At a mobile home park, they cleared a tree that had crushed one home and hung over an adjacent home, and they removed other trees that had wrecked a storage building and punched holes through a blockhouse roof.
At another site, they helped three related families – a man and his wife, his elderly parents, and his sister and her two children – all of whom had fled New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. While the flood waters receded, the families had retreated to an old wood-framed house that the man had inherited from his mother-in-law. But after the storm, gaping holes riddled the house’s roof.
For the past two weeks, the man was getting meals prepared by a Southern Baptist feeding unit stationed at a local church, but no one had come to help repair the roof. The team removed a tree that was still laying on the roof, covered the house with a large tarp, and then cleared debris from other downed trees in the yard.
In all, the 25 member “chain-saw team” from 11 Pee Dee Association churches completed 26 such acts of Christian love in Columbia, Miss., during the week of Sept. 12. The 18 men and seven women were housed and fed in the gym of First Baptist Church with several other teams of volunteers stationed there.
“Just as houses, trees, cars, and nearly everything else was tossed, smashed and crushed, Katrina did the same to people’s plans, lives, futures and dreams,” observed team chaplain Bill Truesdale. Affirming that God provides “hope for all those who are beaten down by circumstances,” he added, “Our team was involved in much more than cutting trees. We wanted to provide hope in the midst of hopelessness.
“We were able to touch many lives,” added Truesdale, recalling that one grateful woman to whom team members had given a New Testament had remarked, “I haven’t had a Bible to read since we evacuated from Katrina.”
The team also delivered 800 pounds of food, 900 personal health kits, 40 cases of water, school supplies and other items to the Louisiana School for the Deaf and to the Baton Rouge Shelter for the Deaf, Truesdale said. They also supplied 240 health kits to the Pearl River Valley Head Start Center, he added.
Another highlight of the trip was when one of the team members, John Locklear, accepted Christ and was baptized in the Pearl River, Truesdale said.
Led by Pee Dee director of missions James Orr, the team’s members represented Bennettsville Second, Brownsville, Bruton’s Fork, Dillon First, East Dillon, Kemper, Latta, Little Rock, Pleasant Grove, Tabernaculo Evangelico, and Thomas Memorial churches.