Though Hurricane Gustav was played down as a near-miss storm that largely spared the Gulf Coast, the flooding and consequent damage did deal a devastating blow to the morale of many residents who had finally begun to regain a sense of stability for the first time since Katrina struck in 2005.

Some are calling it quits, including residents of Pearlington, Miss., an Experience Mission partner community. While Gustav’s damage was light in comparison to Hurricane Katrina and newer structures withstood the storm, a general sense of discouragement is sinking in among those who have twice suffered significant property damage.

Janyne Evans, 52, owns the popular Turtle Landing restaurant in Pearlington. She said two good friends of hers—who are also good customers—are choosing to skip town.

“They’re going to pack up and they’re moving out. They can’t handle losing everything continuously,” Evans said during a telephone interview. She said she had just gotten back to the Turtle Landing to find the bottom floor flooded with water and was assessing the overall damage.

As she spoke, she said, she was awaiting an evacuation order for Hurricane Ike.

Other residents who suffered through Hurricane Katrina, however, had cause to be thankful. While 137 homes in Pearlington suffered water damage due to Gustav, those built in accordance with more stringent new building codes remained largely unscathed.

Many of those homes, which are raised on sturdy posts to sit at least 15 feet above sea level, were built by EM volunteers in partnership with the Pearlington Recovery Center (PRC).

“All the new houses are fine, because they’re all on posts. None of them got water, none of them lost a single possession,” PRC Director Glenn Lockin said. “All the houses are perfect, which is just a blessing.”

Locklin said that while the storm set community restoration work back about 90 days, the return to normalcy seemed streamlined, and just days after the residents returned from a mandatory evacuation, Pearlington was up and running as it had been before. Still, he said that rather than the optimistic sense of community that has fueled much of the Katrina recovery effort, many people appear downtrodden.

“The faith is not here, which I was kind of surprised by,” Locklin said. “They’re nervous, and I do understand that.”

Locklin is trying to stay positive. He himself lost a car to the storm, but said he wasn’t sweating it too much.

“It’s all good. It’s just a car,” he said. “It’s not the same as a house—it’s not the same as rebuilding again.”

Back at the Turtle Landing, Evans said that despite her soaked restaurant and more difficulty on the horizon, she was fighting to keep her spirits up as well, since she had no plans to leave Pearlington.

“I’m going to try to stick it out because I got six years into it, and life savings. I can’t really just walk away from it right now,” she said.

Locklins estimated it would take about two more years to get Pearlington back to normal once and for all. Meanwhile, he’s also attempting to plant a Foursquare church there.

He said volunteer teams serving Pearlington through EM helped speed the recovery process along this year and enriched local youth—including his daughters—by giving exposing them to people from all over the country.

“We had a positive experience with all the groups. The kids had a ball, and we got a lot done. We worked on so many houses, it was scary,” he said.

Experience Mission is offering Summer 2009 mission trips to Pearlington and other locations in the U.S. and abroad. Visit www.experiencemission.org or call 360-732-0986 to learn more.

Sometimes it’s hard to understand why houses take so long to be completed, but with all the different steps – some which require a greater level of skill than others – and multiple inspections that must be passed before moving on to the next step, the lengthy process makes more sense.

It  had been around a month since teams had been able to do any work on Brigitte’s home because we were all waiting for it to pass inspection. Recently we discovered that the house had passed inspection two weeks ago, but no one had been notified. This was both frustrating and exciting news – we wished we could have been working on it for weeks, but we were excited for  our very last team of the summer to begin the drywalling process.

Part of the Tennessee Team spend the entire week at Brigitte’s, and with Cory’s guidance put up sheet after sheet of drywall, and finished nearly all the insulation – a job slightly less than comfortable. When I finally got to see the site toward the end of the week, I was shocked at the progress they had made. I remembered almost two months ago when I had helped hook up some of the plumbing in the bathroom, when I could see every corner of the house from the moment I walked in the door.

