After sending 15 short term teams, about 150 people, to Biloxi, MS over the last 3 years, I finally was able to go and see it myself. What an incredible experience. Now I know why so many have come back talking about how much they were affected. I’ve listened to many stories told by team members; those stories have now come alive for me. And, now, I have a story of my own.

I was hoping to meet Ms. Joan. We drove by her house but she wasn’t home. It was good to just see her house. You may have heard this story already – we’ve told it many times. Some of our PC3 team members helped rebuild Ms. Joan’s house. Some of the same team members would go back time and again, continuing to build on it. Somewhere during that process, Ms. Joan became a believer in Jesus and was baptized……at 80 years old.

One of the guys working alongside the staff and volunteers at LeMoyne really stuck out of the crowd. I thought I heard someone call him ‘Jimmy’. That name rang a bell….maybe you read about Jimmy in Overflow’s Biloxi Mission blog this past March. Jimmy’s family’s home was destroyed by hurricane Katrina. Then, Jimmy’s car was T-boned leaving him with debilitating and some lingering injuries. I introduced myself to Jimmy and told him I thought one of our teams had worked on his home. He lit up! He kept saying ‘I love those guys.’ Jimmy and his wife proceeded to tell me how they keep a picture of that team in their living room. The next day, Jimmy came in handing me the framed picture of 27 smiling faces I recognized as the PC3 March ’08 Overflow team.

So now our team gets to add another story - that of Walter. Walter didn’t have a house before the storm; he rented the only apartment he could afford on his very minimal disability support. When Katrina destroyed that apartment and there was nothing else he could afford to rent afterwards, he moved in with some family members and spiraled quickly into destitution and drug addiction. Knowing it may be his only remaining hope, Walter’s sister, a member at LeMoyne, asked LeMoyne to consider helping Walter. Although Walter didn’t fit what most would consider the picture of someone deserving help, God led LeMoyne to believe that they needed to build him a home. Walter’s sister provided the land – right beside her home – and teams began building. Our team arrived to a framed, wrapped, and roofed structure, with a couple of pieces of siding nailed up. We worked diligently to finish putting up the siding, the insulation and almost all the drywall. We chuckled a little that Walter’s sister had so painstakingly chosen and insisted on a specific color – ‘butter’. But after we painted the entire outside of the house, we had the privilege of stepping back and enjoying our handiwork – one of the happiest little yellow homes any of us had ever seen.

The greater privilege was getting to know Walter – an undeserving man so overwhelmed at the love of others that he couldn’t even bring himself to tell us goodbye when we left….just ‘I love y’all so much’, ‘I’m gonna miss y’all so much’. This was, perhaps, the most profound example of grace I’ve ever witnessed. Someone who had never done anything himself to acquire a home, who – from our point of view – didn’t ‘deserve’ a home but maybe instead punishment for some of the things he’d done in his life… who now has a home, free of charge, owing no debt, his only part in this is to accept this free gift. Is this not exactly like God’s completely free gift of salvation to us? Is this not a beautiful picture of God’s grace? By the way, over the course of LeMoyne caring for Walter, he’s become a believer in Christ and has found his place in a community of other believers there at LeMoyne.

After three years, Biloxi (and many other areas of the Gulf Coast) are not restored. In most neighborhoods within several miles of the water you’ll see one newly rebuilt home, next to it a barren concrete slab where a house once stood, next to it a house partially repaired with some of the windows still boarded and a FEMA trailer still in the yard, and so on. Help is still needed.

We go for a week (or even multiple weeks over the last few years) and think we’ve done a little something. We see that the real ‘heroes’ are those who live there – who live this out each day, plodding along, turning what we’ll all remember as one of the worst US disasters ever into an opportunity to be the message of Christ in their community. They have met the many challenges with faith and hope. Their reward has been an increase in their faith by seeing God’s remarkable ongoing provision, people coming to know Christ, and even more people being renewed and deepening their walks with God.

What’s cool is we’ve experienced some of those same things in our short term mission team members. As a result of seeing the message of Christ lived out before them, people have returned from Biloxi taking next – and sometimes really big – steps in their walks. Many have joined small groups, begun serving in PC3 ministries or serving others in other ways. A few have actually begun their relationship with Christ during their week in Biloxi! A few have clarified God’s direction in their lives and headed to another country to serve. Many who have gone to Biloxi renewed their sense of who God is and ALL have gained insight into how God works.

We hope you’ll consider going to Biloxi. We hope you’ll meet Joan, Jimmy, Walter,…… and begin your own story in Biloxi. We know you won’t return the same.

—Submitted by Christie Coley