Requiem: Gods's Katrina Kitchen RIP

On July 31, 2007, God's Katrina Kitchen will serve its last meal, and cease operations on August 1. The Long Beach city council met last Tuesday and denied our request to share a 10-acre site with a local church. Numerous other offers of property to move to have been received, but none of them included political support from the surrounding community and city.

Although GKK will no longer exist, the need and the mission continue. Current plans are to parcel out all of the donated equipment and bunkhouses to one or more ministries here on the Gulf Coast. There are more than 20 permanent volunteer staff associated with the Kitchen, but none of them have heard a call to stop ministering to the Gulf Coast. It is likely that most of them will continue to serve God's call, but under a local ministry with a different name.

Church Army Gulf Coast will continue to operate under the same name. We now have three volunteer residents of the NoAH program seeking to transform their lives from homelessness and alcohol/drug addiction into what God would have them to be. Our residential location as of August 1 is still uncertain.

Here I offer a photo requiem for God's Katrina Kitchen:

This composite overview photo was taken from the balcony of the concrete apartment building, shortly after GKK moved onto the site at 554 Camp Avenue in Gulfport, Mississippi. The following photos show the many improvements made to our home in the succeeding months.

Members of the public who come to eat at the kitchen enter across a flowered garden with a picket fence.

James planted a rose garden to grace the lawn beside the tent, and the owners of the property brought additional roses to plant last fall.

The south end of the lawn has the Cross and flagpole transplanted from the former site in Pass Christian,

and another flower garden graces the south edge of the slab on which the tent sits.

Okra thrives at the east edge of the slab.

Throughout the site, de- construction has already begun. Here is a trench opened up to prepare for the removal of the conduit and wires.

A massive power grid supports the tent, office, cabins, motor homes, and travel trailers that serve the Kitchen.

The power grid supports this laundry room, while wastewater drainage is routed through the sewer systems of the existing slabs, the only remains of a 120-unit apartment complex.

.

Cabin 88 is the residence of Tool Room John. This palm was transplanted here to grace the volunteer housing area.

North and south views of volunteer housing in the interior of the camp,

..
and the housing that faces the street.
..
This new neighbor is missing from the overview photo at the top, when the Waffle House site was an empty slab.
..
The fire pit is the late-night gathering place for the permanent staff. We sang to the Lord here this Monday and Tuesday.
..
.

.

Between the trailers near the fire pit is the Kid Parking Lot.
..
.

.

.

. And here is Mary Giles with two of the Giles grand-kids.
..
The sunflower garden runs up to a massive pokeweed plant. So far, none of us have tried to cook any pokeweed.
..
.

.

.

James' and Mary's front porch features a porch swing,
..

.

.

.

facing the vegetable garden with its tomatoes and peppers.
.

.
So now it's story time. Come August 1, God's Katrina Kitchen may seem like it continues only in the stories that will be told and retold, to grandkids of grandkids. But look closer: you may find that the work of the Kitchen never ceased, indeed never missed a beat. Stay tuned.