Dispatch from Karen and Tom

Hello from Biloxi,

Today we celebrated Reformation Sunday at Bethel Lutheran and also the first day of Sunday School for the year.  Rally Day never happened because the Hurricaine Katrina came the week before.  It was a wonderful day for the congregation.  About 65% of the members are back to church again.  Many are not in thier homes and living with family or friends, but they are back to church.  They had a luncheon to celebrate the day and honor the volunteers at the same time.  Good to see some parts of their lives getting back to some normalcy.

 

We were blessed to have Jan, Tom's sister here at Bethel for the week.  It is a week that she will never forget.  She is back home telling her story and encouraging others to come.

 

One of my first e-mails I told you about a man who lost his wife after she was taken to a hospital from a shelter they were in.  He came back this week to see us, have a little lunch and talk a bit.  I learned the whole story and the right story.  He is 82, his wife is 79.  They decided to ride out the storm in thier home because they made it through Camille ok and nothing was ever supposed to be as bad as Camille.  When the water started rising and flooding their house,  Mr. Brown decided he needed to swim out and get some help.  He latched onto a door that was floating by and held on to that for a while but then realized that he would probably end up in the gulf if he stayed with at.  He grabbed onto a tree and climbed up as high as he could but there was a cat in that tree also who kept scratching the top of his head every time he tried to get higher.  He and the cat stayed in that tree for 8 hours until the water subsided.  He made it back to his home, not knowing what he would find.  Miraculously his wife and nephew were alive.  Somehow they had kicked a hole in the ceiling and climbed into the attic. and survived the storm.  However it all was to much for Mr. Brown's wife.  She was in shock and he got her to the hospital which thankfully was only a few blocks away.  The next day he went to the hospital but she was no longer there.  They said she had been discharged to a shelter somewhere.   He did locate the shelter but she was not their.  Apparently she was taken by the paramedics and transported out of the city or the state, he does not know.  No one has been able to find her yet.  He does not know if she is alive or dead.  All this time he has been living in his  moldy house and others who will take him in.  He doesn't want to go far or relocate because he says he wants to be at home if his wife comes back.  He uses Bethel Lutheral to get messages.  Yesterday we found out from FEMA that they were ready to place a trailer in the driveway of his rented house.  His landlord had given permission.  So thankfully he will have a clean, dry place to live now as he continues to hope and pray for his wifes return.

 

Small groups have started going out into communities and finding folks living in small tent cities.  Many shelters are closing and people are finding whatever means they can to get through each day. We have been taking bedding, warm clothes, food to them if they need it.  There is a shortage of tents in the area so arrangments were made to have a large supply shipped in along with sleeping bags. 

 

The work crews continue to gut houses, pressure wash and treat the wood so the mold will not grow back.  It is a nasty job but one step closer to putting a house back together.  It brings hope that someday their life may be back to normal again.  There is so much to do, it is overwhelming, 8 to 10 years before recovery is complete, if it ever can be.  That is a long time.  This week a bit of reconstruction was begun, which was wonderful.  Electricity was replaced in 2 houses and some sheet rock hung. 

 

Bethel Lutheran has partnered with Lutheran Church of the Good Shephard about a mile away.  Services have been consolidated.  They are now doing all the food and supply distribution and Bethel is distributing clothing, bedding and house hold supplies.  House volunteers is also shared. Case managment has started to meet the long term needs as well as the short term needs of the people we come in contact with. 

 

Yesterday a crew drove to Waveland which is west of Biloxi on the coast about 30 miles.  We went to help a small church that was flooded duing the storm.  The church is about a mile from the gulf and was flooded with 8 feet of water.  Most of the gutting was done.  The crew helped move sheet rock debri to the curb and other things.  Being flooded with 8 feet of water 1 mile away gives you some idea of the magnitude of this storm.  Before we left for home we drive done to the beach where there were once beautiful beach front homes.  All that remains for 1/2 mile in is just cement slabs. Everything is gone.  It is just an unbelivable sight.  Seeing it on TV is awful, but in person is unbelievable.  That force of  wind and water is hard to grasp.  No one has even begun to clean and clear the area except that the streets are clear so you can drive the streets that once were neighborhoods.

