August 31, 2006
By Lauren Wilkes Auttonberry

Action was the operative word along the Mississippi Gulf Coast this week as Episcopalians observed the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina by continuing their commitment to rebuilding.

August 28 was a typical south Mississippi day. It was hot and humid – not the perfect day to be working in the sun. Yet, that is exactly what the Rev. Elizabeth Wheatley, rector of the destroyed Christ Episcopal Church in Bay St. Louis, did.

Along with her fiancé, Butch Jones, Wheatley spent the morning working with other local volunteers on one of ten "Kaboom!" playgrounds damaged by Katrina along the Gulf Coast.

"I told my congregations yesterday, that as we approach the anniversary, how valuable it is, both emotionally and spiritually, to be involved with a project that has an end; that has some closure to it," said Wheatley. "I encouraged each of them to do this within a bigger context; something outside just themselves."

To the west, at Camp Coast Care (CCC), in Long Beach, final preparations were underway to give away the first of the "Camp Coast Care Cabins." These modest, one- and two-bedroom homes are being fabricated on the CCC campus, and will be moved onto homeowner's lots to replace houses destroyed by Katrina. The project is enabling Lutheran Episcopal Services in Mississippi (LESM), Episcopal Relief and Development and CCC to get more families back into homes and out of the travel trailers, which dot the coastal landscape.

Bishop Duncan M. Gray III of Mississippi blessed and dedicated the first of the homes August 29 for Mary and Thomas Robinson of Pass Christian.

Full story and photographs: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_77466_ENG_HTM.htm,

Episcopal News Service