By By LYDIA GRIMES – Features writer
Five months after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, disaster teams are still working hard to clean up and repair homes, businesses and churches in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. To help out with the neighboring states, a local disaster team will deploy tomorrow to help those in need.
The group, which was organized from churches within the Escambia Baptist Association including those in the Brewton area, consists of 14 members from local Baptist churches. The members are planning to make their way to Waveland, Miss.
They will travel to Shoreline Park Baptist Church in Bay St. Louis, Miss., where they will join others in Camp Kairos. The purpose of the volunteer camp at Shoreline is to provide long-term support and services to the church, its members and others who live in the Bay St. Louis, Waveland and Kiln region on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
The camp represents a partnering of churches in Alabama with Shoreline for the purpose of rebuilding, both the church and homes, along with bringing hope through their faith. People have lost their homes, their memories and in many cases, their livelihoods. The mission? Help churches and homes and share the gospel.
The camp is made up of four, 11-person bunkhouses and an additional capacity of 65 to 75 cots placed in tents. They have showers and bathrooms on the grounds as well as washers and dryers. This is where the volunteers will live while they are working on cleanup.
They will strip the walls down to the studs and then bleach the studs before another crew will come in and put up sheetrock, electrical and plumbing. They do this with volunteer help and donations of materials that are coming in from lots of different places.
Although the group only stays for a few days, the members believe they are making a difference for those who have lost so much. They plan another trip in February.