BSU aids victims on spring break

Over spring break, 35 GCSU students traveled to Lakeshore, Miss. for six days to help alleviate hurricane damage on the Gulf Coast.

For decades now, GCSU’s Baptist Student Union (BSU) has taken mission trips during spring break.

“This spring break is the first opportunity that many of us have had to do some hands on service down there,” junior Brett Chatham said. “I think that it was something that God was leading me towards for about six months now; this was just the first opportunity I had to go.”

While in Mississippi, the students got a chance to see the hurricane damage first hand.

“The whole area was devastated,” junior Hannah Turner said. “That was the most intense part for me. Entire communities were just ripped apart and I couldn’t believe it.”

In total, there were about 65 people from Milledgeville that traveled to Mississippi. Five local churches sent adults who had experience in construction with the BSU team, as well as adults who were willing to cook for the group during their week there.

“We invited the adults to go with us because we knew that they had skills and resources that we didn’t,” BSU intern Cyndi Forman said. “I knew that we could go down there as a group of students and make a difference, but by incorporating adults we were able to be so much more productive.”

The students were split into groups of about 5-10 and performed various tasks throughout the community. There were groups gutting out homes in the area, some cleaning out a library to salvage books and some working to improve conditions at the church campsite.

Each student contributed $55 towards mission trip fees, and the cost of supplies and food were mainly covered by the Baptist conference, which raised funds that were set aside only for college missions in that area.

“We had a huge amount of money that was made available to us through the Disaster Relief Program with the Georgia Baptist Convention,” Forman said. “People in the Baptist churches all over the state of Georgia had been giving money to go towards disaster relief.”

Lakeshore Baptist Church in Mississippi housed the Milledgeville mission team and in turn some team members assisted with at the church camp site.

“I was mostly doing construction,” Chatham said. “Our job was to make the stay for the next missionaries much easier so they could focus on the conditions at hand.”

Sophomore Helen Nichols had the opportunity to help clean out houses in an area that had been mostly abandoned.

“I was gutting out houses,” Nichols said. “This one man had only been back once since the hurricane and (his house) was a mess. There was rotted meat in the freezer and I was picking up something and there was a dead rat.”

Some of the students had the opportunity to meet some of the residents there and help out in ways that were not directly related to rebuilding or renovating property.

“Getting to meet people down there was my favorite part,” Turner said. “I was able to help people carry groceries to and from the store or take care of children. That was one of the blessings I received.”

Turner and Nichols said they were amazed at the faith of the people in the area in spite of all that they had lost.

“They were normal everyday people,” Turner said. “I was humbled by their strength, even though probably none of them would say they are strong. They are living there and going to work everyday while having to clean up their lives.”

Chatham said he would like to have more contact with the Lakeshore residents if he is able to go back again.

“I would really like to go out into the community so I can get a better feel of how this hurricane affected the people in the area,” Chatham said. “I feel like there are so many stories that I didn’t get to experience because I wasn’t around the people who were affected by it.”

Overall, there appeared to be no regrets from those on the mission team about how they spent their spring break.

“It was amazing,” Nichols said. “It was definitely the best spring break.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Mar 31 2006. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry