June 2006 - Welcome Interns!

What if The Beatitudes Society offered an annual service trip to do Beatitudes work?  Perhaps the first could be at Mississippi Camp Coast Care.  I have just returned from there, where with three young adults and six older ones from the parish I serve, we did Beatitudes work for a week.  I am inspired to organize an annual service trip for The Beatitudes Society, and I want to know what you think. 

Please read on about our experience, and then email me at frannie@beatitudessociety.org Let me know if you think this is a good idea, and even if you might be able to go. I am curious whether it would be an effective way for us to get to know one another while practicing what Jesus preached!

So, what is it about Mississippi Camp Coast Care?

I have new blisters and a new cross, less guilt and more hope, and a wiser, sadder, fuller heart.  It truly felt like Beatitudes work.  Here’s a glimpse……

……“Who just arrived today?" Van, the camp director, calls out to 100 volunteers assembled on the Coast Episcopal School gymnasium bleachers.  It’s time for 6 p.m. Evening Prayer and the next day's work assignments.  Our group has just arrived, so we raise our hands and look around to see others’ hands raised too.   "Welcome!  We saved some work for you! Where y’all from?"

“Trinity Parish, Menlo Park, California!” we call out, while Jackson, Napierville, Western Mass, and Atlanta chime in.  Appreciative applause.

"Who leaves today?"  Hands go up and we join in more appreciative applause.  Already we feel a bond with those who
have gone before us and are now going home. “Just send us all your friends and all their money," says Van, as he moves on with the daily ritual of asking for stories, asking for volunteers, and asking for prayers.

We are dismissed for dinner by being asked to sing the Johnny Appleseed song emblazoned on a banner. If you have ever been to Summer Church Camp you have sung this song! I remember my first conversation months before with Angel, the head of volunteers (really!)  I asked her to describe life at Camp. “It’s a combination Summer Camp, M*A*S*H headquarters, Monastery, and Habitat for Humanity.”  Since that conversation, she has returned home. Just as she knew when she arrived that she was meant to stay, so one day she knew it was time for her to go home.  Led by the Spirit, people come and go from Mississippi Camp Coast Care.

The Camp is a joint ministry of Lutheran/Episcopal Services of Mississippi. (I am proud to be an Episcopalian!) Shortly after Katrina struck on August 29, 2005, the camp was organized using tents, recreational vehicles, trailers and the school gymnasium as a combination volunteer sleeping area and cafeteria. It continues to serve as a base for work crews.  

Approximately 200,000 hurricane survivors have been served at the camp thus far, all with a small permanent paid and volunteer staff - and a few thousand volunteers!  Volunteers are from a variety of faiths and denominations, including a Buddhist who is reading Classics at St. John’s College in Arizona.

“All work here is important. All work here is holy. All work here is shared by all of us," we are told when a request to do trash for a day is met with silence.  Someone always volunteers. It takes 2 dozen people to staff onsite jobs at the camp, in addition to offsite work crews. The camp can accommodate up to 200 volunteers a day at an operational cost of $20 per volunteer per day.

The hurricane has taken an incomprehensible toll. Officials list the death toll at more than 1,300 lives, and billions of dollars of damage has occurred on the Gulf Coast.  According to the Red Cross, Katrina destroyed 68,729 houses and apartments in Mississippi alone, another 65,237 suffered major damage, and an estimated 100,318 had minor damage. New Orleans isn’t the only place devastated by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the aftermath.

The disaster has taken a personal toll with post traumatic stress disorder, increased alcohol and spousal abuse, insomnia, anxiety and panic&nbsp attacks, and difficulty making decisions - a fact of life for many survivors.  Practical problems, such as hundreds of unusable FEMA trailers and insurance company delays have also taken a toll. In listening to the stories, freely shared, we learn that even if a FEMA trailer has just arrive it can be inhabited for only 18 months from the day of the storm - not from the day of habitation.  Crazy!

The enormity of the disaster and the snafus may take their toll, but signs of the spirit appear to energize the camp and keep hopes high. The right people arrive at the right time.  A professional cook comes for a day to give Kate-the-volunteer-20-year-old-cook tips on cooking for a hundred people.  Pat, who lives with arthritis and can’t be outside, spends the entire week organizing the tool sheds.  The huge pile of still water in aluminum cans donated by Anheuser Busch provides all the hydration we need.

After three days I get very good at dry wall work.  JB, our team supervisor, leads us through the steps, and I am struck by how much his advice can be applied to life. For the new testament reading at evening worship I offer “the Gospel according to JB”: “If it’s good enough, move on. Sanding can smooth over pretty rough spots. Timing is everything - you   can’t go too slow or the mud will dry. You can’t go too fast or your work will be sloppy. Team work always helps. You’ll get the feel of it; just keep trying.  Always remember to take a break and hydrate.”

“What more can we do?” we ask. “Witness,” everyone says. “Go back and tell them what you have seen and heard and done. The best witness is witness. Nobody leaves unchanged.  Tell people to come and see for themselves that God and God’s people are being served. And then y’all come back, y’hear?”……

This just in: I am really proud to be an Episcopalian.  A woman, a westerner, someone who has been ordained only 12 years and who supports the full inclusion of GLBT people in our life and ministries, has been elected Presiding Bishop from a slate of white male bishops with traditional pedigrees.  It’s a sign of the winds of change.  That news makes me glad to be home.

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So what do you think?  Annual Beatitudes service trip?  Email me your thoughts.

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