Published: September 24, 2005 01:03 am         

Salvation Army workers return from hurricane zone

By Scott Fitzgerald Staff Writer



It was almost an epiphany for Enid Salvation Army Capt. Cameron Henderson when he encountered Hurricane Katrina victims who had migrated to shelters in Dallas.

Salvation Army command dispatched Henderson earlier this month to help with up to 3,000 storm evacuees who were given temporary shelter at Dallas' Reunion Arena and the adjoining convention center.

"What you were seeing on TV (news reports) was crying and screaming. I saw people with extreme trust in God. I saw a real Christian community -- people who were very warm, scared, but expressing privilege to be alive," Henderson said Friday moments before he greeted five Enid volunteers who assisted with the Salvation Army effort in the coastal areas of Mississippi decimated by Katrina.

Henderson said what storm evacuees fear most during their temporary stay in Dallas is going homeless.

As he helped served meals and provide ministry, Henderson listened to many evacuee survival stories. Nearly all of those stories fit into a simple framework.

"Even on my darkest days, God was faithful," Henderson said. "That was the rule, not the exception."

When Henderson warmly greeted volunteers Ron and Willa Koehn, Adie Carlton, Collene Bowman and Kenneth Whites after their return to town Thursday night, each volunteer smiled. They had kept their dispositions intact through a sobering ordeal of helping storm victims who literally had lost everything from Katrina's mammoth winds and rains, which destroyed and flooded the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts.

"We were serving people who hadn't eaten a hot meal in two weeks. There's nothing there. We went to six different places," Bowman said.

For the Koehns, it was their first volunteer venture for the Salvation Army.

"We certainly got our feet wet," Willa Koehn said.

The work was exhausting. Volunteers slept in massive tents and were up by 5 a.m. to help begin dispensing meals and other services.

The Koehns, Carlton, Bowman and Whites had sad vignettes to share, but each story ended on a ray of hope.

Bowman shared a story about a little boy who hung around the volunteer tent city to get meals.

"A dog followed him everywhere. Even on his bike, the dog followed him," Bowman said.

The boy told volunteers he didn't know who owned the dog, and it had been following him for several days, Bowman said.

"He (the boy) didn't know it, but he's the dog's owner now," Ron Koehn said with a smile.

Enid Salvation Army will be instructed through Oklahoma City about when and what to do after Hurricane Rita hits land.

"Texas has called for our support, and the answer is yes," Henderson said.