Mennonite Disaster Service building 'Katrina cottages'

Courtesy photo RUBY THOMAS is out of her FEMA trailer and into a real house with help of the Mennonite Disaster Service and Second Hope Homes.

Joe Miller, pastor of First United Methodist Church in Newton, is one of the liaisons between Second Hope Homes, the Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS), and the people in need in Jasper and Newton Counties who still suffer from the effects of Hurricane Rita.

"These are poor counties," Miller observed driving from Jasper to Newton to Bon Wier. "People do the best they can, but they never had much to start with."

Miller moved to Newton just a couple of years before the hurricane and calls himself "an East Texan by choice."

After the 2005 storm, Miller worked with the original Self Help Housing organization, which was based in Newton, on plans that would have helped families build their own homes using sweat equity, donations, help from local contractors, and support from local financial institutions. It never quite got off the ground, in spite of a lot of hard work and good intentions.

RUBY THOMAS' cottage was built by MDS and Second Hope Homes.

But it has been reorganized as Second Hope Homes, now based in Jasper in an office across from Lowe's, and they have completed six homes this year and five major home repair jobs.

Volunteers from the Mennonite Disaster Service took up winter residence at the Baptist encampment outside Newton the first winter after Hurricane Rita, and began immediately to help people with their roofing needs. Mennonites send teams to help rebuild after disasters anywhere in the county; in the summer, they return to their own families and farms to take care of crops.

The MDS website informs volunteers, "This area (Newton) has the lowest per capita income in all of the Texas Counties."

Miller said the Mennonites found a good match; they like Newton, saw the need, and have come back each winter since the storm.

When MDS finds that homes are so far gone that roofing alone won't help, they raze the building and put up a new Katrina-style cottage.

There's not much paperwork involved, and no bureaucracy. Owners contribute what they can, pay what they can, help with labor if they can, and they get a bare-bones but live-able home.

The Mennonites contribute labor and bring their own tools. Second Hope Homes helps with building materials, donations, grants, creative financing, and isn't above begging. And everybody prays for miracles, which seem to occur regularly.

To date, almost 600 volunteers from all over the country and Canada have started 191 projects and completed 188.

There is no project end date on the MDS website.

Ruby Thomas

Ruby Thomas lived in a single wide in Sand Jack, a community near Bon Wier, which is barely a blip in the road near the Louisiana line.

The storm destroyed her home, although she tried to continue to live in it until mold drove her out. Then FEMA supplied a travel trailer, but she became concerned about that, and when they asked, she told them to come and haul it off.

She has been living in her daughter's small house next door, but just two weeks ago, she celebrated the completion of her new home with her Mennonite friends.

"You don't talk love, you don't just show love, you ARE love," Ruby said the to MDS volunteers.

Dottie Reed from Pennsylvania made "Miss Ruby" a quilted wall hanging for her new home. The Mennonites also presented Thomas with a Bible and a book about MDS, The Hammer Rings

Hope.

Meeting the need

The Mennonites plan to continue to meet the needs they see in East Texas. Miller estimated they spend up to $30,000 in materials, depending on the size of home the family needs. He says the people at MDS like the fact that they can build the way they like, relatively free of rules and encumbrances.

Miller said when Jesus healed the sick, he did not ask for paperwork to determine their qualifications to receive it. He just healed.

Next week read more about people helped by MDS and Second Hope Homes in the March 26 issue of The Jasper Newsboy.