In rebuilding a church, they built lasting connections.
Members of the Marysville United Methodist Church live here, but their hearts remain with the people of the Gulf Coast.
That was true in the months after Hurricane Katrina, when teams from the church brought hope to Waveland, Miss., by refurbishing its flood-damaged Waveland United Methodist Church. It was true over this Labor Day weekend, as New Orleans and nearby coastal communities anxiously awaited an expected hammering by Hurricane Gustav.
Those communities were largely spared this time, but were much on the mind of the Rev. Thomas Albright, senior pastor of the Marysville church.
“I was glued to the computer for 10 minutes every hour,” said Albright, who made four trips to Waveland as his congregation took on the rebuilding mission. About 50 people from the Marysville church paid their own way to help, and many more gave financially.
“We got hooked on the church,” Albright said. Several members of his church have returned to Waveland to help with vacation Bible school there.
When he arrived in Mississippi in December 2005, a few months after Katrina’s fury, Albright said, many people were still in a state of shock.
“Our people were describing them as like deer in the headlights,” Albright said. “It helped them just to have people work alongside them, to come and say, ‘You’re not alone.’ ”
In the aftermath of Hurricane Gustav, the Snohomish County Chapter of the American Red Cross has more than two dozen people deployed to help. Some are working with evacuees in Texas.
Long after the storm has died and the worst of the wreckage has been swept away, some volunteers may find themselves permanently changed.
Meg Rounds, a retired Marysville teacher, was with those from the Marysville United Methodist Church who helped in Waveland after Katrina. She first volunteered there in the spring of 2006. In some ways, she never left.
Her mission is now broader. Rounds goes back to lend teaching expertise and goodwill to G.W. Hamilton Elementary School in Baldwin, La., a small town west of New Orleans. Her trips, made with the United Methodist Committee on Relief, have nothing to do with hurricanes.
“They weren’t hit by Katrina, but they were very frightened,” she said. She goes as an answer to poverty and educational need. She takes pens, pencils and paper to the impoverished school.
In a cultural exchange, she brings stories of children there back home to Marysville. Her grandson, Preston Rounds, is a second-grader at Quil Ceda Elementary School. Last year, she visited his classroom to talk about Louisiana. Kids at Quil Ceda made Mardi Gras masks. The students have sent letters back and forth, Louisiana to Marysville.
“Kids here have so much, they don’t even know,” said Rounds, who is retired from teaching kindergarten at Shoultes Elementary in Marysville. “I don’t make much difference, but I have to go back. I am led to go there.
“I had never in my whole life wanted to go to New Orleans. Now, I love the people. My heart is there,” Rounds said.
Steve Keep, of Everett, is another Marysville United Methodist Church member who made several trips to Waveland in the rebuilding effort. He spent much of the holiday weekend watching news of Hurricane Gustav.
“It sure does bring it all back,” Keep said. He was in Mississippi last year to pitch in with the ongoing recovery from Katrina. In Pascagoula, Miss., he met a couple who’d been living in a backyard tent from September 2005 until October 2007.
“It really hit me. The Katrina damage, they’re not back from that yet,” Keep said.
Albright, the Marysville pastor, said his congregation was ready if Hurricane Gustav had been as horrific as Katrina.
“Yes, I thought, we would rally and do it again,” Albright said. “As a pastor, I’m often dealing with the tragic and unexpected. I’m reminded of how little we really control.”
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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