At 5 a.m., it was 50F in Durham, but 77F in Ocean Springs, MS, our destination that Sunday. En route, we travelled through five states via I-85, I-65 and I-10, including the six lanes through downtown Atlanta and the empty spaces of Alabama between Montgomery and Mobile. Twelve hours later, as we arrived at Camp Victor, the weather had cooled and it remained that way for our stay. Our group would number 11 by Monday morning when we would be assigned our tasks. In the meantime, we learned how our days would be organized: 6 am, lights on, breakfast and lunch making, 7.15, gather to learn our tasks for the day, work 8-4, dinner 6 pm, Compline, lights out 10 pm.

Camp Victor, which was established in June 2006 after Christus Victor Lutheran Church ran out of space, is a former garment factory on Government Street in the historic district of Ocean Springs, located close to the downtown area. The Camp is a joint ministry of the Lutheran Episcopal Services in Mississippi, Lutheran Disaster Response, and Christus Victor. It also works in partnership with St. John's Episcopal Church and Lutheran Social Services Disaster Response.

The St. Philip’s team was the only team at Camp Victor that week – two other groups had had to cancel. The dormitories (single sex, bunk beds, each sleeping 36 people) can house over 200 volunteers. Men's and women’s showers and restrooms, the dining room, lounge, chapel, offices, store rooms for food, tools and materials, the distribution center and case manager offices are all part of the complex.

Ocean Springs prides itself on being where life on the Mississippi Gulf Coast slows down. Since Katrina, Ocean Springs has been cut off from its neighboring town to the west, Biloxi – the new bridge on highway 90 will open Nov. 1st and is high enough to allow free movements of shrimp boats, yachts, and Navy vessels. (The current route to Biloxi is a long detour on I-10, also on a post-Katrina bridge that obviously had priority for construction.) The median per capita income in Ocean Springs is $22,923, with a population that is 87.7% white. The town has history, great food, specialty stores and galleries to make a visit a pleasant experience. However, hours of most shops were 10 to 5, and volunteers tended to be away working until 5 – but we were not there to shop!

Our group was organized into three teams. The first team involved Jackie and Dorothy, who were attached to the Bethel Clinic in Biloxi for the week, offering their medical and nursing skills. The clinic offers free medical attention to anyone who needs it. It also has a small pharmacy to provide medicine for patients (we donated $120 to help purchase medicines). Jackie was the only doctor for most of the week. Biloxi’s population from 2000 census figures is White 71.4%, Black 19.0%, and Vietnamese 3.4%, with an average per capita income of $17,809.

The second team, Maureen, Eleanor, Jay and Rich, were assigned to help the family of 81-year-old John, who lives with his daughter Phyllis and her husband David at the east end of Ocean Springs. John is confined to a wheelchair following surgery for a broken hip and bouts of pneumonia, and thus to the house, due to the lack of a wheel chair ramp. The team’s job was to build a gentle-sloping ramp, something none of them had done before. They did!

The third team, Pam, Kelly, Sarah, Clay and David, worked on the home of Aloise and Luke, some 18 miles east of Ocean Springs at Moss Point, just north of Pascagoula, a major ship-building port. It has a population that is 70% Afro-American, with an average per capita income in 2005 of $15,537.

The couple has lived in this same house for over 50 years, and they had nowhere to go after Katrina dropped a huge tree on the roof and the house was extensively damaged by torrential rainfall. Until some six weeks earlier (two years after Katrina), they had only a blue tarpaulin for a roof. Teams in previous weeks had secured the joists to stabilize the house, rewired the electricity, put up new sheet rock on all inside walls of the house, installed a new kitchen, and started work on the bathroom.

Our team’s jobs were to finish the bathroom, lay subfloors in the two bedrooms, cover the subfloors with linoleum tiles, install baseboard with quarter round trim in each of these rooms, paint doors to the bedrooms and bathroom and their frames, and install lights and fans in both bedrooms and the dining room – which until this time was being used as their bedroom. Learning on the job was our by-line! We even moved the first piece of furniture back into the main bedroom when we were done.

Luke, a World War II veteran, would celebrate his 82nd birthday the week after we left, and Aloise can hardly be much younger. They have five children, eight grandchildren, and a great-granddaughter who must now be four weeks old. Aloise was heard to say this would be the prettiest house she had ever lived in. While we were working in her home, she spent most of the time watching religious TV channels.

There was little energy left at the end of each day, but time-out could include a visit to the “Y” for a swim, a much needed nap, and dinner eaten out.

St. Paul said (E.Peterson, The Message): God’s various gifts are handed out everywhere, but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kind of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kind of people! The variety is wonderful.

And so each of us in Mississippi discovered the gifts that we have been given to use. Trust God: while you may think you do not have useful talents for a Mississippi expedition, when you get down there, you too will find you are needed.

SJN/10.15.2007

© 2006, Saint Philip's Episcopal Church
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 218, Durham, NC 27702
Telephone 919-682-5708, Fax 919-683-1857

Webmasters: Jack Mitchell, David Smith, Gordon Mantler