SLIDELL, La. &045; What’s happened in Slidell isn’t something that can be described.

I can’t accurately tell you what it’s like to see piles of wet, moldy belongings sitting on curbside after curbside.

Words and pictures don’t show the reality of caked mud piles several feet tall that once lined the floor of someone’s house.

The downed trees, the crushed homes, the dangling power lines and the smell are not things that can be described. They must be experienced.

The smell. The smell and those neon markings on every window or door signaling that the house was checked for survivors, those are the most striking things &045; if you can assign rank, that is.

At First Baptist Church its organized chaos divided into two major categories &045; relief and rebuilding.

The church, close enough to Lake Pontchartrain to receive two feet of water in places, has already ripped out all the affected carpet and the bottom half of every first-floor wall.

New walls are going up inside, and thousands are being fed outside. Church volunteers and teams from Southern Baptist Convention Disaster Relief man giant circus tents on the still soggy front lawn handing out anything and everything. Others give away cooked meals and ice in a drive-thru lane.

Phase 2

The last of the shelters in Natchez will close its doors Friday. There are no more local service centers handing out checks. Many evacuee students have left our schools. Balloon race is next week. Life goes on.

But when Parkway Baptist Church officially closes up shop on its shelter today, they’ll merely be ending one phase and beginning another.

&uot;Ministry is not something that ever really ends,&uot; Associate Pastor and Shelter Manager Jason Cole said. &uot;Where one ministry ends another ministry begins. God is always working somewhere, we are just trying to find out where it is.&uot;

Wednesday Cole and Pastor Bart Walker mapped out the beginnings of the next phase with a trip to Slidell and two churches serving as major distribution centers.

&uot;The need is so great,&uot; Walker said. &uot;It’s kind of overwhelming to see. These folks are just getting the mud out of their houses, the trees off. Cleaning supplies, everything, is sold out here. Since we’ve got access, we can help.&uot;

After a visit with workers at First Baptist and Grace Memorial Baptist Church, Walker and Cole had a running list and an immediate need to fill. Phone calls back to the office got the ball rolling to form an eight to 10 person team that will leave early Friday morning to man the kitchen at Grace Memorial for three days in between shift changes.

Soon after, church members and staff will transport the first load of supplies to the two churches. More loads will follow.

Similar trips to New Orleans and the Mississippi coast will come once arrangements can be made.

Clean up

&uot;Mud out&uot; was a phrase I’d never heard until Wednesday.

It’s used as noun, and it’s a process.

Hundreds of Slidell residents are signing up at FBC and Grace Memorial for mud outs.

Volunteers based at the churches go to the houses and literally use shovels to scoop out the mud. The piles in the front yards prove it.

But once the mud is out, there’s still slime, mold and goo to clean &045; but no supplies.

Large bottles of bleach, clean five gallon buckets, rubber gloves, masks and boots are all needed.

Parkway is accepting donations of cleaning supplies from the community and will transport the items early next week.

Grace Memorial had received nearly 1,200 requests by Wednesday for mud outs; only 500 had been filled.

Helping hands

Walker said he hopes to organize several teams of church members to go to Slidell and help with mud outs, tree removal and supply distribution, and he doesn’t anticipate having trouble finding them.

&uot;I expect to do like Parkway always does and step up to the plate and do what needs to be done,&uot; he said.

The church’s shelter has had more than 450 volunteers, many church members. The shelter has housed more than 800 people, with up to 350 at one time.

Walker said several church members have described serving as a shelter as one of the most &uot;significant things&uot; the church has ever done.

&uot;The shelter helped us because it gave us the opportunity to learn how to be flexible, be fluid and be servants,&uot; Cole said. &uot;And to practice what we preach.&uot;