Volunteers take outreach to Louisiana

Jerry Klafehn (left) and John Erbe stop to plan the next step in construction. The pair from Brockport traveled to Louisiana to help build a pastor's home after the destruction from Hurricane Rita. Submitted photo.

A full view of the pastor's new home in DeRidder, Louisiana, after just two week's work by Jerry Klafehn and John Erbe of Brockport, and several other volunteers. Submitted photo.

Volunteers take outreach to Louisiana

John Erbe, 66, and Jerry Klafehn, 71, arrived in DeRidder, Louisiana, and started building Pastor Kennis Smith's new house from the ground up. It replaces the home seriously damaged by Hurricane Rita. With Klafehn as foreman, several volunteers framed and sheathed the house in two weeks.

The house will eventually be the new home for the pastor of Christway Church and his family of four. DeRidder is a small community 65 miles from the gulf. The area was not hurt by Hurricane Katrina, but the local churches took in over 2,000 refugees. A few weeks later, Hurricane Rita struck and seriously damaged Christway Church and the pastor's house.

The two-story home has 3,000 square feet of living space plus an extensive porch and garage. With only a two-page diagram provided, Klafehn drew the roof and other details at night for the next day's work. Both men stayed in the pastor's office sleeping on air mattresses. Other volunteers from as far away as Arizona and Virginia also stayed in the church. The pair made the 3,000 mile round-trip from Brockport in Klafehn's pick up truck.

The two men went as representatives of Christ Community Church in Brockport which has a helping partnership with Christway Church.

Klafehn applied his home framing expertise which he had not used in decades. Thirty years ago he supervised framing crews on many homes in the Brockport and Rochester areas. He is now on the maintenance staff at Christ Community Church. Erbe had been an iron worker locally for 33 years and has been retired for 17 years. "It was a blessing," Klafehn said. "I got more out of it than I gave, just to meet those amazing people and to see how they work through adversities."

Erbe said he felt "privileged" to be there to serve. "The people welcomed us with open arms," he said. "It's the best thing I have ever done in my life."

"It is just incredible to see the response from the body of Christ from all over this country," Pastor Smith said in a telephone interview. "Those guys (Klafehn and Erbe) were incredible; they worked really, really hard and, when we tried to get them to take a break, they wouldn't. They were just really neat guys."