PF couple returns from third Katrina mission

POST FALLS – Sharon and Paul King are local point persons for an outreach ministry nearly a continent away.

The Post Falls couple, ages 61 and 69, recently returned from their third trip to hurricane-ravaged New Orleans. They led a team from their congregation, His Place Evangelical Free Church, on a one-week mission to work in New Orleans and Covington, La., on the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain.

This was the Kings’ shortest visit to the area since the devastating Aug. 5, 2005, storm. Their first was for two weeks in November and December of that year, and they stayed for a month in April and May of last year.

In addition to the Kings, the latest team comprised Kelly Browning of Post Falls, Alan Sain of Coeur d’Alene and Christine and Jeff Rude of Spokane.

“We don’t have any professional building skills,” says Sharon King. “I’m a retired secretary from the Bonneville Power Administration, my husband was a machinist and the other folks are a factory worker, hairdresser, CAD designer and correctional officer at the Airway Heights prison.”

The Kings contend, however, that construction skills aren’t necessary. They describe installing a kitchen in one home and helping gut two other houses down to the studs.

Building materials have been donated by various churches and purchased with funds through private grants, they say.

And according to the couple, many property owners have yet to collect on their homeowners insurance.

“The worst part of the work is the smell and the cockroaches,” says Sharon King. “There’s black mold on walls up to where the water rose, and there’s a lot of dry rot and termite damage.”

But the nastiness of the work isn’t what the Kings want to talk about. They describe the welcoming and hopeful mood of the disaster victims and the camaraderie among their fellow volunteers.

Many residents who were forced to move because their homes were destroyed are returning, the Kings say.

“And they like to tell their survival stories to outsiders like us,” says Paul King. “Their fellow victims all have stories of their own, and they’ve heard them all. We’re ‘fresh meat.’

“And seeing people from all over gives the locals hope.”

The Kings characterize the residents’ mood as “hopeful and very grateful for the volunteers. They want to shake your hand.

“But they’re not at all happy with the government response. FEMA, the federal agency in charge of disaster response, is kind of a four-letter word down there,” Paul King says. However, the Kings say, government workers are reasonably efficient at hauling away trash that the volunteers pile at curbside.

“Help Wanted” signs are everywhere, the Kings report, and many stores are reopening.

Their fellow church members paid their way to the disaster area, and the group stayed in a disaster-relief command center at Trinity Evangelical Free Church in Covington, sleeping on air mattresses on the church floor.

That church, the Kings report, has housed some 8,000 volunteer workers from all over the country, representing hundreds of churches and faiths, including Baptists, Catholics, Mennonites, Lutherans and Amish.

“We come away from the area feeling blessed,” says Sharon King. She quotes a fellow volunteer named Patrick from New Hampshire as saying, “The work creates in me the heart of a Christian.”

The Kings encourage more volunteers from the Northwest.

“Everybody can do something,” says Paul King. “You can push a wheelbarrow, cook for other volunteers or do office work.”

The Kings say they plan to return for a fourth stint, perhaps this fall or next spring.

“But next time, we’re going to take our motor home, like we did when we went down for a month. I got tired of sleeping on the floor.”