Berean Hurricane Katrina Blog: July 2008

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Edgemont Bible Church

A blog by Lucky Wagner from Edgemont Bible Church…

What a wonderful and blessed trip we had to New Orleans. Berean NOLA was a fantastic host and kudos to Samantha and Pastor Doug for the hospitality and having families ready for us. We had opportunities to witness to a lady where we did some work and she made a profession of faith. The first house where we worked had two girls, ages 7ish and 11ish, and what a delight they were. They wanted to help and enjoyed doing so.

The highlight(s) of our trip was working VBS at Fischer in the evening. All of us enjoyed the interaction with the children. We helped in various classrooms, with the singing by playing guitars and the keyboard, and in counseling. It was a blessing to us to help in that area.

The historical trip Lawrence took us on was extremely informative and eye-opening to all of us. The overview of New Orleans before the trip was very beneficial, the explanation of why the levees broke and which ones broke, and why we heard so much about the ninth Ward.

We enjoyed the interaction with the other groups and being able to worship on Sunday morning with the church body. Hosting other churches that travel to New Orleans to assist in the rebuilding of New Orleans is a great idea.

On our way home we talked about continuing this ministry in the St. Louis area with the elderly and have begun to do so. Other ideas were to have a first and second responder team to help with disasters such as hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and earthquakes. Thank you Berean for “loving your neighbor as yourself”.

Lucky Wagner
Edgemont Bible Church

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Fischer 5 Day Club

Berean Fischer 5 Day Club
June 16-20

For the first time since Katrina, Berean hosted Fischer 5-day Club at Fischer Charter School. We had been sending work teams to the community of Fischer for the past 3 years. So we have stayed connected but had not been involved as a church for a while. It was great to get back out there with our church family. The kids as well as the adults had a blast. Eileen Daspit was the director and did and awesome job! I worked in the 11-year-old classroom as the classroom coordinator. Doug was the Bible teacher and Colin and Rob were helpers. I have some pictures I took, yes I know, they’re mostly all of my class, but you get the idea.

Much thanks to all the work teams that have helped at Fischer, you have helped us stay connected to the community and the children.

-Samantha

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Wheaton – Edgemont – Salem

June 14^th

Wheaton – Edgemont – Salem

This week we had groups in from Wheaton Bible Church in Wheaton, IL, Edgemont Bible Church in Fairview Heights, IL and First Baptist Salem from Salem, OR. We kicked off the week with an orientation with Doug, Lawrence, Melissa and myself. The teams were really pumped up afterwards. On Monday Wheaton headed over to Doug’s dad house and Barbara’s Smith’s home. They also helped by cleaning up around the nursing home. The team was also really excited about hitting the street with Lawrence for evangelism late in the week. Edgemont was over at Diamond Dussett’s home, helping with some skilled jobs he had. For the first time since Katrina, Berean held Fischer 5-day club, and Edgemont helped out. They also helped Pastor Elijah clean up in the 9 th ward. Salem helped out at Melda Clarks house. They built a cover for her hot water heater and various other jobs. Then they went over to Fischer Elementary to paint.

Orientation with Wheaton and Edgemont

Some weeks we dont play any knockout, some weeks we play alot. This week we played ALOT.

The three teams hanging out in the gym

The team from Salem brought down quilts that women in their church had made to give to people in New Orleans, they we so sweet to give one to Melissa, Doug and I.

Wheaton