rst time students from Corban College in Salem, Ore., came here, it was over Christmas break.
By Karen L. Willoughby
Managing Editor
NEW ORLEANS – The first time students from Corban
College in Salem, Ore., came here, it was over Christmas break.
They’ve been to New Orleans on disaster relief mission trips twice since, and plan to return in May.
“I saw how much need was left to do and it wasn’t
getting done,” said Freshman Jennifer Thorpe during the spring break
missions trip, her second to New Orleans. “… The hardest thing for me
was removing people’s possessions, realizing it’s their whole life and
having it taken away.”
Corban College students traveled perhaps farther
than did any other group – 2,700 miles – to be among the 2,500 or more
Baptist college students from across the nation who converged on New
Orleans for Spring Break mission trips in March. Students also were
from New York (1,300 miles), Washington state (2,557 miles from
Pullman) and even Canada – 2,489 miles from Calgary.
“We’re in a pretty safe part of the world in
Oregon,” said first-timer and Junior Brent Fahsholz. “I can’t really
understand what they went through here; I can’t really sympathize. But
I can help. I’m not going to bring their memories back but I can tear
out a house so they can rebuild it.”
Regulation attire includes rubber boots, two pair of
gloves worn at the same time, facial mask and $2 Tivek disposable jump
suit pulled over clothes that also will be thrown away.
It was taking 11 Corban students and 2 faculty
sponsors about a day and a half to gut each house, said team leader and
Freshman Jesse Hayes, on his third trip to New Orleans. To gut a house
is to remove everything from it – walls, ceiling, floors, down to the
studs – and often starts with dragging out sodden books, blankets, and
all manner of belongings.
That includes refrigerators, sealed with duct tape
months ago by city officials so they didn’t have to deal with contents
grown even more rancid since then. The smell through the heavy metal
was stomach-churning vile, and the students – six or more at a time,
masked male and female – had to get up close and personal in order to
move the refrigerator.
The students’ revenge: They ritualistically spat on
the refrigerators after they set them down, then quietly went back to
work.
“After I came here once, seeing the city and how
much help is needed, I wanted to come back,” Hayes said. “We’re
communicating the love of Christ in a practical way, showing them God
loves them – not just telling them.”
When possible, the Corban students talked with the
people who had lived in the houses they were gutting, and when they
weren’t there, the Corban students left handwritten notes to express
the love in their hearts for people they hadn’t even met, Hayes said.
“They’re seeing up close and personal how fragile
people’s lives can be,” said faculty sponsor and campus pastor Kent
Kersey. “It’s helping them set their priorities around things that are
eternal. …
“An important part of their education is seeing
what’s going on in the real world, and I’m doing my part to expose them
to that,” Kersey continued. “What they’re seeing here in New Orleans –
well, you usually see stuff like this in a fictional movie, not in real
life. It’s an eye-opener for them to what’s real.”