VENNARD TEAM LEADER SHARES FROM HIS VANTAGE POINT

----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Doll
Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2005 8:48 AM
Subject: Katrina Relief Update from Mark Doll

Vennard College Katrina Relief Trip
Bayou La Batre, AL
by Mark Doll

   What started out as a desire to help people whose lives had been impacted by Hurricane Katrina has been transformed into a journey that has impacted the lives of the 38 members of our team forever! A couple weeks ago, as news began to filter out of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana describing the devastation left behind by Katrina the students and staff at Vennard were moved to do something to help. We collected and sent money but, while that was needed, it was not very fulfilling. We prayed for the victims, but we still felt the desire to get more personally involved. So, as the ground swell built, students, faculty, staff, and administrators from Vennard College decided to take another step. We sent a team of 38 volunteers to Bayou La Batre, Ala., to do whatever we could find to do in order to help.

   We arrived in Mobile, Ala., last Friday evening at 10:00 and got settled into the accommodations offered to us by the First Baptist Church of Chickasaw on the north side of Mobile. We unloaded, blew up our air mattresses (given to us by the church in St. Louis who housed us on Thursday night), and set up camp in some of the Sunday School classrooms and tried to get some sleep before heading out to help the people of the First Evangelical Methodist Church in Bayou La Batre the next morning.

   We did not know what to expect and, as we drove south on I-10, we began to notice some of the damage, but we had yet to see the kind of things we were expecting to find. However, when we reached the town of Bayou La Batre, we began to discover that we were not completely prepared for the sights we were about to witness. On the way to the church every house and business we passed by had a huge pile of furniture, clothes, carpeting.and almost anything else you could imagine, in front of it! People were literally dragging their life's possessions out to the street to be hauled off to the holding area for FEMA to destroy. The insides of our vans were silent as we watched the scene unfold before us! I'm sure that we all began to ask ourselves, "What in the world had we gotten into?" and "How could we help?"

   That same morning, another part of our group had made their way to Slidell, LA. They went to help the family of Denise Rodriguez clean out and salvage whatever they could from the homes of her extended family. Their houses had been buried under 6-8 feet of water. For two days they worked to clean and ready the homes there for the re-construction that would soon follow. The sights and smells overwhelmed them as they saw entire communities that had been completely devastated by Katrina's winds and waters.

   In Bayou La Batre, our group has worked with the First Evangelical Methodist Church to remove the walls that had soaked up to 4 feet in the flood water. After the walls and insulation were removed the structure had to be cleaned and treated with bleach to kill all the mold and mildew that had set in. The cabinets, walls, and floors of the parsonage and other buildings had to be treated with bleach and then cleaned so they could be occupied once again. Though the church has decided it will need to relocate because their facility will not be suitable for use as a church anymore, all of the buildings had to be cleaned and treated to kill all of the mold and mildew that is everywhere.

   In addition to the many hours of work that was done on the church property and homes as we had planned, we have been able to help many people who are struggling with the overwhelming task of the clean-up. One house where we worked is the home of an disabled elderly man and his wife who have a son who is in the advanced stages of MS. This mother spends many nights at the side of her son, caring for his needs, and had not had the strength or time to get their home cleaned. When we were told of their need we had a team of 15 young people at her home in minutes. As we pulled into her driveway, we saw tears running down her face as our group poured out of our vans to help! By that evening, her home had been cleaned, all its contents removed, the salvageable items were stored under tarps, and that dear lady looked as if some of the weight of her despair had been pried off of her shoulders.

   When we arrived at Joyce's home, her neighbor across the street came over to our team leader, Larry Olson, and asked if there would be any way someone could help him! Again, we rushed to get another team in place and, by the end of the day, we were able to help them remove everything from their house, sort out the things that could be saved, and provide some hope that they could make it! What a humbling experience to be carrying out everything someone owns and dumping most of it by the road to be carried off to a landfill! Almost equally humbling was setting aside something to be saved that you knew really should be on top of the pile by the street. But, as hope gives meaning to life, hope is helping these dear people continue to dig themselves out after the hurricane.

   Our team director Larry Olson graduated from the United States Sports Academy in Daphne, Ala., where one of his professors was Dr. Regina Benjamin who operates the only medical clinic in Bayou La Batre. Before we left Iowa, Larry contacted Dr. Benjamin to offer our services to her and to those whom she knew desperately needed help. On Monday morning, Dr. Benjamin called Larry to ask for our help. Her clinic was damaged and FEMA had a double-wide trailer available to set up behind the damaged clinic. We sent a crew to remove 9 large oak trees so that the clinic could be opened to resume medical service for the people of Bayou La Batre.

   On Wednesday, we discovered that the local Wesleyan Church and the Red Cross were involved in food distribution three days a week. This was a massive operation of aid and they serve over 400 families a day. They are critically understaffed and desperately need help preparing boxes, moving supplies, and handling the rush of people who will be coming Thursday afternoon for food and supplies. So, our whole team was sent to help get ready for the next day's distribution.

Prof. Mark Doll
is a group leader whose
sister is the pastor's
wife at the EMC church
in Bayou La Batre.

 

 

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