Another house that has been a slow but slightly more steady process is Ray’s. We have had a group working on his house almost every week, but for the last month it seemed like each team would redo the same tedious process – mudding and sanding, mudding and sanding. It’s a task that has to be done, is not quick or easy, and takes a great amount of time to get right. The last two weeks have brought an end in sight, however, and our last two teams were able to actually texture both walls and a ceiling after mudding and sanding. On Thursday, EM’s last workday for the summer in Pearlington, we could all tell that Ray was excited, in his quiet way, to see such visible progress on his home.

A sign outside of a church, visible from the main road that winds through Pearlington, sums up where many of the town’s struggles and their faith intersect: “Katrina was big, but God is bigger.”

-Cheryl Knowles

With the summer coming to a close in just a couple of weeks, we didn’t expect to be introduced to many new projects, especially on houses that had barely been touched since Katrina. That’s why meeting Wade came as such a surprise. Wade lives in the same neighborhood as Jeanine and Sonny, but until one of our teams from Texas came to help him gut out his home, he has had no outside aid.

Wade camps out at a pier for now, spending most of his time fishing and getting his home to a point where it can be restored. He comes back to his house to shower in his yard with a hose, thankful to have access to running water. Open about the struggles he has faced in getting back on his feet, he showers volunteers with thanks, provides an endless supply of snacks to encourage throughout the workday, and praises God for His sovereignty. His tearful recollections touch the hearts of the groups that have finally begun work at his home, as well as ours, encouraging each of us to continue serving even when we might feel weary.

Meeting people like Wade makes it difficult for our team to say goodbye, knowing there is yet so much more to be done in Pearlington. Still, we are thankful to become even such a small part of his life, and hope we have been a light of encouragement.

-Cheryl Knowles

By Matt Grager

One of the many obstacles in the recovery of Pearlington, Miss. after Hurricane Katrina devastated the community has been money.

Many of the residents simply cannot afford to rebuild permanent housing and therefore have been stuck in their FEMA trailers or temporary cottages for the past three years. People in these situations have been forced to rely on charity and volunteer work for help. Sonny Wilkinson, 75, a Pearlington native, is no different.

This summer, Wilkinson hopes to finish his permanent house, only a block down the road from where his home of 35 years was completely destroyed. The only thing keeping him from completing it is, of course, money.

“I’ve got a little over $20,000 or so put into this thing, and I’ve got about [$10,000] left,” Wilkinson said. “But I’ve got that stowed away to bury me with.”

Wilkinson’s home is a one-story house raised 12 feet in the air on eight-by-eight posts. The frame and roof are complete, and the siding and wiring each halfway finished. Volunteers, including some from Experience Mission, helped him get this far with their labor.

“If this were 10 years ago, before my heart attack, I could have built the whole thing myself,” he said. “But now, I am blessed with the help.

Though he bought the plot of land and the materials himself, he wonders how he will afford the drywall he needs, let alone the $7,000 elevator he needs for himself and his pals to reach the wrap-around porch and front door.

After the storm, local residents were required to fill out applications for FEMA grants of $26,000 to help them rebuild. Wilkinson complied, understanding he would be receiving a grant. While he was filling out that application, he was asked to fill out an application for a Small Business Association loan as well. Again, he complied.

Because of his good credit, he was offered a $190,000 loan from the SBA, with a $900 a month payment. However, Wilkinson, who lives on a fixed income of $1,000 a month, had to turn the loan down.

“FEMA told me because I was offered the loan and refused it, they couldn’t give me my $26,000. Ain’t nobody in their right mind going to loan a 75-year-old man $190,000,” he said. “It just ain’t right.”

FEMA did offer him $11,000 for the destroyed contents of his home. Later on, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency gave him a grant of $23,000 for the first phase of their Katrina relief grant program. A few months later, MEMA asked him to return the money, saying he had never actually qualified for the grant.

“Six months ago they told me I had qualified for the Phase II grant. I told them to take it out of there if they wanted their money back so bad, because I certainly wasn’t going to give it back,” Wilkinson said. “But I found out last week that they were lying to me this whole time and I’m not getting any Phase II money.”

In order to finish his home, which needs only drywall, paint, flooring and his elevator, he needs about 10,000 more dollars.

“If I can’t get my money from the state, I’ll have to spend my burial money and go find a lawyer. I don’t know what else I can do.”

