Mennonite Weekly Review

GULFPORT, Miss. — Members of Gulfhaven Mennonite Church burned the mortgage on their church building during a celebration Jan. 12-14, a gathering that would have happened in 2005 had Hurricane Katrina not intervened.

Worshipers fill the restored sanctuary at Gulfhaven Mennonite Church in Gulfport, Miss., for the congregation’s mortgage-burning celebration.

More than 1,100 volunteers from around the country came to Gulfhaven to help with cleanup and rebuilding after Katrina, and some returned for the mortgage-burning. The gathering also celebrated the church’s relief outreach and helped banish some of the storm’s lingering gloom.

“This thing still hangs on, and there’s still a cloud over your head,” Pastor Nelson Roth said Jan. 18. “We needed to celebrate.”

The winds and 30-foot storm surge from Katrina, which devastated much of the northern Gulf Coast region on Aug. 29, 2005, heavily damaged Gulfport and affected all of Gulfhaven’s member families, according to Roth. The Gulfhaven church building, about eight miles from the coast, also was damaged.

After Katrina, Gulfhaven’s members undertook a multi-phased cleanup and reconstruction effort that not only repaired the church and the homes of several members, but reached into the surrounding community.

Roth said during the first 10 weeks after Katrina, the church participated in more than 200 cleanup projects. After this, members and volunteers undertook 80 home rebuilding projects.

More than 300 people attending the mortgage-burning service and related events Jan. 14.

“All of our leaders who volunteered as project directors of the different phases were back,” Roth said. “It was just wonderful to see them again … and to be able to thank them.”

On Jan. 12, Roth said, the church held a home blessing to commemorate these projects and presented quilts to 10 families, both members and non-members, whose homes were rebuilt through the church’s efforts.

In addition to helping the community, Roth said, the relief work has brought several new members to Gulfhaven. Since Katrina, there have been two new-member classes, with another slated to begin this month.