Waveland - Day 3

On Wednesday, the youth group spent the entire day at Kathy's house. As you might remember, Kathy Rhoads is the woman who is living in a FEMA trailer while her father's house is refurbished. I talked with Laura Luebbert who gave me a little more of a background on Kathy.

Kathy was the 1st Grade teacher at Waveland Elementary, a school that has been washed away. After her home was destroyed by the hurricane, she went to collect her insurance claim. While she did receive money from her Homeowner's Insurance (enough to pay off the mortgage), she did have to haggle with Allstate Insurance, eventually losing out. Kathy had flood insurance, but the Allstate agent told her that her house had been destroyed by wind, therefore making her ineligible to collect any money. This is the reality for thousands of displaced Gulf Coast residents.

After the hurricane, she went to live with her brother, but found that his house had four feet of water in it. She lived there for two weeks, before moving in to her father's house, which had two feet of standing water in it when she arrived. They managed to pump the water out, allowing them to live in it for three months. While they lived there, the watched the development of the mold as it grew across their ceiling, changing colors every couple of weeks. After a while, volunteers from one of the area churches came by to clean up the mold. Incredible.

Prior to our group arriving, a (previously mentioned) group from St. Bart's in Indiana placed and sanded all of the sheet rock in Kathy's home. This allowed our group to start painting when they arrived. Yesterday, they painted the kitchen, dining room, and bedroom. Laura spent the entire day painting Kathy's ceiling. They also helped Kathy pick out paint colors for the rest of their house. Kathy ended up making lunch for the group and told them that she had prayed for angels to life her up, and she considers our kids to be the answer to those prayers.

At one point, they sent Aaron Dunn to Home Depot to get some much needed supplies. There IS a hardware store in Waveland, but apparently it's pretty lacking. Therefore they have to go to the Home Depot on Gulf Port, which is about twenty miles out of their way. Apparently on his way back to Waveland, he made a wrong turn and ended up driving completely out of his way. This prompted his calling Susan and asking "Am I supposed to be passing N.A.S.A?"

The teens ended their day by hanging out at the home of one of Aaron's wife Carrie's relatives. This family fed them a barbeque dinner and let them swim in their pool.

Please continue to pray for them, and remember to check back tomorrow for another update.