[StBernard] Helping to rebuild

[Westley Annis]

Helping to rebuild
By Rachel R. Basinger
DAILY COURIER
Friday, November 30, 2007 


Connellsville resident Curtis Kemp, member of the First Baptist Church in
Connellsville, recently returned from a mission trip to the still
hurricane-torn area of New Orleans. 
This was his first trip to that area. 

But Kemp is not unfamiliar with mission trips. He's been on five since 1993.


It started with two trips to the flood-ravaged area of Mississippi. In 2003
and 2004, he went to the Dominican Republic. 

In 1993 Kemp heard that a mission team from Olive Branch Baptist Church in
Belle Vernon was heading out to Mississippi to do what they could to help
those victims of severe flooding. 
"It was something exciting and it was to help someone in a time of need,"
Kemp said. 

So he joined the group that made the 12-hour trip, staying at a church and
for one week and doing what they could to clean up debris and help out with
some small home renovations. 

"The time, money and effort that we put in to the projects for that week
were nothing compared to what we got from the experience," Kemp said. "After
that first one, I just got hooked." 

But it would be another 10 years before Kemp would participate in another
mission trip. 

In 2003 Kemp took his first international trip. 

"The First Baptist Church in Uniontown had started a church in Santa Domingo
(Dominican Republic) and the association of churches was looking for
individuals to fill the crew," he said. 

The goal for that week-long trip was to help begin building the church. 

"Churches in Third World countries have zero money to buy materials, so we
bought and took down materials," Kemp said. 

They stayed in the Grand Nelson Hotel in Santa Domingo. But the hotel wasn't
as grand as its name may sound. 

"At the time, the whole country was suffering financially and the power
would continually go on and off," Kemp said. "There was no refrigeration and
we took showers from a garden hose that was pulled through a window. The
poverty that those people live in is just unbelievable." 

Volunteers took two 50-pound suitcases on the trip -- one for their personal
belongings and the other filled with clothes to pass out to youth in the
area. 

In 2004, Kemp made another trip to the village to continue with the work of
building the church. 

Kemp's recent trip to New Orleans included a team which also included his
pastor, Dean Meyer. 

The team went to Chalmette in St. Bernard Parish, just outside of New
Orleans. 

"I had met with our missions committee in past months concerning letters we
received about needs that the area still had, but they read in the news that
the area had gotten billions of dollars from the government to help
rehabilitate the area and just didn't know if we really did need to send
money there," Meyer said. "So when Curtis (Kemp) told me about this mission
trip that the First Baptist Church in Monroeville was planning, I thought
this would be a good chance to see first hand if the area was still in
need." 

And when they got there, they saw that while the French quarter in downtown
New Orleans was doing OK, the outlying suburbs still seemed like war zones. 

"In St. Bernard Parish alone, there were 30,000 homes that were destroyed
and that didn't include businesses," Meyer said. 

The first day in the area they put up drywall and did some spackling inside
Chalmette Baptist Church. The rest of the week was spent renovating the
pastor's home. 

"He has been living 75 miles away from the church and has had to travel that
distance one way just to minister to his congregation," Meyer said. 

Kemp said that the experiences that he has seen and been a part of during
the mission trips have set in stone how fortunate the Fay-West area is. He
plans to continue taking part in mission trips. 

In fact, the mission team that traveled to Chalmette might just make a
return visit in the spring.