| Summer 2008
Disaster Response Needs Continue
Be a responder. Sign Up! (985) 778-6049 or reid_doster@hotmail.com
www.cbfresponds.com
We are still meaningfully engaged in disaster response work. Teams continue forming for work on the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast. The services of your team are sorely needed. Organize your own or combine with other teams.
Currently scheduled groups include:
Locust Grove Baptist Church,
New Market, AL (June 15-20)
First Baptist Church, Anderson, S.C (June 15-22)
First Baptist Church, William, AL (June 15-22)
Snyder Memorial Baptist Church,
Fayetteville, NC (June 15-22)
Calvary Baptist Church,
Lexington, KY (June 21-27)
Special kudos to Bob Rittenhouse and his volunteer team from
First Baptist Church, Beaver Dam, Canada, who recently completed
their SEVENTH trip to Southeast Louisiana, in coordination with CBF!
ABC-USA Gives Grant to
Fellowship's Katrina Response
The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s continuing Hurricane Katrina response in Pearlington, Miss., has received a $100,000 grant from National Ministries of American Baptist Churches USA.
The Fellowship has been working in Pearlington since Katrina heavily damaged the area in August 2005. In partnership with Pearlington Recovery Center, the Fellowship has helped rebuild homes and lives. One of the smallest yet worst hit communities, Pearlington still needs at least 70 houses rebuilt, said Charles Ray, the Fellowship’s disaster response coordinator.
"There are 70 families that want to come back that still own land but can’t find the money to build a house," he said. "Our mission is to help those with the most need and the least resources, and that’s what we’ll do here."
With the National Ministries’ grant, the Fellowship will construct the exterior of up to 10 houses. After the foundation, exterior walls and roof are completed, the new home owner will work with Pearlington Recovery Center to obtain grant money that will finish the house’s interior.
"I’m very pleased that we are able to continue our partnership in response to Pearlington’s need," said Kenneth George, national coordinator for direct human services of National Ministries. "It’s a community that has not received a lot of press attention but has as much of a need as other parts of the Gulf."
"CBF disaster response is grateful for this gift to our continuing efforts to meet human need in Pearlington," said CBF Global Missions coordinator Rob Nash. "This gift represents another step in the ongoing cooperation between American Baptists and Fellowship Baptists that enables us to do far more together than we could ever do separately. People are still reeling from the tragedy of Katrina—and CBF and ABC are still present together with them even almost two and half years after the hurricane."
Many individuals and families still live in temporary travel trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). While small, the greater health concern is formaldehyde levels, which have been confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to be higher than typical indoor living conditions.
"We urgently need help in relieving such human suffering by getting people into safer and more permanent housing," said Reid Doster, who works as CBF disaster response coordinator in Louisiana and Mississippi.
Nearly 2,000 Fellowship Baptists have served in Pearlington since 2005, and volunteer labor will be crucial to maximizing the grant’s impact. The time it takes to finish construction depends on weather and the number of Fellowship volunteers available.
"We need people to serve now as much as ever before," Ray said.
Those wishing to help in Pearlington should contact Chris Bolton at cboltin@thefellowship.info or (800) 352-8741.
By Carla Wynn Davis
CBF Disaster Response Leadership
Attends Hurricane
Preparedness Training With Department of Homeland Security
January 2008
Charles Ray, CBF National Disaster Response Coordinator, and Reid Doster, CBF Louisiana Disaster Response Coordinator, recently participated in a week of intensive training at The National Emergency Training Center (NETC), Emmitsburg, Maryland.
This Department of Homeland Security training was by invitation only, and involved a mock exercise in hurricane preparedness and response, including policy making, the practical functions of an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and first-hand experience with general operations.
Training was designed to simulate complexities which emerge as various branches of government, within a tight time-frame, rush to cooperate with one another in minimizing loss of life and property. The NETC instructors represent the best in their fields.
Charles and Reid met with two supervisors on the NETC staff to discuss how faith-based, Non-Governmental Groups (NGO’s) can be drawn into the process more meaningfully through future training opportunities. During this conversation, NETC commented that even groups from the private sector should receive this training.
NETC leadership went on to say that “within the past fifteen years, disasters seem to be happening more frequently and on a larger scale, requiring responders to refine their systems.”
Of great value was the opportunity to network with other providers from around the country, from both governmental and non-governmental sectors.
Also, attending this training was Marvin Jackson, Director of The American Baptist Association Disaster Relief Ministry, one of CBF’s partners in disaster response.
Last Fall, Charles and Reid participated in National Incident Management System (NIMS) training, also by invitation only, at the U. S. Department of Homeland Security offices, at Fort McClellan, in Anniston, Alabama.
In both cases, the Department of Homeland Security covered the costs of airfare and housing.
Charles also recently attended the first disaster response planning session of the North American Baptist Fellowship, in Raleigh, NC. With a spirit of cooperation, they discussed ways to compliment one another’s strengths to do the most good for the most people, when the next catastrophe --- wind, fire, ice, flood or even terrorism --- inevitably strikes.