 

On a lighter note,  there was a Dr. and his brother who was a Resident volunteering in the clinic this week from the U. P. of Michigan.  They were wonderful guys and worked hard caring for everyone in the clinic.  The Dr's name was Ted.  His brother's name was Ed.  Their brother Jed, a police officer was here volunteering and their other brother Ned was back home.  So a family with 4 brothers, Ted, Ed, Jed and Ned!!  They have 5 sisters.  We didn't ask them what their sister's names were!!!

 

Tiny baby steps are being made with many people working hard.  The work will and needs to go on for months and years to come.  The faith community is and will continue to play a huge role in the recovery and rebuilding process.  Each pair of hands and feet make a difference. God is Active and at Work. 

 

The weather was cool last week but back into the 70s again and beautiful, wonderful for doing the work that needs to get done.  Volunteer #s were low this weekend but groups coming in the end of the week and by next week there will be 80 here with 57 more coming in for the weekend of Nov 11-13, wonderful!!

 

Thank you for your e-mails and your prayers.  We appreciate them so much. Love and God Bless, Mary and Tom

Gulf area ripe for fraud

The dead are applying for disaster relief aid in South Mississippi, or so it appears from plot lists obtained by officials working with the Hurricane Katrina Fraud Task Force.

"They've certainly gotten creative," said Luci Willoughby, administrator of finance at the American Red Cross headquarters in South Mississippi. "We've got some people using a (Biloxi) graveyard as their pre-disaster address. Some of them are for people who are on the (cemetery's) plot list."

It's the same type of scenario that played out in Florida after Hurricane Andrew hit, though officials here say it's too soon to tell if each of the 40 suspected cases from one Biloxi cemetery are fraudulent. A criminal investigation is ongoing.

That's just one example of the many types of suspected fraud that local, state and federal investigators with the Hurricane Katrina Task Force are interested in tackling.

More...

Witness to disaster: Gulf Coast scenes; Visions of Katrina captured

DOVER - There's an image Ron Gough just can't shake.

He remembers two sisters sorting through a mountain of donated clothes, looking for something that fit, looking for something that matched.

It was so hot and it had just rained, sending shots of steam from the pile of clothes the sisters diligently poked through in a mall parking lot.

One of the women had her two young children with her, a boy and a girl, ages 5 and 3.

She pulled from the pile the sandal that matched the other -a pair for the 5-year-old - and was, Mr. Gough said, so happy.

"To know that this woman had lost everything - her job and her home, and yet she was so upbeat when she saw a pair of sandals donated by someone with a generous heart ..." he said.

More...

Holy Trinity answers call from Katrina victims

On a recent Monday afternoon, North Augustan Paulette Parker made a phone call to Bethel Lutheran Church in Biloxi, Miss.

The person who answered the call, named Judy, listened for a moment and then said, "Your phone call is a blessing from God." Judy went on to tell Parker of the devastation from Hurricane Katrina in the Biloxi area.

"You cannot believe it unless you see it," Judy went on to say.

The service committee at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church had already discussed having a drive for blankets, underwear, and socks for Katrina victims, as a pre-Thanksgiving project.

Now the committee wants to step-up this project, with plans to deliver needed items to Bethel Lutheran Church no later than Nov. 15.

The entire North Augusta community is invited to contribute to this project. Items may be delivered to Holy Trinity Lutheran (1002 Carolina Ave.) between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. on weekdays. Call the church if you cannot deliver items during these hours, and other arrangements will be made.

The list of what is needed includes:

New blankets — all sizes

Socks and underwear, all sizes — men's, women's, and children's — in packages

Diapers, all sizes, including adult

Parker commented that "new" and "packaged" are important because most people need to be able to use donated items immediately when received.

Rising From The Ruin

MSNBC Special Section on the impact of Katrina:

http://risingfromruin.msnbc.com/the_towns/

CNN Hurricane Katrina Page

Worth a look. http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2005/katrina/

Lawmakers stunned by South Miss. damage

BILOXI - Words temporarily eluded state Rep. Scott Bounds, D-Philadelphia, as he tried to verbalize his reaction to Katrina's devastation during his first post-storm trip to the Coast.

"Words just... I just... I've never seen anything like it," Bounds said.

About 30 "upland" lawmakers toured South Mississippi by bus from Pearlington to Jackson County on Wednesday with many stops in between. For many, such as Bounds, it was their first trip down since the storm. While many legislative leaders and powerful committee chairs have been here, many of the rank-and-file had not. The trip was arranged by Rep. Herb Frierson, R-Poplarville; Sen. Tommy Gollott, D-Biloxi; others in the South Mississippi delegation and the Department of Marine Resources.

