"Thank you for being here! The Adventist church delivered what we needed,” is what Diane Moffat and her 21-member volunteer team from Sonora heard over and over in Purvis, Lumberton and Waveland, Miss.

“If it wasn’t for the Adventist church and the National Guard, these people would have had nothing,” Moffat reports.

Friend Ladonn Krismantis’ phone call had moved Moffat to action. Krismantis, an Episcopal, wanted to get her church’s youth involved in Hurricane Katrina relief, but didn’t know how or where. Moffat, who had received e-mails of information from her pastor, had information. Within days, the team of 17 youth and five adults, including four Adventists, left for one week in Mississippi.

Working with Adventist Community Services (ACS) and the Florida-based ACTS volunteer teams based at Bass Memorial Academy in Lumberton, they helped feed more than 5,000 people a day out of tents and trucks. (The academy cafeteria was too damaged to use. The academy had power for water and electricity thanks to generators from Florida.)

“Cars lined up for miles as people, whose homes had been destroyed or were without power, drove in each day,” Moffat explains. “More than food, they wanted to pray. We held hands, wept with them and prayed.” Once power was restored and supermarkets reopened, the volunteers’ attention was turned to Waveland, a town 90 miles away that had been totally destroyed.

Confronted with utter devastation, the volunteers provided more than food and water. “They wanted someone to sit with them and listen,” Moffat says. “They had nothing left and we wanted to give them everything we had.” Volunteers even gave the shoes off their own feet.

“I praise God for what we did. It was by His power! Every time we ran out of food, unexpected semi-trucks would just show up. I thought being baptized an Adventist was the most moving experience of my life,” says Moffat about her and husband Michael’s 2002 baptism. “This has totally changed my life. I will never view life through my eyes the same way again.”