By Chris Rohwer

Photos by Laura Tappan and Dawn Headrick

Mission trips always leave me feeling like I gained more than I gave.  It is hard to know where to begin with our church’s trips (17) to Mississippi to work on Katrina houses.  Summing it up, my biggest sentiment is realizing the sense of hope that we gave these people.  After broken promises from so many, by us just showing up gave folks living under such terrible conditions hope.

My first experience in Pearlington, MS was sheet rocking George and Irma’s home. Living in a FEMA trailer just feet from their flooded home, George had entered the house only a couple of times in nine months.  He walked in a sad and hopeless way, unable to process what had happened to his home for many decades.

Each day we worked, George gained back his life.  From just shuffling around the first day, to picking up scraps and then by the end of the week helping to install sheet rock.  George was returning to himself; he now had hope.  At our last meal, Irma spoke and thanked our group.  I will never forget her statement that “we had not only given her home back, but we also gave her husband back”.

The second home that trip belonged to a younger couple.  Their home had flooded halfway up the walls of the second floor.  They were living with the walls stripped out of their home.  Answering her door and seeing me with my tool bag, her face simply said, “the cavalry had arrived”.  We delivered hope.

Each return trip to Mississippi had similar experiences.  FCPC members have since taken their skills to West Virginia and most recently to Erwin, TN.  All our church missions leave the people we serve better off . . . and we have taken away so much more.  Out of chaos, Hope!