After the Storm — Using their hands, heads and hearts, Thrivent Financial members continue to make a difference, months after hurricanes pummeled the Gulf Coast.

As Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast August 29, 2005, Marilyn Chassie and her husband, Chuck Sonnenberg, a partner in the Mid-South Region of Thrivent Financial, were tucked safely in a hotel in Jackson, Mississippi. They'd evacuated their home in Mandeville, Louisiana, on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, with nothing more than a kit filled with food and supplies, and prayers for the safety of their neighborhood.

Two days later, the couple was back home surveying the wreckage. They were shocked to see hundreds of trees broken off like toothpicks, many on houses. A sweet gum tree had fallen onto their house—minor damage compared to that endured by some neighbors, whose homes looked like someone had battered them with a giant sledgehammer.

There was no electricity, phone service, television, trash collection or newspaper. Gas stations and grocery stores were closed. Neighbors who returned cooked on outdoor grills in order to save food from spoiling, Chassie recalls. "We had no communication. It was really back to the basics." But there was no time for Marilyn and Chuck to contemplate the devastation.

Despite the primitive living conditions, Chassie started immediately to coordinate Thrivent Financial's Disaster Response Plan. As manager of Thrivent Financial's Lutheran community services for the Mid-South Region, she needed to launch communication about relief efforts for her region.

"We knew that Thrivent Financial members across the country would be ready and willing to help," Chassie says. "My job was to coordinate and maximize those efforts."

Gathering Resources
Chassie manages Thrivent Financial's volunteer system in six states, including Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama—all three of which were ravaged by Katrina.

"All Thrivent Financial members have an opportunity to volunteer in some capacity through their church, community or another institution. I manage the programs that enable them to serve," she explains.

The first few weeks after Katrina hit, Chassie focused on tracking down chapter leaders and Thrivent Financial members who were affected by the storm and finalizing the regional chapter response. She also identified resources she could tap to help them, such as Thrivent chapters and volunteer service teams around the country.

As relief money came in, Chassie worked with Lutheran church bodies and social service agencies around the Gulf Coast, coordinated a team of volunteers and staff to offer support for Lutheran congregations that served as shelters, identified immediate needs and purchased long-term supplies and equipment like tents and portable showers for evacuees and volunteers.

"Though we don't provide direct service," Chassie says. "we support the ministries that do provide immediate and long-term relief, like those getting out there and removing debris."

Getting Their Hands Dirty
Of course, a lot of Thrivent Financial members not only removed fallen trees and debris, but also participated in countless other hands-on efforts. Six weeks after Katrina hit, Shawn Taylor, a Thrivent Financial consultant, and Jonathan Winrod, a Thrivent Financial member from Mountain Home, Arkansas, traveled south to New Orleans. They had two goals: to help former Thrivent Financial representative Chris Driesbach repair his flooded home in Kenner, a suburb of New Orleans, and to pitch in at Crown of Life Lutheran, Driesbach's church.

Crown of Life, in the upper ninth ward of New Orleans, is located very close to where a levee break occurred. Five feet of water had stagnated in the building for weeks, and by the time Taylor, Winrod and several church members were able to get into the building, almost everything—from the upholstered pews to the new hardwood floors in the parsonage—needed to be trashed.

Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod Kingdom Workers, lay workers from throughout the country who serve in hands-on gospel outreach around the world, joined the group mid-week to help handle the debris—ripping out the ruined pews, the altar and virtually everything in the parsonage and carrying them to a giant refuse pile outside.

Crown of Life is located in the epicenter of ongoing rebuilding efforts. "The church is in the midst of hundreds of homes, but the neighborhood was eerily silent," Taylor says. "By the end of the week, there was someone at maybe every 20th home, just kind of standing around in shock, looking at the devastation.

"Crown of Life members are determined to stay ahead of the reconstruction curve so they can be a source of spiritual help to the neighborhood. It's a real opportunity to reach out to the lost."

When Taylor and Winrod weren't wading through six inches of scum to cut trees and haul trash at Crown of Life, they were helping to bring Driesbach's condo back to livable condition. Since both men have construction backgrounds, their expertise was a blessing to Driesbach. "We almost had to tell Chris to knock off the 'thank yous,'" Taylor says.

The trip put Taylor's minor, everyday frustrations at home and within his church into perspective. "Our church, like most others, has trouble getting enough people to come clean the church or mow the lawn," he says. "It's laughable to think of that when you've just left a congregation who would love to have a church at all."

For the Long Haul
Meanwhile, in Northeast Tennessee, Thrivent Financial Associate David Emmel was inundated with calls from chapter members who wanted to help with Katrina relief. He called a local meeting of three Thrivent chapters in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, but four chapters showed up, to discuss consolidating their efforts.

"One chapter may have $3,000 and good intentions, but it's hard to make an impact," Emmel says. "We decided to leverage all of our funds and see how much bang we could get for our buck."

As it turns out, they got plenty. A businessman donated $25,000 to Zion Hoffman Lutheran church in Friedens, Pennsylvania, for Katrina relief. Zion's pastor, the Rev. Kathy Kuehl, decided to give the money to the Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia Thrivent Chapter via the Rev. Tom Quickel, chapter president.

The fund-raising activity totaled $40,000 once Thrivent Financial matched a portion of the donations. The four chapters connected with Christus Victor Lutheran Church in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. The Rev. Rick Ohsiek, Greeneville, Tennessee, a member of the Central East Tennessee Chapter of Thrivent Financial, formerly served the congregation. The church, centrally located near Biloxi, had become a distribution hub and was handing out more than $100,000 of food and cleaning supplies a week when the chapters got involved.

To kick off their efforts, the chapters called upon members to donate the supplies Christus Victor badly needed, such as food and clothing, and two of the members rented a truck and drove down the supplies. Next, they sent chainsaws at the church's request.

The support didn't stop there. "Christus Victor told us they needed cleaning supplies and canned goods, so we went directly to a distributor to get dealer's cost on case lots of supplies," says Quickel. "Then we made a deal with a restaurant supply vendor and spent just $1,800 for more than $5,000 worth of food and supplies. Talk about Jesus multiplying the fish and the loaves!"

Quickel says his chapter is committed to Katrina relief for the long haul. They started out helping with emergency and short-term supplies, but intend to turn their efforts toward building supplies soon. They're coordinating work teams to help rebuild homes in Mississippi through the Thrivent Builds Worldwide program with Habitat for Humanity. They are also still collecting money from their congregations for use down the road.

"We just received a thank-you letter from the director of relief efforts at Christus Victor," Quickel says. "He said the disaster is already fading from people's memories, and he wanted to thank us for remembering and not leaving."

Gretchen Roberts is a Thrivent Financial member who regularly covers outreach and volunteering for Thrivent magazine.

Community Service in Your Region
Just as they do in the Gulf Coast, your area has a manager of Lutheran community services (MLCS). To find out who your MLCS is, contact the Thrivent Fraternal Service Center at 800-236-3736 or e-mail fraternal@thrivent.com.

You can also find your local Thrivent Chapter by going to the Chapter Locator on www.thrivent.com.

Thrivent Builds the Gulf Coast
Thrivent Financial for Lutherans has committed $5 million to Gulf Coast recovery through its Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity alliance. The money will help purchase land and building materials and send Thrivent Financial members on Thrivent Builds Worldwide service trips to construct homes in the Gulf Coast. Thrivent Builds Worldwide trips are short working trips in the United States and around the globe, with Thrivent Financial paying a portion of the trip costs for Thrivent Financial benefit members. For more information, visit www.thriventbuilds.com, e-mail thriventbuilds@thrivent.com or call 800-236-3736.

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