Katrina Shelter Update

At the request of one of the men in my presbytery, here's an update on the shelter at Beal Heights PCA, Lawton, Oklahoma:

We were contacted by the Red Cross on Thursday AM, 1 September 2005. We have had a disaster shelter agreement with them for years, offering our facility for use in the event of a local disaster (we are in tornado alley, after all!). We were told that we would have ten people from New Orleans arrive that evening at six, with more to come in the hours afterward. The church was able to mobilize a number of its members and with Red Cross volunteer help, we moved out all of the Sunday school equipment from the Sunday school building for use as a dormitory. The Fellowship Hall was converted to a dining facility and day room. Nooks and crannies around the facility were used for supply storage, food storage, clothing donations, administrative areas, counseling areas, and computer work stations.

We received the first ten people at 6 PM on the dot. The family was pretty tired and felt that they had been suddenly transported from home and plunked into OZ. With the Red Cross, we were able to work out a shower schedule with the YMCA, and food prep and delivery by local restaurants and churches. I bunked-in at the church that night because we were expecting to receive another 41 people sometime that evening. The people upon the arrival at the shelter are triaged for immediate medical and psychological needs, as well as any other matters needing immediate attention. My training in mass casualty exercises and critical incident stress management as a chaplain in the National Guard helped in the set-up and triage areas.

The 41 arrived Friday afternoon in a convoy of vehicles in various states of repair. They had left New Orleans in advance of the storm, and had ridden it out in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Once they learned that the couldn't return to New Orleans by their original route, they worked their way through south Mississippi to Macomb, where they ran out of gas, and hope. One of the older men had a brother who had retired from the Army living here in Lawton. He was able to send a little bit of money, and their convoy started out for the Sooner State. The good folks in Texas helped in tremendous ways: people would see them in filling stations and pay for full tanks of gas for them all; eating establishments would wave them in to feed them all.

Some of the people started finding jobs immediately in the Lawton area. In the recent round of base closures and realignment, Fort Sill stands to gain over 4500 soldiers and the Air Defense Artillery school and center will be transferred to Fort Sill. The job market here is good. We can see the Lord's hand in preparing the way for these folks incorporation into our community.

We have about thirty of the people now in regular attendance at Beal Heights. Our Sunday school has doubled in size. Instant diversification. We as a congregation have been blessed in being able to minister to these families (15 households in all, in three extended families). It is a blessing as well to see the Lord create a desire for biblical worship, biblical preaching and teaching, and biblical community in these people. Our attitude as a congregation from the start is that these people are family and are to be treated as such. Through God's blessing in giving Beal Heights the proceeds of an estate last May, we've been able to pass on the blessing to the households in providing resettlement grants.

The last of the shelter's residents moved into an apartment last Friday. We have been going through the process of shampooing carpets, repainting walls, and reconfiguring the facilities for our expanded ministry. In addition to our Katrina families, we have had a number of other families begin attending worship with us as well.

We now are in another phase of ministry; it is exciting to see where the Lord will lead us. We'll begin making pastoral visits in the homes of our new attendees, and see how we can assist in making the transition to life here in Lawton. Many of the people have lost their houses due to flooding, wind, or looting, or a combination of the three. A few have gone back to New Orleans to see what they can salvage. What they report is pretty sad. They are glad to be in Lawton, and to have a place where they aren't "them" but "us." The final count of the families was at 52 here at Beal Heights -- we had a baby born a week after the start. Other family members rescued in New Orleans were placed in another church's shelter due to our being maxed-out.

Needless to say, to God be all the glory. I'm also looking forward to some great New Orleans dishes at our family night suppers!