that there was a young girl walking on the beach, and she comes upon hundreds of starfish that had been washed ashore and were dying. She begins to methodically pick up each starfish and gently toss it back into the sea. An older, maybe wiser, gentleman, watches her for a while and then comes upon her and discusses her behavior with her. He basically said, “Don’t you know what you are doing? You cannot save these starfish. It is just impossible. There are just too many.” She thinks for a while, and she responded, “Yes, I can save each starfish one at a time.” And that’s essentially what this church was doing in Gautier. It’s that particular type of mission that allowed me to make relationship.
My first starfish in Gautier was the lady, Mary, who took the time out of her busy day to show us around her destructed home. She lost her home to the sea, and she has never seen her beautiful home. She lived on a bayou that is very similar to the canal that I live on. She is a dual working family, living off of insurance now, but willing to take time to share. For about ninety minutes, she rode around in a van and pointed out the different homes of people that were still missing, people known dead, and people who had recovered. It was quite striking, and I though what a nice thing for her to do for us. But then suddenly I realized that Mary was in therapy. She was in recovery. She spoke gently. She spoke childlike. She spoke adult-like. She cried and she laughed. Afterwards, I realized that we had offered her a time for recovery and a time of reflection, something that we as Americans just don’t do enough of.
Moving on to starfish II: My starfish was Randy. He was the son of Mrs. Hancock, whose home we were repairing. Randy was quite a character. He was a fortyish year old construction worker, a very hardened male who had been hardened by this storm and probably by other incidents in his life. When I first met him, he looked full of pain, full of dissatisfaction, and very unmotivated. After a few days of painting and sweating together, he began to talk to me. In my usual physician terms, I questioned him in detail about the night of the storm. We talked about when he put on his waders because he thought that would protect him from the water. Then he stood on the stove with his hip waders on, and they started filling up with water. So he took his hip waders off and crawled into the attic. Then he survived in the attic, fortunately not having to climb out on a tree. What was interesting was I found out later that day, in the ten months since the storm, Randy had never spoken to anyone about his night in Gautier. So once again, that allowed us time to reflect and some time for recovery.
The one thing I realized when I returned to Tampa is that I had probably engaged in more conversation with Randy and Mary about hurricane preparedness and what this could do with my family than I had my entire neighborhood. So I encourage you, as Jesus said, “Love thy neighbors as thyself,” to go out to your neighbors, to learn who they are. Take care of them. Inform them to become hurricane-prepared. Our community is very similar to the Gautier community, and its location on the bayous or canals.
Let me close here by saying thank you for the opportunity to serve you, and please be prepared for a hurricane and get to know your neighbors as Jesus said, Love thy neighbors.
Jeff Willis :
It really was a “mission impossible” for me. My wife, Teri, is the one who solicited this. She wanted to go in the worst way, and she’ll talk to you about that shortly. She knows I’m very busy, and I’m always too busy for these kinds of things; but my kids and my wife are very dedicated. So I went up Wednesday, and I took over when Marti left off with Randy, and I’ll tell you about that in a moment.
What I saw is what Pam told us. Pam was the youth director of the church, and she said “Katrina blew the Holy Spirit into their community.” Katrina took lives, homes, churches, schools, and things. It was overwhelming devastation and destruction. Homes like those we see on the Bayshore – mansions were slabbed. Slabbed is a new verb that I learned in Gautier. They were gone along with a life, the precious things that we all collect. But God let me see first hand how “mission impossible” was “mission possible.” Through him and his people, each one that I met, excited about the future, and the opportunity to help. His hands came from everywhere. Every denomination. You’d go into the Lowe’s parking lot, there would be the Lutheran ministry from Albuquerque, New Mexico. There were vans from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There were people from all over the country. License plates from everywhere, and they were all there to help.
So let’s focus on “mission impossible: Randy.” Randy, like Christ, was a carpenter. The likeness stops right there. He had been, long before Katrina, that God, the universe, and everything and person in it was against him, including his own family. I got to witness first-hand his anger and his short fuse. After his sister had delivered about eight to ten of the doors that were to go into Mae’s home (Mae is his 86-year-old mother), he carefully unloaded them from the trailer, uncrated them, got them all set out to hang. Because he knows how to hang a door – he’s a carpenter. Every one of them was wrong. They opened the wrong way. They were the wrong size. Everything was wrong. Well, I got to use the hammer used in a much different way that morning. He went and called his sister on the phone. He said, “Betty, you’ve got to get the receipt and you’ve got to come back down here and pick these doors up. I’m going to re-crate them.” The Lowe’s that they went to was about an hour and a half away, not the Lowe’s that was just a mile from the house. “Get them all and take them back. It’s probably going to take several days, maybe weeks, to get the right doors.” So hours went by. He called his sister and asked, “Where are you? Why haven’t you shown up?” “I can’t find the receipt.” “What? What happened to the receipt?” “I gave it to Mom. Mom’s eighty-six. She lost it.”
