Good from Katrina???

Anyone that knows me, knows that I love Dauphin Island!!! It is where I belong, and will someday retire. (Whatever that word means.)

After Hurricane Ivan hit, the DIBBS was my lifeline to what was going on at the island. When we visited in June, 2005, I was in tears as we drove down to the west end. It was my friend Barbara's first trip to the island with her family. Her daughter, Stephanie implored me to quit crying. "Aunt Kim, this is the most beautiful place I've ever seen and your ruining it." I realized she didn't know. She saw what was there, while all I was seeing was what was missing. I wonder how often we do that with other things in life? Instead of focusing on what we have, we focus on what we don't.

Toy Island, our home that week in 2005, gone with Katrina

I loved this log (I would use it to strategically hide oil wells in Sunset pictures.) It survived Ivan, but probably ended up in Bayou LaBatre after Katrina.
Who could have dreamed that when I returned in June, 2006 the devastion would be even more horrific? Katrina was in a league of her own, and I pray I never see that type of devastion again in my lifetime! As soon as the word of the devastion spread, my youth started asking how they could help. Our pastor worked with a pastor in Gulfport and the church started sending teams to Gulfport/Biloxi to help.(I would have preferred to come to Alabama, but the need was actually great everywhere from Texas to Florida.) When the 1st team came back, the teens were insistent that we go to help. We had already scheduled a mission trip for that spring, so it would have to be in the summer.

We planned a trip with the youth for the first week after school was dismissed. Barbara & I decided that we would like to bring our kids to DI for the weekend after we worked. (A reward for them and for us.) Eventually it was decided that we would just bring everyone to DI for the weekend. Now the issue of where to stay. We could all stay at the Gulf Breeze but we were talking about 13 teens and 4 adults. We didn't have the budget to eat out that many meals on the island. What to do???? An SOS was put out on the DIBBS. Bruce was the first to respond with an offer of pork tenderloin and Marilyn's home made bread.



Amazingly through ACP we were able to find someone willing to rent a beautiful house to us for just 2 nights in June. (I think some of those wonderful ladies at ACP helped to do a little convincing.) Only problem was it was the weekend before we worked rather than after. This actually worked out better because we were able to have some time for "team building" while we were at DI. We did not tell them that we had a house, so they all thought we were staying at the Gulf Breeze. Their faces were priceless when they saw the beautiful house.


I was so nervous about taking that many teens to the island, but they were so good. The recognized the "brokeness" of the island, and how fragile it seemed. They were so appreciative to be there.


I'll try to post more tomorrow about the rest of our adventure.