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Why are we doing this?
The sights, sounds and smells of a city under siege will never leave his mind, says Derek Broten, youth minister at Woodbury Lutheran. Broten was in New Orleans with a group of 60 youth ministers planning a Lutheran Church Missouri Synod National Youth Gathering that is to visit the city in 2007. When their airline flights and Amtrak services were suspended and rental car offices turned them away, 13 members of the group, a thousand other tourists, hotel staff and their family members rode out Hurricane Katrina on the fifth floor of the ballroom in the Sheraton Hotel on Canal Street. While the hotel suffered only minor damage, the images of the aftermath are hard to put aside.
“It was all so surreal,” Broten said. “On Monday, after
the hurricane, there was this sense of elation that the city had dodged the
eye of the storm. And then, on Tuesday, there came this panic when people
realized the real danger was yet to come as the waters from the broken levees
began to rise.”
Through a series of events that Broten sees as God’s hand at work, the group found out that one of them had family members staying in a Marriott Hotel across the street. They, and the family of their group leader Bobby Burgeroun, who is originally from New Orleans, had cars, but no intention of evacuating the city. The now tightly-banded group convinced them to leave New Orleans and 18 of them piled into three small cars for an unforgettable ride to Baton Rouge.
“When people found out we had cars, they began to plead for us to take them with. I can’t get out of my head the concern for those we left behind. And as damaged as New Orleans was, others farther to the east were in the eye of the storm. After riding out the storm in a relatively secure ballroom, I could only image the horror they experienced.”
When Broten returned to Woodbury Lutheran, he gathered a group of people who were looking to the church for response to the crisis. Broten and congregation member Maria Engen, who was raised in New Orleans, began making telephone calls.
“My entire family was personally impacted by this hurricane,” explains Engen. “They live all along the Gulf Coast from New Orleans to Gulfport and all of them have damage to their homes. Most of them evacuated to a family member’s home in Orlando, but I did lose an aunt, who drowned.”
Working alongside other leaders in his community of Petal, Mississippi was her brother, David, a minister at Petal-Harvey Baptist Church. Long before government services arrived in the town, the churches had already networked with churches in other communities around the U.S. to get water and other needed supplies, to help clear debris, and to provide refuge for those who had lost their homes.
His story inspired Engen and Woodbury Lutheran Church to reach out to First Baptist Church in Ocean Springs, Mississippi (population 18,000), whose members, while facing the devastation of their own homes, banded together with other local churches to serve hundreds of daily meals to emergency personnel working throughout several smaller communities near Ocean Springs. Engen has been in contact with Pastor Mike Barnett.
“The city had many homes right on the water. They are gone. But, this is a community that is coming back on its own,” Engen said. “It’s one of the stories we don’t hear about in the news.”
Both Engen and Broten agree that, while there are immediate needs, communities like Ocean Springs will need help for months to come. In mirroring the response by Ocean Springs to the disaster, Woodbury Lutheran is asking other churches, schools and community organizations in Woodbury to join them in helping bring the community and other small towns around it back on their feet.
“We considered the vast resources of Woodbury and decided we’re in this for the long haul,” says Broten. “We have put together a prayer team and are asking our community to pray for the residents of Ocean Springs and for our community. The first disaster relief team will leave as soon as possible. We are collecting donations and plan to bring a truckload of supplies that Pastor Mike says are desperately needed, such as chain saws, bug spray, gas cans and bleach. We’re running into roadblocks, but we’re moving ahead. We’re desperately trying to find a truck, and have learned others are having problems getting clearance from FEMA and the Red Cross to bring supplies into disaster areas. We are working with the mayor’s office in Ocean Springs to secure clearance for a delivery and are confident that God will help us get these supplies to those who need them.”
The long-range plan is to continue to send teams from the Woodbury community to Ocean Springs until the recovery work is done. “We’re taking retirees to help serve meals as long as the church is housing people and hosting work crews,” Broten says. “The elementary school was destroyed, so we’re looking for classrooms to adopt classes in Ocean Springs, sending them letters of support and school supplies that will be needed when the schools reopen (estimated to be the end of October). We’re looking for college students to sign up now to join us during J-term, families during spring break, and high school and college youth next summer to help with rebuilding.”
When asked why they choose to help a small town rather than sending relief to New Orleans, Broten explains, “It was a matter of deciding whether to make a small difference in a large area now or making a large difference in a small area over an extended period. When communities of faith pull together, amazing things happen. The residents of Ocean Springs are already seeing that happen, but they are tired. We have a call to serve and we believe our help will make a difference not just for Ocean Springs, but for the residents of Woodbury and surrounding communities who participate.”
People and organizations wishing to help provide relief to Ocean Springs can contact Woodbury Lutheran Church, 651-739-5144, or by e-mail.
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Listen to Real Life with Kim Jeffries from September 9, 2005 as she talks to Derek Broten. Thanks to Kim Jeffries and KTIS AM900!