He went ballistic. I went in and I said, “Randy, you know, this is not a big deal.” I’m thinking This is where God gets to play his hand. I said, “Why don’t we just put them on the trailer and take them back to the local Lowe’s and see if we can exchange them out.” “No way! I’ve never had any luck with that Lowe’s. They’re the worst people in the world to deal with. They’ve never helped anybody. It’s horrible. I’m not going there.” I said, “Let’s just give it a try. It’s worth a try. You can't do anything with the doors here.”
So we carefully re-crated the doors, put them all back on the trailer, and drove over to the Lowe’s. We pulled up. All the way there, his hands gripping that steering wheel like he was killing a chicken. I said, “Randy, why don’t you wait out here in the truck. I’ll go in and see if I can get help.” I went inside and this lovely black woman, about twenty, said, “Can I help you?” I said, “You’re an angel! Yes. I’ve got a problem.” “What is it?” “I have a mission impossible. I’ve got a short-fused, angry Randy. I have no receipt. I have the wrong Lowe’s. I have the wrong doors. And Randy has never had any luck with your Lowe’s.” She said, “Well, where’s the receipt?” I said, “We’ve got a problem. His 86-year-old mother lost the receipt, and he’s trying to rebuild his mother’s home. He wants her back where she belongs. That was his tie with normalcy. That’s what he clung to, was having his mother in her room in her home.” “Not a problem. I’ll get you store credit. I’ll give you a store credit card and you can get whatever you want. You can get the doors you need.” “Are your sure?” “Absolutely. I’ve got to take the numbers off the doors outside.”
So she followed me out. I said, “Would you tell Randy what you told me?” She said, “I’d be happy to.” So she’s out there, and she says, “Sir, we are going to take these numbers off these doors. I’ll get you a credit card and you’ll be on your way. You just have to take the doors that you’ve picked up, drop them off down here (about a block at the other end of the store), and you can go pick out the doors you want or order the doors.” You could’ve seen his jaw hit the asphalt! He just couldn’t believe it. So we got into the truck to drive down to drop off the other doors. He is fidgeting in his seat, and he said, “I just don’t believe this is happening.” I said, “Yeah, just give her time. She’s got to put the numbers in and put the credit on the card. She’ll give it to you.” He said, “Would you mind if I went back right now and got that credit card?” I said, “Not at all. I’ll sit here and wait.” So he ran back down there. He came back and had that credit card in his hand. He just couldn’t believe it. This was his local Lowe’s. The ones that had always been horrible to deal with. They were helping him out.
I said, “Randy, why don’t you go in and see if you can find some doors to replace the ones we’re dropping off.” He went inside and came back a few minutes later. “They didn’t have the doors, but they would have them there for him the next day. All of them. The right size, opening the right way. And they’d deliver them.
The mission impossible became not only the mission possible but the mission successful. I could see a whole change in his personality right after that. And we could see how the Holy Spirit had blown into yet another soul. He still was apprehensive, but he was beginning to see things in a different light. That was just one of the many wonderful experiences that I got to enjoy in the short time I was there. I wish each one of you, if you have the opportunity and want to take the opportunity, go. Go to Gautier. Go to Arcadia. Go help, because you get so much more out of it than you give.
Teri Willis :
It was the night before Charlie hit, and I was terrified that it would be the very last time I would see my home. I was so afraid of the thought of losing everything that I had no idea what to take, so I took nothing. As we left our home, I prayed. I prayed for strength to get through the next few days. For courage. And to someday be able to help someone who was as afraid as I was.
Okay. It had been two years since Charlie, and I was still terrified. Going to Gautier was not quite what I had in mind as a way to help or do the right thing, but it was a start. So I had to face my fears before I could help anybody else. Now let me make this really clear to you. What I was afraid of was losing stuff. I was afraid of losing my home. I was afraid of losing my furniture. I was afraid of losing the Christmas presents that I had already bought for this year’s Christmas. Those are the types of things I was afraid of. I was afraid of losing everything.
In Gautier, I got to talk to people who lost everything. I got to stand in the rubble of their homes and ask them questions about what they did, and what they would do differently now. This was reality. This community was very much like ours, and they had survived without any of their stuff.
I had gone down to help them, to fulfill a promise to myself, and a prayer. But God gave me much more than a duty to perform. He gave me peace. He stilled the storm of fear that I had carried for two years in my own heart. I learned more than I helped. I learned that you should be prepared, that you should check and recheck your insurance. You take pictures of your possessions. You get to know your neighbors, their names, their children’s names. You’d be able to describe them, and what’s in their homes. You get your supplies together and you wear closed toe shoes. You be ready to go, and you leave. I learned that no matter what you come back to, God will be with you.
