Even before Katrina hit land Southern Baptist Disaster Relief workers were in neighboring states waiting for her to pass through so they could go in & begin ministering to the victims. Each state association has their own Disaster Relief Unit, but since I'm in IL that's the one I worked on & know the most about. Each state association's teams went to different areas. IL Baptist's we

nt to Bogalusa, LA. Bogalusa is a town of about 13,000 residents near the Mississippi border, about an hour north of New Orleans.

When the first team arrived with the mobile kitchen, food & other equipment at about 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 31 they found the town completely dark & totally devastated by winds that had reached nearly 200 miles per hour during the hurricane. Thousands of huge trees were uprooted & broken off everywhere you could see. Bogalusa is a town with a great deal of poverty. They were afraid they had been forgotten because of the larger cities of New Orleans & Biloxi. We were grateful to be a part of feeding over 130,000 meals & helping clear the trees off of peoples homes in this community so they could get back in their homes.

You can read more about the first team to arrive in the September 14, 2005 issue of the IL Baptist or go to then Illinois Baptist & find the September 14, 2005 issue.

The team I was on arrived at about 1:15 a.m. September 11, 2005. After a couple hours sleep we were up & preparing meals. We had 22 people in our team, 3 of them went out on a chainsaw crew to help get trees off of houses & the rest of us worked in & around the kitchen.