|PIC1|One year on from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the Christian relief organisations that played a key role in comforting and supporting victims from the outset look back over the year and celebrate the progress they have made.

With rebuilding efforts well under way, Church World Service (CWS) has been in the Katrina struck regions of the Gulf Coast from the beginning.

Through partnerships with local charities and support organisations it has helped rebuild homes and lives in the hurricane-devastated regions.

The Harrison County Long-Term Recovery Coalition is just one of numerous local recovery organisations that have been funded by CWS in the wake of the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes.

|QUOTE|The funding from CWS – thanks to a grant from Habitat for Humanity - has helped the coalition rebuild many homes including that of Dan Meyers, whose home interior was destroyed by three feet of water.

The Rev Judy Powell Sibley is a United Methodist minister and the head of the CWS-funded St Andrews Mission and Southwest Mississippi Recovery Network.

When Elizabeth Mills had no choice but to remain in her hurricane-damaged home, with its interior destroyed, the recovery group showed up at the door and told her that a volunteer group would start rebuilding her home in the next two weeks.

Rev Sibley shared the grace that had touched the hearts of so many through the recovery operations.

"While a hurricane the magnitude of Katrina is nearly unimaginable without seeing the destruction for yourself, it has proven to be so much more than that.

|AD|"The ruined areas such as ours, as well as the Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans, have become places of grace where we have seen God's commandments come to life.

"We are forever grateful to Church World Service and so many other Christian relief organisations which have helped us - through money, materials and volunteers - and put our love for our neighbours into action."

Meanwhile, John Robinson who handles the disaster response in the United States for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, said the response of the faith groups to Katrina were the “first US effort of this scale”.

So far the group has raised US$23 million to cover its long-term recover work in the Gulf Coast region until at least 2013.

"The truth is this will take us beyond 2013," Robinson said of the funds in The Philadelphia Inquirer. "The process of recovery is long and painful."

The United Methodist Church also reflected on the work of the past year in rebuilding the lives of so many in the Gulf Coast region.

Thousands of volunteers have served in the cleanup operation through their local congregations and also contributed to work of the General Board of the Global Ministries of UMC through UMCOR, the United Methodist Committee on Relief.

UMCOR has served as a partner with annual conferences in the five affected states, contributing to the organisation of work and serving as the repository and steward of funds contributed to by United Methodists for Katrina aid.

General Secretary of the GBGM, the Rev R. Randy Day, said: “Let me take the occasion of the Katrina anniversary to urge United Methodists to be generous in supporting the appeal of our Council of Bishops for the rebuilding and recovery of congregations in the Gulf region.

“All congregations are part of one church but it is on the local level that we learn to be disciples in mission, equipped by God’s grace and love to respond to the needs of others.”