Posted: 11/04/05
Wayland University students spent their fall break helping a family in Graford whose home burned. Others renovated a flood-damaged home in New Orleans. |
Wayland students spend break
ministering in New Orleans
By Teresa Young
Wayland Baptist University
Five Wayland Baptist University students and three adult sponsors traded in the chance to rest over fall break for an opportunity to serve families devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
Baptist Student Ministries Director Donnie Brown, his wife, Lori, and sponsor Virgil Hart led the group on a 15-hour trek to the New Orleans area, where they spent three days working on storm-damaged homes.
The New Orleans trip was one part of Wayland's response to the great need along the Gulf Coast, coordinated through Go Now Missions of the Baptist General Convention of Texas' Student Min-istries office, Brown noted.
Wayland students Austin Kane (front) and Colby Anderson remove laminate flooring from a home in a New Orleans suburb damaged heavily by water from Hurricane Katrina. (Photo by Wayland Baptist University) |
The Wayland group worked with Williams Boulevard Baptist Church in Kenner, La., to coordinate their efforts there.
“We broke into two groups, and one group would 'nuke' the house, which is gutting all the sheetrock about four feet up from the floor and preparing it to be repaired,” Brown explained.
“The second group was preparing homes for the nuking process, carrying out damaged furniture and items, cleaning and pulling out carpet and tile floors.”
While much of the New Orleans area suffered damage beyond repair, Brown said the Wayland group worked in homes that were salvageable but required heavy work.
Many of the residents were elderly or disabled or worked long hours and simply could not do the work themselves.
The students tried to prepare for the landscape of the storm-ravaged area, but Brown said it was impossible to really know what to expect.
“We drove through neighborhoods where the levy broke, and there's just no way to describe it except total destruction,” he said. “There was no electricity for miles, and the smell of death was just all around.”
One student volunteer, senior Jalissa King of Portales, N.M., expressed amazement at what she witnessed.
“We saw that it was an equal-opportunity storm. The rich and the poor were both affected by it, and life is not back to normal there yet,” she said, noting that after a summer spent in disaster relief in tsunami-stricken Thailand, she felt prepared for the trip.
“It was a pretty overwhelming experience. There were all these signs around with people trying to make money off others' misfortune, and it made me mad.”
Despite the destruction, students said they saw God working in the situation and left with a renewed hope.
“We told one man that he was an inspiration because he was so upbeat after losing everything. He told us: 'I haven't lost everything. I've lost those possessions you see, but God is still in the blessing business, and he continues to bless us with things unseen as well as seen,'” Brown said.
“That passage in Matthew 25 about when we do it unto the least of these … it just hit me that when we looked into their faces, we were looking into the face of Jesus.
“God was blessed, honored and lifted up through our service, and that was our goal.”
Meanwhile, another Wayland student group served closer to home, working in Graford with a family whose home burned.
Students put in long hours of hard labor helping the DeHaan family, friends of Wayland sophomore Michael Aker of Fort Worth, recover from their loss.
The trip came together after Aker and roommate Luke Loetscher were discussing how they could help. The pair began talking to other students and recruited a volunteer group for the fall break venture.
The family initially thought part of their home could be salvaged and rebuilt. Once the group started working, though, the plans changed.
“We were planning on building a metal frame for the house, and we had to tear most of the existing structure down for that,” said Loetscher, a sophomore who went on the trip.
“We decided we weren't going to be able to salvage the wood, and the family got a good deal on a mobile home, so we ended up tearing down the house altogether.”
Several volunteers said it was difficult to have their plans change after putting in hours of heavy work tearing down the roof and the tin siding from the house, but in the end it proved to be necessary to remove the fire-damaged home and make room for the new structure.
“It was hard to have the plans change, and it taught me to be patient. But our team was really good, and we worked really hard. We definitely felt the presence of God,” Loetscher said.
“We knew we came to help the family, and we were able to. We got a lot done that we couldn't have without God's help.”
The group worked 12-hour days and spent their evenings at First Baptist Church in Graford. The work was tiring, but Loetscher and Aker said they felt it was rewarding for all members of the team.
“I think it was a good trip,” Aker said. “It was a lot of hard work that sometimes seemed pointless, but in the end it all culminated into one big point. A lot of people said they wouldn't have had it any other way. It was worth it to give up the break.”
We seek to connect God’s story and God’s people around the world. To learn more about God’s story, click here.
Send comments and feedback to Eric Black, our editor. For comments to be published, please specify “letter to the editor.” Maximum length for publication is 300 words.