PC(USA) - Presbyterian Disaster Assistance - First Presbyterian Church of Virginia Beach, Virginia, team serves in Biloxi and D'Iberville

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance - Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

First Presbyterian Church of Virginia Beach, Virginia, team serves in Biloxi and D'Iberville

by Randy DuVall
July 22-30, 2006

Two o’clock on a sweltering summer day in D’Iberville. Everyone is sweat-soaked and has been since very early morning. We are nearly through with the first coat of paint, teenagers and adults working side-by-side. Outside it is in the high 90s. No telling how hot it is inside the brick ranch with limited

Photo of the First Presbyterian work team taken at a home in Biloxi, Mississippi. Photo by the Rev. Stephen Ratliff

ventilation. Despite the heat, everyone works diligently and is in a happy mood. It is a good day. When were a peanut butter sandwich and a cold drink ever as satisfying as at lunch today.

There are ten of us in Mississippi. The ravages of Hurricane Katrina are still visible everywhere. We’ve come not to change the world but simply to lend a hand for a short time and thereby make a very small difference. The ancient Chinese proverb “a journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step” well explains the efforts of countless volunteers who have been to the Gulf Coast to start the process of rebirth. We are proud to be part of that effort.

Johnnie and Hurley Smith survived the water intrusion into their home by treading water in their bedroom. They were in the only part of their home with a pitched ceiling and swam for hours for their lives in water that reached a depth greater than the bedroom walls. Winds upward of 150 miles per hour blew for hours. As they swam for survival, each contemplated that this might be the last day of their life. As furniture swirled and beat against them, their love for one another and their faith in God allowed them to fight hypothermia, terror of the unknown and the howling wind to survive an ordeal that claimed many victims. They fought the odds and lived to tell the story. For a week in July, their home, once the scene of unspeakable destruction, was our home.

Devell is a ten year old boy with a great personality. His friend Jacques is equally engaging. In the heat of the morning, we look up from our chores and Devell is passing out cool pops. He and Jacques help themselves to a cold drink from the cooler. Little boys in the dog days of summer, they gravitate to our work party for company and something new and entertaining. There are plentiful sandwiches to go around. They earn their keep by helping with simple tasks and just being around to keep the atmosphere light.

We know nothing about the home owner except that he needs help and his home is where we have been asked to help. We will never meet him or his family, if indeed he has one. Devell knows nothing about him. All we have is a name: Shenndoe Williams. Whomever he might be, we take pride in helping to restore his home. By the time we leave it after a week of interior and exterior work, it looks very nice. Hopefully, Mr. Williams will feel the same. Much love went into the labor.

For dinner, twelve of us gather in the Smith home. The serving line is set up on the kitchen counter. Children first. After a long day of work in D’Iberville or around the Smith home, everyone has a large appetite. We sit around two tables and give thanks together, trying to catch just a little of the breeze of a fan. Laughter and stories fly around. Cooking, serving and cleaning are again a cooperative effort. It is still plenty hot outside as we relax around the dinner table. Breaking bread together is an important ritual, now mostly lost in our modern day world.

Ward 2 is Biloxi in microcosm. While the Smith home is mostly back to normal, the neon towers of the casinos to the north and to the south overlook primarily empty lots where houses still need roofs and where windowless buildings have been torn

Jesus “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant”
Philippians 2:7

“To demonstrate His way of love in service to the world”
First Presbyterian Church mission statement

down to the studs and where concrete slabs are all that give notice that this was once a residential neighborhood. Here and there are houses like the Smiths’ that have come back alive. Mostly, though, it is deserted except for FEMA trailers and a few homes. Overgrown lots spread for entire city blocks. Magnolia Street itself is more alive than most. We stand in a circle at the site of the Methodist Seaside Mission, now consisting of only scattered and broken tile on the slab. Surrounding us are very few signs of life. You would be hard pressed to guess that you were standing in the middle of a former residential neighborhood. We take one another’s hands and pray for renewal and revival.

D’Iberville fared much better than Biloxi. The neighborhood in which we work is very livable and has mostly returned to normal. City Hall still sports blue tarps on the roof. Commercial activity is underway. Along the Gulf of Mexico in Biloxi and westward, nearly everything is gone or visibly damaged. Imagine the power of the storm that caused such destruction. Hotels, houses, and churches all suffered. The storm was no respecter of status or wealth or function.

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance shares a volunteer camp with the City of D’Iberville. While we receive our work assignment for the day, other groups do likewise. One of us fills a water cooler with ice and water. Another secures the tools we will need today. The Amish are here from Indiana. Secular groups and church groups are also here. Young Amish girls in long plain dresses tend even younger children. There is abundant reconstruction that needs completion. Disaster brings together disparit groups, each eager to help out.

The four men share the den. We pack three women to a bedroom. At night, it is dark outside and still inside. Lights are out early for tired people not used to manual labor. Close communal living has its share of challenges. It seems that most of them have been easily surmounted. How the Smiths kept smiling with our invasion of their home is remarkable.

Shortly after 7:00 one morning, before the day turns brutally hot, we say our good-byes with hugs and sadness. This has been a wonderful opportunity to step outside our comfort zones and pitch in. It will be a long

Mississippi Mission Team

Stephen Ratliff, Associate Pastor
Melissa Ratliff
Laurie Dawson
Nancy Brock
Margaret Merritt
Kathleen Kawson
Randy "Snoop" DuVall
Will Merritt
Charlotte Dawson
John Imrie Bowman

two day drive to Virginia Beach. It will be a lively drive, full of story telling and a sense that our trip was well worth the effort. Everyone will return to their normal routine. No one will return unchanged.

In Christ we are all members of one body. There is neither black nor white.

“Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink?...Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25: 37, 40)

Hurricane Katrina response