Sunday, Aug. 29, 2010, marks five years since Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. Gulf Coast. This week we remember this major U.S. disaster – the sadness and destruction, the survivors, the responders, and the lives changed. 

Lacombe, La. 

Irvin Baptiste in his Lacombe, La., home just months after the storm.

Fellowship Baptists “adopted” many families in Lacombe, a small predominantly African-American community about 25 miles from New Orleans on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain where many homes flooded. Local resident Irvin Baptiste had spent a week sleeping in his truck until Fellowship Baptists came to his home and began to clean out the mold and wet drywall. He called those volunteers “beautiful people. You can’t forget people like that.” 

With help from churches as far away as Canada and generous contributions – such as a $50,000 grant from Rotary International’s Club 99 in Little Rock, Ark. – more than 50 homes were restored in Lacombe. For one family, a church in Canada constructed a modular home in its parking lot and shipped it to Lacombe. But it only reached Kansas before a tornado hit and destroyed half the home. Volunteers later rebuilt the remaining half of the home on-site in Lacombe. 

In nearby Madisonville, a new CBF partner church start called Bridgewater Church began after Katrina as many people were struggling to return to the normalcy they knew before the storm. The church has since engaged in many response projects including shoeboxes of supplies for children and teachers at a local school and repairing Dowey-Gaston African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, whose sanctuary couldn’t seem to escape localized flooding since Katrina.
  

Baton Rouge, La. 

Fannie Munson celebrates her new Habitat house during the Baptist Build construction blitz.

Seeing the need for collaboration, several Baptist groups including the Fellowship joined together in Baton Rouge, La., to start a Baptist Builders initiative through which the groups funneled relief efforts for many months following Katrina. This initiative helped evacuees find housing and other resources in the city. 

Two CBF partner churches in Baton Rouge – University Baptist and Broadmoor Baptist – helped in their own ways. Broadmoor hosted Red Cross and other out-of-town volunteers in their church. For a week, they made 3,000 sandwiches a day for evacuees and relief workers. Other CBF partner churches sent supplies to University Baptist, which distributed the supplies to Katrina evacuees living in the city. 

In 2007, a two-week Baptist Build brought nearly 600 volunteers to Baton Rouge to build 12 Habitat houses for 12 Katrina evacuee families. For many of these families, a new house was the conclusion to an 18-month journey that took them from New Orleans to Baton Rouge shelters, hotels and FEMA travel trailer parks. When Baptists came together, they were able to do more together than alone – and these families were able to start a new life. 

“It’s a beautiful mixture of Baptists coming from all parts of the country,” said Daniel Vestal, the Fellowship’s executive coordinator. “For us to work together has been a joy.” 

New Orleans, La. 

Many Fellowship Baptists volunteered in Louisiana and along the other areas of the Gulf Coast impacted by Katrina.

Sunday, Aug. 28, was going to be a festive worship service for CBF partner St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans. The congregation was going to sing its top 10 favorite hymns, which is quite the celebration because the members love to sing. But instead, four people showed up for church. They sang a hymn. They read some Scripture. And they prayed in the calm of the storm. The next day in a matter of six hours, Hurricane Katrina changed New Orleans and the church. 

Over the next two years, St. Charles hosted more than 300 volunteers who stayed in the church building and worked to gut 30 homes and rebuild three homes. They even built the first complete house in the lower 9th ward (see it pictured here in the background on the left next to one of the houses Brad Pitt has funded). Volunteers included Fellowship Baptists, American Baptists, a Presbyterian group, and Fort Worth resident Jan Westmoreland, who traveled to New Orleans often to help lead the construction efforts. 

Another church that made a difference in New Orleans was Monte Vista Baptist Church in Maryville, Tenn. They helped restore a home for New Orleans resident Sonia St. Cyr, who has multiple sclerosis. Church members met Sonia when she was at an evacuee shelter in Tennessee. A relationship formed, and church members later helped restore normalcy for St. Cyr by rebuilding her home. 

These are just two CBF partner churches that made a difference in New Orleans. Many other CBF partner churches worked with Rebuilding Together to restore dozens of houses in New Orleans. Also, through the Baptist Builder initiative, the Fellowship and other Baptist groups helped New Orleans area pastors and churches restart their ministries. 

Other Katrina blog entries:
• Remembering the Sadness, the Destruction and Survival
• Responders See Change
• Recovery in Alabama and Mississippi
• Recovery in Louisiana
• How the Fellowship Changed