"We just thought it was a good idea to get as many people down here to see firsthand," Frierson said, "because you can't really describe it. Maybe Faulkner or Hemingway could do it justice, but you really have to see it."

More...

Keesler Medical Center could be open in January

BILOXI, Miss. Hurricane Katrina-damaged Keesler Medical Center in Biloxi, Mississippi, could open its doors to outpatients in January.
Brigadier General William Lord says the facility could resume surgeries and in-patient care in March.

The medical center, which is used by about 56-thousand military retirees and active duty personnel, was flooded during Katrina.

Lord, speaking yesterday to a Biloxi Chamber of Commerce meeting, said in-patient care would return once repairs are made to surgical sections of the hospital.

The Air Force already has sent 20 (M) million dollars to begin repairs.

Lord says the Air Force also will resume its graduate medical education program, which trains about 100 doctors and nurses per year, once the patients return.

Those medical students transferred to Wilford Hall at Lackland Air Force Base at San Antonio for training, until they can return to Keesler.

Via

Tent City for the Forgotten

BILOXI, Miss. — In the afternoon, when it is warm, Valentina and Gary Stilwell can almost forget there are no walls around them. Valentina has hung one of her paintings on a tree, and there is a bowl of hard candies on the coffee table. The concrete slab beneath them is as spotless as linoleum.

But Sunday night a cold wind shuddered through east Biloxi, shaking their tent so badly that Gary had to get up several times to drive the stakes back into the ground. Gary and Valentina slept in half-hour lulls between the gusts of wind, and in the morning the weight of what they had been through bore down hard.

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"There's nobody that can do anything for us," said Gary, a 62-year-old Vietnam veteran. Valentina, 44, put it more bluntly.

"I said to the FEMA guy, if you can't bring me my trailer, just bring me a .38 and a bullet," she said.

More...

Volunteers Caught On Video

View some Volunteers from mid-October at Bethel Lutheran

About a minute of video (requires Quicktime)

Mississippi Tax Revenue Sinking

MISSISSIPPI -- Mississippi's tax coffers suffered the lingering effects of Hurricane Katrina as the state's tax revenue from gaming fell almost $10 million during September.

With 13 casinos from the Gulf Coast communities of Biloxi, Bay St. Louis and Gulfport knocked out of commission by the hurricane on Aug. 29, the state collected gaming tax revenue from only the Mississippi River communities of Greenville, Natchez, Lula, Tunica and Vicksburg.

In August, when all of the state's 29 casinos were operating, Mississippi collected $17.3 million in gaming taxes. The figure dropped to $7.6 million in September, with casinos operated by such companies as MGM Mirage, Harrah's Entertainment and Pinnacle Entertainment closed.

A year ago, Mississippi casinos contributed almost $12.4 million to the state's general fund and $168.5 million for all of fiscal 2005. That amount is expected to decline as long as the Gulf Coast casinos are not operating. The state's gaming commission estimated Mississippi is losing $500,000 a day in state and local taxes with the casinos not operating.

More...

Hurricane relief sets record

By RUSTY DENNEN and JESSICA ALLEN

The faithful at Massaponax Baptist Church in Spotsylvania County raised money and gathered donations to send to the Gulf Coast states struck by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

But pastor Dave Hockney and associate pastor Cecil McKinney wanted to do more.

So they contacted the mission board of the Baptist General Association of Virginia in Richmond. A group of 19 members from the church leave today with a truckload of supplies for McHenry, Miss., where they will be replacing roofs, fixing porches and clearing debris.

"This is an opportunity to make a difference; to do something more than give money," Hockney said. "We are being an active participant in helping them get back on their feet."

More...

Biloxi families still wait for aid

Residents live in the rubble of their homes, hoping for the trailers FEMA promised them
By ADAM GOLDMAN
Associated Press

HURRICANE KATRINA
NOAA
Hurricane Katrina swirls toward the Gulf Coast.

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SPECIAL REPORT:
• The Big One: Are we ready?
Video, graphics courtesy Associated Press and KHOU; free Real Player, Flash plug-in and Acrobat Reader may be required.)

BILOXI, MISS. - In the poorest of neighborhoods here, people sleep outside with no running water or power.

They live among starving cats, rotting heaps of garbage and constant, buzzing flies. The bathroom is anywhere and everywhere. The filth is inescapable.

