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Church spreads spirit of help, relief

A trip to ravaged areas of Mississippi prompts a Messiah Lutheran group to create a relief team.

By SHERYL KAY
Published October 15, 2006

ODESSA - A trip to Biloxi, Miss., last year changed Joel Mathews' life.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Mathews headed up to the ravaged Gulf Coast with nine other members of Messiah Lutheran Church to provide disaster relief.

"The physical devastation alone was hard to imagine," said Mathews, 49, a Hillsborough County sheriff's deputy. "Foundations of buildings that had no buildings there anymore, and night after night after night, people with no food."

Mathews and his group stayed in Biloxi for 10 days, helping to clear debris and distribute food and clothing. Mathews found it enormously gratifying to know he was making a tangible difference in people's lives.

Mathews brought his energies from the Biloxi experience back to Tampa. Under the umbrella of the statewide Lutheran Services-Disaster Response group, he has organized a response team out of Messiah Lutheran that not only serves in disasters, but also trains other disaster-relief groups.

Faith-based organizations serve a critical role in disaster relief, said Stew Gaylord, volunteer coordinator for the Florida group, because they can supplement what governments and the military provide. From repairs on personal property and assistance with paperwork, to tending to emotional or spiritual needs, a church organization can respond to all phases of the disaster.

"Joel, and his group at Messiah Lutheran, exhibits the best of what we hope for in all of our early response crews," Gaylord said. "He's not in this for any personal gain, but rather to minister to the needs of others."

Since Biloxi, Mathews has received training at his own expense in chain-saw operations, chain-saw safety, and professional arbor master woodcutting equipment.

He has designed a course that he and his team members at Messiah Lutheran bring to other churches. Basic disaster-response techniques are covered, including how to tarp a roof, operate a chain saw and mucking out a flooded home.

Kathy Ericsson, 38, one of Mathews' team members, is helping teach other volunteers about food distribution.

"I worked in the food pantry and saw 300 people a day," said Ericsson, a stay-at-home mom. "When these people said they had nothing, they really meant it. They had nothing."

Ericsson is training others to identify what essentials must be in hurricane kits, and how to deliver dwindling food supplies to hundreds of people. She also is helping to develop a child-care model so that during a disaster, churches will have qualified people on hand to watch young children, freeing up the parents to consult insurance companies, contractors, and government agencies for assistance.

While this hurricane season has been a quiet one for Mathews' team, there still is an occasional call for help. Mathews stressed that his group is not a tree removal service, but for those congregational members who are in financial need, or who are not physically able to remove trees that pose a danger to the home, his group will come in and perform the cleanup.

In the past several months, Mathews has run his training program at Messiah Lutheran, and has traveled to Winter Haven and New Port Richey to present the class at other Lutheran churches. But his vision is to offer the training for churches all over the state and perhaps the country.

And not just Lutheran churches.

"There's so much work to be done when it comes to disaster recovery, that there's room for everyone," Mathews said.

For more information about Mathews' group and his training course, call Messiah Lutheran at 813 961-2182. Contact Sheryl Kay with any religion news at skreporter@hotmail.com or (813) 230-8788.

[Last modified October 14, 2006, 22:03:35]