PORT SULPHUR – Nine months after Hurricane Katrina there are still places in Louisiana with spotty electricity. Lynn Rodrigue, for example, pastor of Port Sulphur Baptist Church, finally was able to turn on the lights in his FEMA trailer just three weeks ago.
By Amy Adams
Message Staff Writer
PORT SULPHUR – Nine months after Hurricane Katrina
there are still places in Louisiana with spotty electricity. Lynn
Rodrigue, for example, pastor of Port Sulphur Baptist Church, finally
was able to turn on the lights in his FEMA trailer just three weeks ago.
But the absence of electricity didn’t stop the pastor from ministering
to the people in his community, located halfway down the toe of
Louisiana’s famous boot shape.
“We have become the grocery store for lower
Plaquemines Parish, except everyone gets to shop for free,” Rodrigue
said.
Port Sulphur Baptist began a food distribution
ministry four months ago that assists about 550 people each week. The
church provides items such as canned goods, cereal, peanut butter,
rice, macaroni and cheese, fruit drinks and chips. The church also
gives out perhaps 10,000 pounds of water each week.
“There’s various agencies we receive this from, and
some churches,” Rodrigue said. “It’s pretty exciting to see different
groups of churches asking what we need and then sending a truck.”
Except for the Port Sulphur distribution center,
groceries are scarce on a 70-mile stretch of State Highway 23 between
Venice/Orchard and Belle Chasse.
Port Orchard and Venice each have just one small
grocery store open. Perhaps a third of the 15,000 people who lived in
the lower half of the parish before Katrina live there now, the pastor
said.
“People are returning all the time, though,” Rodrigue said. “We’re seeing new trailers all the time.”
Port Sulphur Baptist’s food distribution center is
open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for parish
residents only, the pastor said. Most recipients are from Port Sulphur
and south, but some come from as far north as Belle Chasse.
Port Sulphur Baptist is one of only five
Southern Baptist churches to have a continuing presence in the southern
part of Plaquemines Parish, which received unimaginable damage from
Katrina.
“The storm washed stray houses up in people’s
yards,” said Joe McKeever, area director of missions. “It twisted the
steel girders on Port Sulphur Baptist Church. Lynn said the first time
he came down after the storm he drove right past the church.
“‘I didn’t even recognize anything here,’ Lynn told
me,” McKeever continued. “When you get lost in Port Sulphur you’ve
really done something.”
Before the storm, about 60 people participated in
Sunday morning worship. Attendance averages about 35 people now, but
only six to eight are members. The other Port Sulphur Baptist members
either permanently relocated or have not yet returned, Rodrigue said.
Port Sulphur Baptist also housed a school with about
95 children enrolled before the storm, but Solid Rock Christian Academy
for grades K-12 is not in session now. The students either are being
homeschooled or bused to Belle Chasse, the pastor said.
Though technically separate entities, the church and
school work together and are one in terms of ministry, Rodrigue said.
“We’re going to try to accommodate the school in the
fall,” the pastor said. “It was a vital part of our community.” If the
citizens of Port Sulphur and Plaquemines Parish see the church and
school are open once again, then the people will return, Rodrigue added.
The Virginia Baptist Mission Board has adopted the
church in an effort to help Port Sulphur Baptist rebuild their
buildings as well as acquire temporary buildings.
Rodrigue and his family – wife Nicole, four
youngsters between the ages of 18 months and 6 years – found safe haven
with family in the Baton Rouge area before Katrina rolled through the
peninsula. A month later Stevendale Baptist Church allowed them use of
a parsonage.
“We still go back to Baton Rouge about every five
days,” Rodrigue said. “The FEMA trailer is so small with four kids. We
go there to recuperate and then come back. God called me to this and I
am delighted to be down here.”