Praise the Lord! We have the church building construction drawings in hand. We have dropped off a duplicate set to the Hancock County Building Department and applied for a permit to build.
For those interested, we have posted the PDF Construction Drawings.
Over the past few years Rebuild Lakeshore has been morphing from a disaster relief outpost and mission trip destination, into a great location for conferences and retreats.
This past weekend men from North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Florida, and Delaware joined locals for a “Men’s Summit.” In our main sessions Pastor Jeff Kisiah, of Charlotte NC, challenged the men to cultivate the attributes of a Godly man as found in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9.
Pastor Jeff, affectionately known as “Coach K” encouraged us to find discipleship opportunities in the context of what he calls “the ministry of hanging out.” We showed our out of town guests how to do this gulf coast style. We spent the day Saturday preparing our evening meal which consisted of a pecan wood roasted wild pig, grilled venison sausage, boiled crabs, boiled shrimp, and of course all the sides like baked beans, potato salad, coleslaw, and a table full of pies.
Several of the out of town guys also carved out time to make some local visits with folks they had met on previous disaster relief trips to our area. Others got their fishing lines wet and we set up a firing range on the church property, because what kind of men’s summit doesn’t involve guns? Each evening concluded around the fire pit near the bunk house with testimonies of God’s grace and songs of praise. We all look forward to hosting similar events in the future.
Fifty students from Mercer University’s Baptist Collegiate Ministry spent their 2012 fall break on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. They enjoyed a very productive Mission / Retreat trip. The energetic students demolished two Katrina blighted homes in Bay St. Louis.
As soon as boots hit the ground on the first property, their leader, Chris Fuller, called a pow-wow with the engineering students to devise the best line of atack. Seven years of growth surrounded the dilapidated house that sat atop piers in the Garden Isle community. The undaunted team tackled the undergrowth to give themselves some working room and then turned their sites on the structure itself. With safety as their first concern and fun as their second, they labored together as a living illustration of Colossians 3:23 “”Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord.” The strategy, team work, energy, and God glorifying attitude saw the task completed in an amazing short order.
With one project under their belt, they turned to a second. Earlier this summer, a crew of teenagers from Louisiana gutted and prepared an area home for demolition. The Mercer students finished the task by dismantling the structure piece by piece.
The appreciation level of local residence continues to run high as folks from across the country refuse to forget about the Mississippi gulf coast.
On the Seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we found ourselves in the middle of another named storm. Isaac blew in with category 1 force winds and didn’t want to leave. In fact I hear another band of rain falling on the church office roof now, as I type this. We have power; and a good bit of clean-up ahead of us. Nothing even close to Katrina, but I’m sure most folks would rather be doing something else for labor day weekend.
On the church property we had a few trees fall, it looks like we lost quonsett hut Mark, the tarp blew off the roof of the ark, the bunk house fans are toast, some of the screen blew out of the kitchen, the church banner from the metal building probably is in the Kiln somewhere, and we have limbs all over the place. Other than that, and a few other things, everything seems fine. I need to do a little more reconnaissance and start prioritizing the clean-up and repairs.
I can not tell you how comforting it is that we have so many friends from across the country keeping us in prayer in times like these. Thank you so much.
Thanks to the generous folks over at BalboaTech, we have a new web site as they donate web hosting services to Rebuild Lakeshore. If you need a web site, I highly recommend checking them out. With their state of the art servers, I am able to do some things on the back-end that I couldn’t do before. I am taking this opportunity to do a complete site overhall. In the coming weeks I’ll bring all the old content over and tweek the design. In the meantime, I wanted to get everything up and running as we watch a tropical storm heading our way scheduled to hit on the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Stay tuned.
When I dove into the blogosphere in January of last year, I had little anticipation of making much of a splash. Little did I know that in God’s providence my blog would serve as a tool to bring thousands to Lakeshore in the wake of the worst natural disaster to ever hit the continental United States.
For the past 15 months, I have used my blog to chronicle the relief, recovery, and rebuilding efforts in Lakeshore. The overwhelming task has kept me from doing little more than offering brief snapshots into the ongoing miraculous outpouring of God’s mercy.
Shortly after the storm, our friends created a web site to aid in communication of ongoing needs. Hundreds of teams continue to flood Lakeshore with their generosity, yet so much remains left to do. God has given us a passion to see the work through to completion – a task that will take years. Knowing that information fuels interest and efficiency we have re-launched our Rebuild Lakeshore web site. We pray that the the newly designed site will benefit groups wanting to help with ongoing needs and projects, teams making mission trip plans, and individuals wanting to keep up to date with the progress in Lakeshore. Check the Rebuild Lakeshore blog often or subscribe to the rss feed. Keep us in your prayers as we strive to Rebuild Lakeshore to the glory of God and see the fame of His name spread through our community.
Lord willing, I plan to continue posting to both sites. My Locust and Wild Honey blog will probably revert to some of its pre-storm flavor with devotional thoughts, personal opinions, information of interest, book and web site recommendations, historical tidbits, and miscellaneous musings. The Rebuild Lakeshore blog will serve as a news outlet for the ongoing relief, recovery, and rebuilding efforts.
