Rebuilding hope

Lynchburg News & Advance
Published: March 3, 2008

Editor's note: When we heard the Lynchburg Baptist Association, with a team of more than 70 people from 15 different churches, would be headed to Louisiana for the association's fifth rebuilding project in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, we asked if members would send us a dispatch from Port Sulphur, their destination. They agreed.

Hurricane Katrina washed over Port Sulphur with a storm surge of 25 to 30 feet. The town, in Plaquemines Parish not far from New Orleans, is only 8 feet above sea level. The floodwaters left a toxic soup of oily, briny water, filled with pieces of buildings, vehicles, boats and coffins, according to the association. Several weeks later, Hurricane Rita struck, swamping the parish again.

Two years later, some people still don't have electricity; others don't have homes.

After a week of hammering, sawing, nailing, hauling, wiring and other work, the team should be headed back to Lynchburg today. Here's the report they sent via email on Thursday.

Seventy-four representatives from the Lynchburg Baptist Association (LBA), under the banner of Kingdom Builders, arrived in Port Sulphur, La., on Sunday, Feb. 24, for a week they will not soon forget.

Under the leadership of Dr. Robert Putt, director of missions for the LBA, Kingdom Builders went to Louisiana as part of a recovery initiative sponsored by the Baptist General Association of Virginia in partnership with The Committee for Plaquemines Recovery (CPR).

The recovery effort seeks to build 34 houses in Plaquemines Parish over a two-year period, which began in October. The CPR is a faith-based organization, working collaboratively to assist families who lost their homes during hurricane Katrina in August, 2005.

Prior to the storm, Plaquemines Parish had six Southern Baptist churches. Port Sulphur Baptist Church is the only one that has been rebuilt.

Working out of the church, which was restored in partnership with Greater New Orleans Baptists, the LBA group settled in at the church to begin its week of service and ministry. Six teams were dispersed throughout the parish to build five houses in various stages of construction.

Working 10 hours a day, work teams were able to get these five houses much closer to being occupied by the families that are in great need. In addition to accomplishing much with the construction, team members were able to meet and minister to future homeowners, neighbors and friends of Plaquemines Parish. When Saturday comes, the team will return to Lynchburg with sore and tired bodies, but fresh and renewed spirits.

This fifth trip to the Gulf region by Kingdom Builders was another huge success. The group looks forward to returning to the region in the near future.

On Friday morning, we caught up with Robert Putt by telephone. Here's a recap of that interview.

The town stands on a strip of land with the Mississippi River on one side and the Gulf of Mexico on the other.

The town still has residents living in FEMA trailers, and is dotted with slabs of concrete, all that is left of some houses.

Before the storm, the rebuilt church where LBA team members bunked down had as many as 150 members; now its congregation numbers may be 50. For a while, they gathered for worship on the slab of concrete where the original building stood.

The teams began building several houses from the ground up - actually, from the pylons up, since houses must be built at least three feet above ground. A couple of other houses were nearly finished, so with the sheetrocking, wiring and other work by the LBA teams, they would need only painting and carpeting before families could move in.

"We had a special worship service Wednesday night, and several of the families came," Putt said. There were lots of "thank yous" and hugs, he said.

Team members also got thanks from residents for whom they were not building homes. Each morning, people from a nearby restaurant would stop by with coffee and treats, Putt said.
The spiritual take-away for the LBA team members has been, in Putt's words, "the joy of doing the project, the joy of service."