Last night our team from South Carolina had a joint evening program with another church from their area staying a few miles up the road in Waveland, giving us interns the night off. Rather than take off for the beach or head into New Orleans, we took the opportunity to lend an extra hand.

I met Sonny Wilkinson on my first day here in Pearlington and have had to go back and talk with him almost every day of my stay. Despite his hard financial luck after the storm, the 75-year-old man wears a cheery attitude and wide grin as consistently as he wears a plaid shirt and blue jeans.

Yesterday we noticed that one of our groups had left the vinyl siding on his new house crooked. Cory had the idea to spend our evening bringing him dinner and fixing the siding. We also invited along his two friends Bud and Dilbert to join us.

We brought over a feast of barbeque brisquit, watermelon, strawberries, macaroni salad and a staple of our deep southern diet–sweet tea.

While helping Sonny with his siding was a rewarding task, it was small in comparison to listening to the old men. They shared their stories and jokes with the precision and timing that only years of practice can bring. And they still laughed genuinely at each one.

Sitting there on the porch swing with Sonny, it was clear to me, and I would think to the rest of the group, that these are the most important moments of our Experience Mission work. The homes that are built are a necessity for the community, but they are ultimately temporary. However, the relationships we build with the community are permanent. The vinyl siding at Sonny’s house will ultimately wear down and weather, but his hearty laughter will not.

-Matt Grager

One of the most appealing things about staying here in Pearlington is the amazing people I have met. Like no other place I’ve traveled to, this community has come together to help one another. The same small town unity that spreads the local gossip so easily has also, it seems, spread the resources and connections.

After the eye of Hurricane Katrina came straight through the town of about 1,600 every building was either destroyed or severely damaged. The only fresh water left after the salt water of the Gulf of Mexico rose between 12 and 20 feet above the ground was at the artesian well of Larry and Beth Randall. They can look back now and laugh at the nudity in their lawn as people came to shower. Even the small outhouse they built as a community shower, toilet and vanity still stands outside their home.

But the Randalls didn’t stop there, after the disaster relief organizations left, the couple started the Pearlington Recovery Center using the land and buildings of the former schoolhouse, as a base for the rebuilding effort.

The PRC, where the Pearlington Team and I are staying, is made up of six bunkhouses, a few temporary cottages, some military tents and a half dozen trailers that have housed and fed volunteers from organizations across the world. The PRC also has what has come to be known as the Pearl Mart in the old gymnasium. At the Pearl Mart the community can come to get supplies from ice and water to building materials and even borrow tools.

Other members of the community have raised tools to help as well. A man I met today, who asked not to be spotlighted for his work, has worked since his retirement over a year ago to repair his neighbor’s homes. Right now, he has a few of our Experience Missionaries from South Carolina are working with him to take the rotted sheetrock from a home built in 1922 that sits only a hundred yards down the road from his own home.

It’s reassuring to see that the workers that come to the area are only the supporting cast of the effort, and that the community has decided to spend its time swinging a hammer rather than reaching for handouts.

- Matt Grager

The last few days of this rural mission trip, the team from Montgomery, Texas spent in Pearlington brought the Vince and McArthur homes even closer to completion. The team resolved the plumbing problem in the Vince home and began working on some electrical issues they had discovered. Also, members of the team enjoyed time visiting with Kendra McArthur’s former caregiver, Dot, who is currently housing Kendra and her two children until their house is finished.

On Wednesday afternoon a few women visited a loving, Christ-filled woman named Lily. Each woman was blessed through listening to this elderly lady’s stories about life after Katrina and her faith in God. Full of praise for her Heavenly Father, she radiated His love to her guests.

Another highlight of the week here in Mississippi on this adult mission trip was Wednesday evening, when the Montgomery Team blessed our team of interns by taking us out for pizza. Each of us thoroughly enjoyed this time of fellowship. The evening was completed by joining another team of volunteers for worship and evening service in Bay St. Louis where Glenn Locklin shared a message of encouragement. Glenn’s wife also thanked the groups present and discussed her personal growth through the last few years, helping to create the atmosphere of mutual edification. Members of each team stood to retell situations at their worksites that had positively affected their attitudes.

We were sad to see the Montgomery Team leave early Friday morning, but we exchanged emails and might even have the chance to spend more time with one member, Sharon, later this summer as she hopes to return once again.