Weeks after Hurricane Katrina destroyed their homes and jobs, many people in east Biloxi are living amid the rubble of their own houses, waiting for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to deliver the trailers they have applied for — or for other federal assistance.

"We just wait and pray," said Kenneth Albus, 45, who has spent weeks in the wreckage of his rented house, taking care of friend Margaret Nevels, a 65-year-old woman with swollen ankles and a heart condition.

More...

'We're in this together'

Instead of the usual choir, Mass started with a loud whistle blow about 15 minutes behind schedule, while locals swapped stories of survival and loss.

"Forgive me if I get choked up, but I want to thank you," Rev. Dennis Carver told the congregation. "We're in this together; we pray together and we love together."

Many of the churchgoers carried their own chairs. The wooden church pews and brick walls are gone, likely mixed into the rubble pile from the parish elementary school behind the church.

More...

Katrina Still Causing Harm

It’s been nearly eight weeks since Hurricane Katrina struck, and fresh disasters have replaced it as the lead story on the evening news.

But Katrina is still very much the dominating news for people in the Gulf states.

We all knew at the outset that it would take months, even years, for stricken areas to recover. We told ourselves we would not forget misery of the people there, that we would continue to pour out assistance.

Although we might not have forgotten, the impulse to help might have lost its urgency.

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Miss. jobless rate rises to 9.6 percent in September

JACKSON, Miss. - Mississippi's unemployment rate rose to 9.6 percent in September, fueled by a loss of jobs form Hurricane Katrina, state officials said.

The state's jobless rate in August was 6.9 percent.

There were 59,700 jobs lost in Mississippi because of Hurricane Katrina, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Numbers tallied through Friday show 34,489 Mississippians were collecting unemployment insurance benefits.

Another 41,955 people were receiving Disaster Unemployment Assistance, and 34,620 claims were pending, said Diane Bell, spokeswoman for the Mississippi Department of Employment Security.

A total of 111,064 have applied for benefits, Bell said.

More...

Hope After Katrina

By Sarah Horner

It looked like a war zone. Military helicopters loomed in the air. Troops trudged through the streets. Homes were obliterated. Residential streets were disguised as land fills and piled high with mattresses, freezers, road signs and appliances. Billboards that had snapped in two covered the highways. Entire cities had curfews.

“There was no way I could have imagined what it looked like,” said Captain Mike Parker from the Salvation Army in Fergus Falls about coastal Mississippi after he returned from a two-week trip working as a hurricane-relief volunteer there. “I'm still in disbelief.”

Trying to piece back together the lives of people who had lost everything they owned was a daunting task, Parker said. And he recalled he often felt like his minor contribution was inadequate in the face of such total despair.

“I remember telling a particular gentleman that I didn't feel like I was doing much in terms of his loss,” Parker said. “And he told me, ‘It's about hope. You give us one thread of hope, and then someone else does, and eventually we have a cord to hang onto.'”

It was the graciousness of people like that man that Parker said reminded him why his presence, though seemingly insignificant, was necessary.

More: http://www.fergusfallsjournal.com/articles/2005/10/24/news/news03.txt

Katrina Assistance

American Red Cross locations

Financial Assistance Centers are closed. Workers will go to applicants' homes to confirm damage and provide assistance. The American Red Cross requests that all disaster clients who received a check on or before Oct. 7 deposit those funds before Nov. 6. After that date, those checks will no longer be valid. For general information and to leave a contact number so caseworkers can return calls: (866) GET-INFO.

Salvation Army distribution centers

Distribution centers provide disaster distribution of household goods, foods and cleaning supplies, and social services. To receive materials, bring a photo ID and Social Security cards for each family member, proof of residency and FEMA registration numbers.

More...

After Katrina: Volunteers get job done without red tape

Per the Sewickley Herald

Lending a Hand Part 2
After Katrina: Volunteers get job done without red tape

God Sent Bananas

As my husband and I were finalizing vacation plans, Hurricane Katrina struck, wreaking havoc for thousands of people. Suddenly, our plans seemed irrelevant, and we felt called to help. We volunteered with Lutheran Disaster Response through the ELCA website link and were deployed to Bethel Lutheran Church in Biloxi, Mississippi.

