Alissa's Sermon (St. Paul's, WC)

On our third day working in Biloxi, our group arrived at eight a.m. at two newly reconstructed homes just feet away from the coastline. While the homes appeared simple in construction, they looked inviting and comfortable compared to the mere foundations surrounding them. Our group was introduced to the owner of one of the homes, a man in his seventies named Willis, who explained that the house next to his which we would be landscaping belonged to his daughter Barbara and her husband. While our group raked soil and pulled weeds, preparing the earth around Barbara’s house for sod, Willis kept a watchful eye on our work, offering stories, advice and bathrooms when needed. Like her father, Barbara showed her gratitude to us by opening her home and her heart, offering us her story of destruction and showing us pictures she had taken of her and her father’s homes before and after Katrina destroyed them. Barbara explained that at one time many generations of her family had built homes on the surrounding property, and each structure was destroyed by Katrina. Not only had Katrina ripped apart the family homes, but also the family, as other relatives living on the property had decided not to return after the hurricane.

At one point during our working day, Willis explained to me that his and Barbara’s houses had been built from the group up in only four weeks by volunteers from Nebraska, and he was extremely thankful to have been blessed by their generosity as many of his neighbors had yet to receive help. He told me that he had recently realized that staying at a volunteer camp was costing us money, and questioned why anyone would spend their own money to come to the Gulf Coast just to help reconstruction.

At the time I wasn’t sure how to respond to Willis, why had I spent two hundred dollars plus numerous hours of fundraising and planning to come to Mississippi, a place far away from my community at home.

Besides my love and investment in the God Squad, I came to recognize several reasons why helping in the wake of hurricane Katrina was important to me. Firstly, if a natural disaster, such as an earthquake were to rattle the Bay Area, I would hope that we would receive help from unaffected people from all over the country, as the people along the Gulf are. Also, I knew from stories in the news before heading down South that many residents were complaining about the lack of help they have received from the government, that we are putting time, money and energy into foreign affairs when there are still many families living in FEMA trailers on American soil; obviously government aid is needed on a large scale, but going down to help with my own two hands was something I could offer if the government couldn’t. Working on the Gulf, I heard many stories from residents about the abuse they are receiving from insurance agencies. As if having all personal items and a shelter stripped from you isn’t traumatizing enough, many people are having to battle insurance companies who refuse to honor damage claims because flood insurance doesn’t cover floods caused by water moved by wind or massive amounts of rain. If insurance companies aren’t going to give money to their clients to help them rebuild, then people in the place to donate money or time need to help those people get back on their feet. My final reason for spending my time and money to rebuild on the Gulf Coast is because that is what God called me and the God Squad to do. As we heard in todays’ reading from Ephesians, we are all members of one another and we are to live in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a sacrifice to God. Although sometimes sacrificing for one another includes time or money, when we do make sacrifices for each other we are acting as imitators of God, loving one another as God calls us to do.