If you have not been to the gulf coast, and even if you have, you can not imagine how much clean-up and rebuilding remains. Check out Jamie’s blog as she highlights some of the work accomplished in the past 31 days and asks, “Where did October go?”
I wish I had time to blog about every team and every project. God continues to flood us with His overwhelming mercy and grace through the sweat and tireless efforts of so many folks.
Over 30 different groups worked with us in October alone. I thank God for the great people last month who came from Immanuel Baptist Church – Louisville, Ky, Mt. Harmony – Riceville, TN, First Baptist Church – Tullahoma, TN, Midway Baptist Church – Meridian, MS, Highlands Fellowship – Abingdon, VA, Sixth Street Baptist – Alexander City, AL, Oleander United Methodist – Arab, AL, Tammy’s team from KY, Trinity Baptist Church – Baton Rouge LA, Kyle Jefferies and his group, AL, Hillsboro Baptist Church – Hillsboro, MS, Grace Bible – Southern NJ, Hagood Baptist – Barnwell, SC, Lineville Baptist Church – Lineville, AL, Heritage Hills Baptist Church – Douglasville, GA, Oakhurst Baptist Church – Clarksdale, MS, Providence Presbyterian Church – Hilton Head, SC, University of Mississippi – Oxford, MS, Sierra First Baptist Church – Alta, CA, Harvest Community Church – Charlotte, NC, Schriever Baptist Church – Schriever, LA, Northgate Baptist Church- Beckley, WV, New Beginning Family Worship Center – Northport, AL, Grace Bible Church – Canton, GA, New Life Church of Baton Rouge LA, Lima Baptist Temple – Lima, OH, Heritage Fellowship – TN, First Baptist of Natchitoches – Natchitoches, LA, First Baptist Church – Altamont, KS, Jeff Gardner, MI, First Baptist Benton – Benton, AR, Reunion Church – Chicago, IL, and I probably overlooked a few.
With most of these groups working on multiple projects, you can see why I have a hard time keeping up. Someone might feel the temptation to think that with all these folks that we have all the help we need. Nothing could be further from the truth. Come play your part in an overwhelming ministry of hope. Call us at (228) 469-0110 to plan your mission trip to Lakeshore.
Over the past 14 months, I have been asked the same question hundreds of times. When people discover that the eye of hurricane Katrina passed right over Lakeshore, they ask, “Did the storm destroy your church?” Our answer remains, “No. The storm did not destroy the church. It did demolish the buildings, but the church still stands strong.” While the winds and water wiped our structures completely off of the property and left our entire congregation homeless, the storm could not rip apart the community of faith God established in Lakeshore.
On Reformation Day, as I think of churches being demolished or standing strong, I’m reminded of Martin Luther’s bold assertion: the church stands or falls on the doctrine of sola feda (Faith Alone). I preached Romans 1:17 this past Sunday.
The body of Christ in Lakeshore shows strong resolve to move forward for God’s glory. As we begin to make plans to re-build our church buildings we want to hold onto the five solas of the reformation by standing solidly on scripture alone, proclaiming salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. We set our feet on the sure promise that Jesus made, “upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”
btw, in celebration of Reformation Day, check out the audio from today’s “Renewing Your Mind” broadcast. “Martin Luther’s Here I Stand” hosted by Max McLean.
I think it was last November when Northside Baptist Church of Charlotte, NC sent a team down to Lakeshore. This wonderful energetic crew helped in so many ways. In the video you can see them pouring the footers for our metal quanzet hut that serves as our temporary church building. The pictures encouraged me this morning because many of the homes they were doing preliminary work now have families living in them. For example, you see them hanging sheet rock in the Ward’s house – the Wards now have a beautiful home. They worked in the Nesome’s – the Nesomes now live back in their spacious house (FEMA campers get mighty cramped with 6 kids).
We could not have made a dent in the progress over the last 14 months without teams like Northside Baptist and hundreds of others giving of their time and talents to come down to lend assistance. Plenty of work remains to be done. Thousands of people still live in campers and need your help to rebuild their homes. Videos like this give you a glimpse into what a mission trip to Lakeshore feels like. Why not plan your trip today? Call our church office at (228) 469-0110 for details. If no one answers, it means we are probably all out working on houses. Please leave a message and we will return your call asap. We would love to see you come help rebuild Lakeshore to the glory of God.
My friend, Cindy Swanson, interviewed me for her radio show a couple of months ago. You can read and hear excerpts here: Katrina: One year later, a Mississippi church continues to rebuild. I want to thank Cindy and others who continue to help keep the relief, recovery, and rebuilding efforts in the conscience of people from across the country. We’ve seen progress over the past 14 months, but the task continues and we face years of ministry opportunity.
btw, Cindy also interviewed Justin Taylor recently as they discussed the question, “Where is God when bad things happen?” They highlighted the book “Suffering and the Sovereignty of God” that grew out of the 2005 Desiring God National Conference. In God’s providence, the conference came weeks after Katrina devastated our community. A year later we used the DVD series to re-enforce many of the issues we have grappled with since the storm as we point to our all-valuable sovereign God who can hold a hurricane in his hand as He turns unthinkable tragedy for His glory.
Let me recommend the material in book form, DVD, or free downloadable mp3.