B.J. Johns :
Your donations made our trip possible. As well, you helped to replace all of Mae’s appliances, get her old air conditioner temporarily repaired, and bought some furniture and the paint and material toward the work done by this wonderful, marvelous team that represented you. She also got bed sheets, towels, and some clothes with the JC Penney gift card. Since Randy’s truck and all his tools were destroyed by the salt water of the floods, we also got him a gift card from Sears. Later we learned he cried when he saw this gift. The Hancocks were overwhelmed by the generosity of the donations and the love and commitment, the compassion, and hard work of this wonderful team. Mae was anxious to go home, so her daughter, Betty, shared that Mae moved back home a week after we left. There are still minor repairs that her family will complete. We are hoping to get some gift cards and other donations to help her with her kitchen supplies and toward her new air conditioner to replace the one that was covered with salt water. Also, as part of the witness offering, we are still seeking donations toward the construction truck for Arcadia’s hurricane relief work in DeSoto County, Florida. We will be taking Saturday trips in the fall to Arcadia to continue the mission work there. Our next trip to Gautier, Mississippi, is scheduled the week of October 28 through November 4. I’ll be putting that in the bulletin and the Parishcope. Please begin to mark your calendars and sign up now, so we can begin to plan for our third trip to Gautier, Mississippi. I think we’ve been to Arcadia about eight times on Saturdays, which has been wonderful.
Presbyterian Disaster Relief has two mottoes: “Out of chaos, hope.” And, “We are the last to leave.” When communities are impacted by hurricanes, it takes four to five years to get back to normal, because there is so much work that still needs to be done in both Arcadia and in Gautier. So it’s important that we don’t abandon these two areas, even if another area is impacted by a hurricane this summer; then, we’d go there.
Imagine if you are the person near the end of the list, and all of the volunteers leave to help with the latest disaster. If a hurricane comes our way, are you prepared? Do you know where you’ll go if you have to evacuate? Have you put together your hurricane kit? If you plan all of this now, you’ll feel a lot less stressful when and should a hurricane come our way.
Oh yes. Tampa Bay has been lucky for a very long time. That’s what the people in Gautier, Mississippi said. After all, it had been over a hundred years since it had flooded in Gautier, Mississippi. Well, it only takes one hurricane to destroy an area. The people of Gautier thought Katrina was going east of them, so many decided not to evacuate, as recommended. You know, the weather people tell you to pay attention to the cone of the hurricane, not just that little line. Well suddenly, Katrina shifted fifty miles west, and they were on the worst side of the hurricane, and there wasn’t time to evacuate. Even then, they were nearly fifty miles east of the worst destruction. Yet, homes were destroyed by the winds and 25-foot tidal surge.
Your Disaster Preparedness Task Force and Congregational Care Committees are sending you some suggestions to help guide you in your preparation. This will be mailed out later this week. We hope you’ll take time to look over this and fill out the appropriate paperwork to help your church minister to you after a storm, should a hurricane come your way. And there is also not only disaster kit information, but also little tidbits that we learned from the people of Gautier. EOC recommends that you run from the flood and you hide from the wind.
I know you’ve probably heard this story, but I just have to tell it. One day, someone drove up in a car to this man’s home and said, “You have to evacuate. The dam’s going to break outside the town, and if you don’t leave, you may die.” He said, “Don’t worry about me. God will take care of me.” And he stayed.
Well, the dam broke. As the flood waters rose, people risked their lives and came by in a boat to rescue this man. (By the way, when you wait until the storm comes to evacuate, people are risking their lives to help you get out.) So, the people in the boat are waiting, and the man says, “Don’t worry about me. God will take care of me.” And he stayed.
The waters rose higher, and the man makes it up to the roof. (By the way, we heard stories of people who went to their roofs. Some were fortunate to be able to grab trees as they were swept away from their roof by the flood. Many others died.) Because with the dam breaking, there weren’t the high winds of a hurricane, so they were able to go to the man in a helicopter to make a final attempt to rescue him. They yelled down, “Grab the ladder so you can be rescued and not die.” The man said, “My faith is strong. I know that God will take care of me.” And he stayed.
Well he didn’t survive. When he made it to heaven, he said to God, “My faith was strong. I thought you would take care of me. What happened?”
God said, “I did take care of you. I sent you a car of people, a boat, and a helicopter. And you chose not to be saved.”
People, no property is more important than your life. We love you and we hope you choose to listen to the experts, and to learn from the experience of those who are still recovering from Katrina.
