PASS CHRISTIAN, Mississippi ? Our Lady of Lourdes, one of the few churches in this Gulf Coast city that was not destroyed by Katrina, threw a party August 30 for Georgetown University students to thank them for helping Catholic parishioners rebuild their homes.

?It is a double blessing, said Darwin Young, 20, leader of the Georgetown Knights of Columbus. ?We got so much more than we gave. They are so hopeful and treated us as their own children. ?They fed us and shared their whole life story and were so grateful. We matured a lot as men.?

I asked Ramses Escobedo, 19, why he came. ?Knowing of the devastation here, it was something you wanted to come and help. I knew a lot of people here since Katrina, are trying to get back into their homes,? he said.

?I was blessed to be going to school and was not in the path of the storm. Our church, Holy Spirit, adopted this parish down here. We started sending tractor trailer loads of appliances and raised $50,000 and were asked if we wanted to help out.?

Every church I know personally has sent wonderful Christian men and women to help. Such volunteers ? a remarkable 550,000 of them ? are the unsung heroes of Katrina.

The one-year anniversary stories all seem to focus on what went wrong, the failures of government at every level to respond in the days, weeks and months since Katrina.

However, I want to applaud the Lutherans, United Methodists, Assemblies of God and Mennonite churches who responded sacrificially with time, love and money.

Consider the Southern Baptist response. Tractor trailers which are mobile kitchens, rolled in before anyone else and began feeding people.

How many meals? A stunning 14.6 million hot meals! Volunteers donated 165,000 days of time and worked on 16,973 homes, clearing debris, ignoring the stench of rotting food and yanked out drywall reeking of mould that had been soaked in ten feet of flood water.

Baptists rented three floors of the World Trade Center in downtown New Orleans, within walking distance of Bourbon Street, where they enjoy the music at night, but not the bourbon!

Up to 500 people at a time were housed there across the street from Harrah?s Casino (sin city!) before going out on work assignments.

Jim Burton, Director of Volunteer Mobilisation for the Baptist?s North American Mission Board, commented: ?It is fascinating to see how disaster relief has ignited revival, an excitement of being on mission and serving. We have taken in $20.8 million, a phenomenal number, and spent $12.8 million. The rest is designated for long-term care and recovery.?

For example, in a pioneering effort, Baptists will help rebuild 3,000 homes in Mississippi and 1,000 in New Orleans. They are partnering for the first time with Promise Keepers and even businesses who want to sent in volunteer help.

By contrast, billions of federal dollars has not resulted in one house being restored. Mississippi just completed 40 loan applications. In fairness, however, FEMA did send 100,000 trailers to the Gulf Coast for refugees.

Even small organisations made giant contributions. In Baton Rouge the Louisiana Family Forum, a handful of people affiliated with Focus on the Family, worked with 500 churches and non-profit organisations, to collect and distribute 65 million pounds of food, serve three million people and restore dozens of churches. ?You would be amazed at how churches cooperated selflessly,? says LFF Director Gene Mills.

I was particularly impressed with Greg Porter, a volunteer who came to Mississippi from Evansville, IN on September 14, and cooked three meals a day for missionaries from Mexico. Why?

?I felt God was calling me to help.? He asked his wife to run their Evansville family business of cleaning office buildings while he built a distribution centre a few feet from the beach to handle all of the contributions pouring in.

He erected a tent for nightly worship services and built sleeping accommodations out of storage sheds for 200 volunteers.

Each day ?God?s Katrina Kitchen? new serves 1,500 meals a day mostly to volunteers, but also to local residents, and to an army of carpenters and dry wallers attracted by the work.

God?s Katrina Kitchen was a natural magnet for 500 Campus Crusade for Christ students who came to muck out houses. The meals are largely paid for by a single remarkable church, Southeast Christian, in Louisville.

I salute the Christian heroes of Katrina who have poured in from across this great land.