NEW ORLEANS – Nearly 200 students from eight colleges and universities in Louisiana chose to do missions work during their Mardi Gras break.
By Karen L. Willoughby
Managing editor
NEW ORLEANS – Nearly 200 students from eight colleges and
universities in Louisiana chose to do missions work during their Mardi
Gras break.
Led by Baptist Collegiate Ministries campus directors and
organized by Linda Osborne for the Louisiana Baptist Convention’s
Collegiate Ministries team, 185 students Feb. 25-27 first tackled the
New Orleans Mission, a Christian-based homeless shelter, before
swarming out around the city to do brush, shrub and tree removal and
house gutting in connection with the disaster relief ministries of
First Baptist Church in New Orleans.
“I felt like this was not only my state, it was the least
I could do,” said Hope Stevens, from the University of Louisiana at
Monroe BCM.
She spoke during a break from the ceiling board removal
job she’d been helping with on the third floor of the mission that
before Katrina had been housing 300 men a night. The building had not
been flooded, but the hurricane tore the roof off the building,
explained Ron Gonzales, executive director.
Continual rain for three and a half weeks that saturated
the third floor found its way to the second and first floors – ruining
everything from metal bunk beds to wooden desks.
And not until nearly three months after the hurricane was
electricity restored to the building, so clean-up in the darkened
building was delayed, which made the job only worse, Gonzales said.
The work was not easy, and the working conditions – dust
and fiberglass coating the air – deplorable, but compared to what so
many people in New Orleans have gone through over the last six months,
it was nothing, Stevens said.
BCM students completed in five hours work mission leaders
had expected would take three days, and with a joyful spirit that made
a lasting impression on the mission, said Lou Banfalvi, director of
operations.
“They were just wonderful young people,” he said. “Their energy was exuberant.
“The third floor, that was a job, bless their hearts,”
Banfalvi added. “They had to rip out the ceiling – it was rotten – and
get out all the fiberglass insulation. Filthy work. Unhealthy. And the
smell was not exactly pleasant. They did all that, and then they washed
the floors!”
The BCM students also wiped down and moved 50 computer
monitors, towers and several tall metal shelving units from the
mission’s learning center. They tossed about 200 rusted metal beds out
a third-floor window and hauled several that wouldn’t fit in the
window, down two flights of stairs.The BCM students sorted usable from
worthless clothing, restacked food supplies and even moved several
hundred concrete blocks up against the back wall of the mission.
“I want to come help people,” explained Huy Le, of the
LSU-Alexandria BSU as his reason for participating in the disaster
relief mission trip. He too had been working on the third floor, with
ceiling boards crashing down and insulation puffing up, he said.
“I’m sweating even in this cool weather,” Le said in amazement.
BCM students in groups of about 15 deployed early Saturday
afternoon to the homes of people who had requested assistance, such as
Marilyn Adams, whose towering oak tree – at least six feet around, and
60 feet high – had come crashing down during the twin hurricanes. In
all, they helped 17 families.
“I wanted to come on this mission trip because I hadn’t
been able to help too much,” said Andrew Joyner of the LSU-Baton Rouge
BCM. “I want to help people who have been dealing with this for six
months. … On the whole scale it doesn’t look like we did much, but
one backyard is a backyard.”
And one house is one house. The BCMs from LSU-Alexandria
and Southeastern Louisiana University gutted one Sunday afternoon and
Monday – tore out everything from walls to windows and even the nails
holding up the studs, because the nails were rusted.
“It was a blast … but it was probably the hardest work
they’ve ever done,” said Yvette Palmer, BCM director at LSU-Alexandria
about her students. “It was very fulfilling to know you’ve gone in and
helped a family. “It’s a first step but it has to be done. We’re
planting seeds for the gospel.”