October 1, 2005 After Hurricane Katrina struck the U.S. Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005, I went to Bay St Louis, MS on invitation by World Impact Network (Non-profit Christian Missions organization based in Bellevue, WA) to minister to hurricane victims in October 2005. We removed debris, gutted houses, distributed cleanup supplies & clothing, and prayed with hurricane victims. The devastation in Bay St Louis was terrible, but after having been in Sri Lanka just two months after the tsnami of 2004, I could appreciate the fact that the loss of life could have been much worse.
My two teammates and I served at a Christian Relief Mission, gutting houses, salvaging belongings for local residents, etc. Although I sustained a serious injury to my right arm (110 stitches) on October 5th, I was still able to minister to people in Bay St Louis who had sufferred great losses from the hurricane. It seems that God wanted me to help people with their grief more than He wanted me to work on their houses on that trip.
October 29, 2005 After returning home for a few weeks, and after having the outer stitches removed from my arm, I returned to Bay St Louis on my own on October 29th. On this trip, I brought a pastor friend of mine and my brother-in-law for a 3-week mission to continue the work I was doing on the first trip there. We gutted houses, cleaned up debris, distributed cleanup supplies and clothing, and ministered to hurricane victims. The mission headquarters, known as "Christian Relief", was once again my "home" in Bay St Louis. "Christian Relief" was started and run by Pastor Rick Walth, from NW Iowa, and we had a capacity of at least a dozen men and a dozen women with seperate lodging areas in a house which had been severely damaged during the hurricane. We had volunteers of different faiths from across the country working together to serve the people of Mississippi.
April 2006 In April 2006, I led a 21-person mission team from my church (including my wife and my pastor) to help in the rebuilding process in Bay St Louis, cleaning yards & houses, installing a new roof, and ministering to people. It was very encouraging to see progress being made each time I returned there, and it was especially encouraging to see how God was working through us during these times to help people deal with their grief.