Nine denominations banded together for a “building blitz” in the spring of 2009, fixing up 12 hurricane-stricken homes in Little Woods, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans.

The homes were damaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. “We were amazed at the extent of the damage to the New Orleans area, even three to four years after the hurricanes,” says Louise Schumann, who organized a group of volunteers from her church, Bethany Reformed in Redlands, California. “We were blessed to be able to assist in the limited way that we could.”

Schumann was one of 33 volunteers from four RCA churches to join the rebuilding effort, which spanned four weeks in April and May. The RCA also contributed funds for the project.

The team from Bethany Reformed worked the last week of the four-week build. “There were between 100 and 200 volunteers from various churches for the week, and the same number of volunteers had been working for each of the previous three weeks,” Schumann says. Most of the week, the volunteers were divided into teams to work at various houses, but the whole group got together three times: to pray for the project, to visit a completed home and present the keys to the displaced family as they moved back in, and to celebrate with homeowners the progress that had been made over the four-week build.

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