For general information, contact:
Charles Ray
National CBF Disaster Response Coordinator
(501) 680-2722 Cell
(501) 223-8586 Office
cray@cbfar.com
For specific coordination of volunteer responders to the Louisiana or Mississippi coasts, contact: Reid Doster Louisiana CBF Disaster Response Coordinator
(985) 778-6049 reid_doster@hotmail.com
Dear Friend,
As the two year anniversary of Katrina has passed and New Orleans was again in the news, we want to update you on CBF Disaster Response.
Here are some troubling trends to consider prayerfully:
A massive humanitarian crisis still languishes right under our noses. Thousands of American citizens have been living in FEMA campers for two years. As of August 1, 2007 there were 33,494 of these temporary units still occupied by Katrina survivors. With an average of 2.5 persons per camper, that means around 84,000 people without safe and permanent housing. Thousands more want to return, but have been forced to remain in temporary living arrangements elsewhere.
People living in FEMA camper parks are 79 times more likely to attempt suicide than the national average. That is not a typo, 79 times more likely. Hope is wearing thin.
The rate of major depression in FEMA camper parks is 7 times the national average. A majority of these people were barely getting by before the storm, and now struggle even harder to get back on their feet.
Driven by a housing shortage, rental fees have escalated beyond the reach of many who simply need a decent place to live. Currently, their only option is to remain where they are, while fending off mounting pressure from FEMA to give up their camper.
Reportedly, the formaldehyde toxicity-level in many of these campers is alarmingly beyond established safe limits and is suspected of contributing to a widespread increase of respiratory distress, especially among children, along 90,000 square miles of the Gulf Coast. With colder weather on the way, more time will be spent in close quarters.
Without volunteers, progress stops. It is not government who is rebuilding broken lives here. It is volunteer responders lending a hand, little-by-little restoring lives and bringing hope out of chaos. Will you offer your willing hands and open heart to become the presence of Christ to people who, in quiet desperation, are feeling forgotten?
We will come to your church and explain how disaster response work offers hurting people hope in place of despair.
Call us or email today.
Charles Ray, National CBF Disaster Response Coordinator
cray@cbfar.com (501) 680-2722 www.cbfresponds.com
Reid Doster, Louisiana CBF Disaster Response Coordinator
reid_doster@hotmail.com (985) 778-6049 www.cbfresponds.com
Our Torch Still Lit!
The Greeks had a unique race in their Olympic games. The winner was not the runner who finished first, but the one who finished with his torch still lit.
Recently, a team from Montevista Baptist Church, Maryville, Tennessee, led by Sue Wyatt, made their fifth mission trip to the New Orleans area since Katrina and is planning another trip in October.
They helped a lady named Sonia St. Cyr, on Walmsley Street, in the Broadmoor neighborhood. Sonia suffers from multiple schlerosis, is wheelchair bound and was evacuated to Maryville, TN, after the hurricane.
Sonia and other family members had to return to New Orleans and have been sharing a FEMA trailer since that time. She had paid a contractor $9,500 to do work on her house and he failed to follow through. So, the Montevista team went down to see what they could do.
“Sonia is a person of incredible faith and an inspiration to all of us,” reports Sue Wyatt. Broadmoor is a wonderful old multi-ethnic neighborhood in the area of Napoleon Avenue. I think of it as the ‘blue collar’ version of the Garden District -- lots of terrific old houses that really need to be rehabbed and preserved.”
“It appeared to us that nearly half of the homes were being worked on, and there’s a critical mass of folks who have moved back and are committed to stay. It’s a neighborhood well worth the investment of volunteer time.”
“During our time there, Sonia told me about the Broadmoor Improvement Association and their plan to work with the ‘This Old House’ show to rehab forty or more houses. Sonia has applied for the program and will find out in August if she is to be included.”
Also in New Orleans
This past Fall, CBF Disaster Response focused on two historic, multiethnic neighborhoods of New Orleans -- St. Roch and Broadmoor, both greatly affected by flooding and wind damage.
Evelyn Edward, 83-years old, lived in her double shotgun home for 35 years. Evelyn was a devoted cafeteria worker at a high school for 40 years.
 Today, she is living with one of her four sons in a rented apartment in Lubbock, Texas. Before Katrina, she lived in the historic St. Roch neighborhood with her youngest son, Harold, who was left partially paralyzed fourteen years ago after being robbed and shot.
Harold got married after Katrina and now plans on moving into one side of the St. Roch home to take care of his mother, while both families enjoying independence and privacy.
Harold has had the home gutted, the back shed cleared away and the house cleaned up. He is worried about his mother’s declining health and looks forward to moving her back into the St. Roch neighborhood she so dearly misses.
CBF Disaster Response – www.cbfresponds.com -- is now teaming with the New Orleans affiliate of Rebuilding Together -- www.rtno.org -- to continue our mission of “Crossing racial, religious and cultural boundaries, to extend the unconditional love of Jesus Christ, to the most needy, neglected and forgotten, without any expectation of return.”
Contact Reid at (985) 222-6900 or email him at reid_doster@hotmail.com.
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