-Cheryl Knowles

Our peaceful Sunday quickly became a frenzy of activity when the mission trips for the summer began, a team of ten from Montgomery, Texas, arrived over an hour ahead of the time we had scheduled. While this added some pressure, Team Pearlington enjoyed the surprise because it eliminated any potential nerves and prompted a pleasant alertness. For most of the Montgomery team, this is their second year serving in Pearlington through EM, and they have enjoyed reconnecting with people and projects from the last time they were here.

The team has been blessed with a few new volunteers, however, one of which is a contractor, David. This has enabled the team to meet most of their goals so far on the two houses to which they have been assigned: Joe Vince, whose home they helped construct last year, and Kendra McArthur. Both houses are almost finished and the future occupants are very eager to move in; the homes mostly require some electrical, plumbing, and painting final touches. Based on the statuses of both houses, it has been helpful to have a smaller, more experienced team working on them this week.

One setback occurred yesterday when they turned on Joe Vince’s water and discovered that some previous work on the plumbing (before this team even arrived) had left a leak. The team is disappointed that this will delay the finish date even more, but thankful that they could be the ones to catch the leak because of David’s expertise. During debriefing in the evening, the team discussed God’s sovereignty and foreknowledge, recognizing that He has a bigger plan than any of us can see right now.

While half the group has been working on the construction described, the other half of the group has been helping cook and serve lunch at a church close by that prepares food for hundreds of volunteers each day. The meal is a tremendous treat for hot, tired volunteers and some locals, giving everyone a delicious taste of true southern cooking. These women are also spending their mornings painting a building, which they finished yesterday, for the Pearlington Recovery Center, cleaning PRC facilities such as showers and the kitchen, and washing laundry that has been sitting in wadded, bug-infested piles for probably months. In the afternoons these same volunteers are visiting a few elderly community members and listening to their stories. Everyone involved seems to enjoy the reciprocal impact.

-Cheryl Knowles

Team Pearlington is truly experiencing life in the deep south…and loving it. Cory and I arrived by car at the Pearlington recovery center late Friday night, while Mark Danielle flew into New Orleans the next day. Autumn Merritt, Trip Coordinator for the Pearlington EM site last summer and our Staff Advisor for this summer, accompanied them as well, and stayed until early Thursday morning to show us the ropes.

When I say “life in the deep south” I am referring to swimming in the Pearl River (the locals say alligators rarely come to that spot), rooting for a chicken to poop on the square for which you bid a dollar, looking forward to fried pickles after pouring concrete for three hours, and listening to hour upon hour of country songs sung by locals who sound just as if they could be on the radio. Of course those are classified as “highlights.” Also part of this reality is chasing cockroaches around the bunkhouse some nights before going to sleep and wondering if it’s worth showering when the humidity seems to eliminate its results ten minutes later anyway.

We are even more excited, however, about the relationships we have begun to build here, both with those who run the Recovery Center and also with some locals. Two of our very first contacts were Larry and Beth Randall, who have always lived in Pearlington and are helping realize plans to rebuild their hometown. Larry is one of the directors of the Recovery Center, the place where we all stay and through which we are working, and both he and Beth open their home daily to dozens of volunteers. The other director of the Pearlington Recovery Center is Glenn Locklin, also known as “Big Glenn.” He carries the title well, and still dresses in styles he learned from his biker days. Glenn has an incredible testimony and has definitely earned all of our respect; he left his home in Tennessee after Katrina to help out in Pearlington, and now his family lives here too. He oversees most of the construction along with Ricky, another local, whose church we visited on Sunday

Another highlight of the past week has been connecting with a returning volunteer, Tomyra Redman, who plans to help out in Pearlington until Thursday. She has joined us on all of our adventures since she arrived, helped us adjust to this foreign culture, and most importantly kept us laughing. The five of us, also joined by Larry, Beth, Glenn, and Ricky, enjoyed trying our voices at karaoke last night – a very serious pastime around here.

We are all very excited for our first team who is arriving on Sunday evening. Although a small team, we know God will work through them and us for His glory, and that relationships and Pearlington homes will continue to be built.

-Cheryl Knowles