Within minutes of arrival, we were working on relief efforts. A 53’ truck came from Virginia, and we helped unload it. But, that delivery, which seemed so large, lasted only a day, and we were praying for another truck. We urged our clients to pray for trucks, and when one arrived, everyone shouted with joy, “God sent another truck! Amen!”

One afternoon, the shelves were especially bare--only pork’n beans remained. One of the volunteers walked an elderly client home with her supplies, and a trucker stopped to ask if they would like some bananas. The volunteer explained that he was with LDR and yes, we would take bananas. The load had been dumped over and could not be sold as premium fruit, so the trucker was donating them. Soon, twenty cases of bananas were being distributed to the fruit-starved people of Biloxi, and they began cheering, “God sent bananas! Amen! God sent bananas! Thank you, Lord.” The next day, God sent bagels.

Miracles and grace reign in Mississippi. Go in peace; serve the Lord.

- Kim Toskey

Weeks after Katrina, Biloxi's poor feel forgotten

Mississippi city's poor live in squalor while awaiting hurricane aid

The Associated Press
Updated: 5:39 p.m. ET Oct. 18, 2005

BILOXI, Miss. - In the poorest of neighborhoods here, people sleep outside with no running water or power. They live among starving cats, rotting heaps of garbage and constant, buzzing flies. The bathroom is anywhere and everywhere. The filth is inescapable.

Weeks after Hurricane Katrina destroyed their homes and jobs, many people in east Biloxi are living amid the rubble of their own houses, waiting for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to deliver the trailers they have applied for — or for other federal assistance.

“We just wait and pray,” said Kenneth Albus, 45, who has spent weeks in the wreckage of his rented house, taking care of friend Margaret Nevels, a 65-year-old woman with swollen ankles and a heart condition.

People subsisting in similar, squalid conditions can be found all over east Biloxi, this city’s version of the lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans and only blocks behind the wealthy casinos that line the coast.

Those interviewed — black, white and Vietnamese — feel that FEMA has forgotten them. Nobody cares about the poor, they say. Never have, never did. Katrina didn’t kill them, but they fear the coming weeks might.

“We alive now, and we want to stay that way,” 81-year-old Bessie Tanksley said.

Federal agency acknowledges difficulties
FEMA says it hasn’t abandoned Biloxi’s destitute and has already provided $465 million in housing assistance in Mississippi.

Jess Seigal, a FEMA spokesman in Biloxi, acknowledged that it’s difficult to find temporary housing on the coast and that many people are reluctant to leave what remains of their homes.

But “the folks sitting in their front yards don’t have to stay there,” he said.

FEMA is trying to get trailers to everyone and knows people are frustrated. Seigal said 3,915 units have already been delivered to the six southern counties in Mississippi, including Harrison where Biloxi sits.

He estimates the state will need a total of 30,000 units. He didn’t know how many would be required in Biloxi. FEMA was trying to distribute 500 a day.

“We’re not there yet,” he said.

'We just want shelter'
After Katrina hit Biloxi, Tanksley emerged from her attic with 10 other people. Weeks later, she sits on the porch of her ruined brick house along with other family members taking refuge there.

Typhaney Neely, 29, came here with her four children including 3-month-old Christian, who was napping on a cot inside the moldy, dank and clearly uninhabitable house.

“We don’t want handouts,” Neely pleaded. “We just want shelter. I’m just frustrated about her and my children getting a trailer. It’s going to get cold.”

Neely, who’s not related to Tanksley but considers her like a grandmother, said they tried to find a hotel room, but none was available. Many hotels are booked for weeks, if not until the end of the year, in Biloxi and Gulfport. Snagging an apartment has been impossible. Tents are the more likely scenario. Many of the displaced are too proud — or too scared — to go to shelters.

“Try to find me a place to rent,” Albus said. “Show me one that don’t cost an arm and leg and two fingers.”

New poor join original poor
Down the street, a group of men sat together in a rank corner of the block, sipping whiskey and trying to ignore the putrid smell wafting from an adjacent house. The booze, said one 52-year-old man nicknamed Raghead, “eases my mind.”

This stretch of Biloxi, a city of about 50,000, is a sanctuary for the original homeless, the people who had nothing before Katrina swept over this place, wiping out the casinos that supplanted the fishing industry as the main economic driver years ago.

“We don’t have a roof,” Raghead said. “We got a tarp.”

He would love a trailer, but he has more immediate problems.

“They giving out a lot of stuff but nothing for the diarrhea,” he said. “People don’t have toilets around here. We need some port-a-potties.”

Porches to nowhere are now serving as living and bedrooms. Plastic coolers are refrigerators. Broken trees are used to hang laundry. Kitchens are comprised of random cutlery and a camping stove.

The luckiest ones, like 37-year-old Tuan Nguyen, have secured tents and scrounged gas grills. Nguyen, his wife, Ngan, and two children, ages 7 and 8, are squatting on the tiled porch of a friend’s home that was flooded.

His wife keeps the porch spotless. It’s where they eat and sleep in a tent. Shoes are forbidden. For three weeks, the Nguyens have been living on this porch. Churches have supplied most of their current possessions like pots and pans, food and water.

Food deliveries from Red Cross
“That’s all we have,” Tuan Nguyen says, pointing to a few boxes. “I got no money. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I lost everything.”

As his sad words trail off, a Red Cross van appears, letting people know through a loudspeaker that food has arrived. Nguyen goes to the truck and is handed a plastic foam box containing chicken dumplings, peas and apple sauce.

One of the Red Cross workers, 44-year-old John Capecci from Baltimore, has been volunteering for three weeks. He knows the streets, driving them day after day searching for the needy.

“There is an endless supply of them,” says Capecci. “It goes on for mile after mile.”

Those are the ones struggling on land. Others remain stranded on shrimp boats docked at the sound, huddled in cramped conditions that can be unbearable because of the Mississippi heat.

The boat people — those who fled Vietnam after the communists took over — are boat people once again.


Frustration over delays
Tam Tran, 44, is back on his shrimp boat named “Vanna Lavie” with his 5-year-old daughter and wife who’s four months pregnant.

“If the weather is real hot I go to the tent; if it’s OK I sleep here,” he said. The family sleeps in one tiny cabin on the same bed together. The pier where the boat is docked has no power.

Weeks ago, Tran went to FEMA for a trailer. He’s not heard back since. He tried calling FEMA recently but the number wasn’t working.

“This made me mad,” Tran said, raising his voice. “I made application for a long time, and I still don’t have it. How do I survive?”

FEMA’s Seigal understands the frustration.

“There are folks working their butts off to make this happen, but the volume is incredible,” he said. “It’s taking time.”

Seigal said after people register with FEMA, an inspector from the agency will visit the home sometime between 10 days and two weeks later. Within four to six days the trailer is supposed to arrive if conditions are right.

“We’re not going to place a trailer in a yard without sewage or water or electrical lines,” Seigal explained.

From porch to tent
After Hurricane Katrina ravaged their little white house of 20 years, Mike Hardy and his wife lived outside on their broken, warped porch — next to piles of stinking debris and the massive tree that fell.

Their living quarters were next to a dirty commode strapped underneath a metal walker. “That’s our bathroom,” said Hardy.

About a week ago, Hardy and his wife, Donna, decided to move a few feet away and joined some other friends and family who had set up tents. Their porch had become intolerable.

“Who can sleep there?” Hardy asked. “There ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifre rats, snakes.”

Hardy, a carpenter, is worried about the water moccasins — “They don’t play” — and is building a floor for the tent out of lumber.

Before he can get more permanent shelter, somebody is going to have to help out. “We’re trying to put in for that FEMA trailer but we can’t get that damn tree out of the way,” he said.

Hardy then looks down at the ground and puffs in his cigarette.

“I’ve seen better days.”

© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

© 2005 MSNBC.com

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9743596/page/2/

Welcome to a blog site for Bethel Lutheran Katrina Volunteers

Welcome. Michael and I made it home to Columbus, Ohio early Wednesday. I'm busy digitizing a ton of video, attempting to splice together a DVD for Judy by Reformation Sunday. Will keep you posted here as to the progress and offer up some streaming video clips as I go. Bookmark this page and keep checking in.

Here are some still pics from my camera. I'll post the ones from the CD Sharon burned on 10/12 shortly.

If you'd like a copy of the finished video DVD, email me your postal address at k3nt@mac.com. Just promise me you'll make additional copies and send those on to other churches. It will save time, materials and postage.

All in all, quite an experience, eh? Go ahead and freely post on this site by clicking on the pencil icon. I look forward to reading them.

Note the links on the right. Some are blogs from other groups who also spent their vacation in the area. I'll add more as I find them.

A pleasure and an honor to have worked with you all.

- Kent