“Moist toilette baths don’t cut it,” McMullen said of his new experience as a Southern Baptist Convention chaplain endorsed by the North American Mission Board. Although McMullen was not formally tied to the SBC’s disaster relief effort, the church planter contributed in the same way as hundreds of Southern Baptists who wear uniforms other than the distinctive blue and yellow of Southern Baptist Disaster Relief.
Returning home to his wife and six-year-old son Nicholas after a week-long trip, the weary chaplain said his wife, Pam, made him stash his mangy uniforms in the garage.
McMullen said he couldn’t help comparing his comfortable home in Holiday to homes in the hurricane-damaged area.
“I actually felt guilty for two days after I got back, laying in clean sheets, laying in a clean bed, having food and water and electricity,” McMullen told Florida Baptist Witness.
Reflecting on his experiences, McMullen said his time as a Civil Air Patrol (CAP) chaplain was a “ministry of presence” similar to that described by John Sullivan, executive director-treasurer of the Florida Baptist Convention, in recent columns in the Witness.
Seeing his uniform with the cross of a chaplain, one Pascagoula woman walked up to him and with tears in her eyes hugged him and walked away, never saying a word, McMullen said.
“I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” McMullen said.
McMullen traveled to the Pascagoula/Moss Point area of Mississippi with a CAP search and rescue team six days after Katrina hit land.
The Category 4 storm had decimated the area, flooding homes with up to four feet of water, felling trees, destroying roofs, and pulling down power lines, McMullen said. Going from door to door, his job was to check on residents in the community and search for missing persons.
“One of the things a lot of folks really wanted was just somebody to talk to, just to know that somebody cares,” McMullen said.
Many of McMullen’s doorstep counseling sessions were with the elderly.
Knocking on the door of one mobile home, McMullen said the 65-year-old woman who answered greeted him with the barrel of a gun. Afraid of looters and emotionally distraught after losing her dog in the storm, the woman didn’t believe he was there to help.
Maintaining a constant stream of prayer in his mind, McMullen said he kept eye contact and continued speaking with the woman until he saw the gun gradually fall to her side. Putting the gun inside, the woman told the steady chaplain about her experiences, and gave him permission to pray with her.
Another woman whose car was flooded by three feet of water, was unable to get food or water. Her forehead wrinkled in anxiety and hair disheveled, the 72-year-old woman, sweaty and out of breath from the muggy heat, was thankful for the water and MRE’s (instant meals) the team gave her, McMullen said.
McMullen and his team worked in the Mississippi haze 14-15 hours each day, he said. One night, the team returned to their sleeping quarters at an aircraft hangar at midnight, after helping a family get some much needed oxygen for an older woman.
Earlier that evening, flashlights already piercing the darkness, McMullen said he saw a man pacing his lawn. McMullen learned the man’s parents had evacuated from Gulfport, Miss., to stay with him near Moss Point. The storm, meanwhile had damaged his mother’s oxygen machine and her back-up tank contained only two hours of oxygen.
Their car damaged by flooding, the family could not drive to a relief center, McMullen said. The team radioed other teams, obtaining enough oxygen for the woman to last the two days needed for her to move to a better location.
It was while debriefing at the end of each day, McMullen said he fulfilled a big part of his role as chaplain in helping team members deal with their own stress and emotions.
“There was a sense of wishing we could do more when we were talking at night,” McMullen said. “There was a sense of frustration.”
The CAP team leader often asked him to pray together with him over team decisions, McMullen said. In addition, he was able to share his faith, answering questions from a man claiming to be an atheist and counseling a member of the Mississippi CAP who lost friends in the hurricane.
“The one thing I tried to be with them was very open,” McMullen said. “I probably spent 80 percent of my time just listening to people.”
After a week of daily devotionals and a Sunday worship service, McMullen said one other incident was evidence of his newly forged bond. On the way back to Florida, the entire CAP team waited for his vehicle, the last one in the convoy, to arrive.
“The team leader wouldn’t let anybody eat until the chaplain blessed the food,” McMullen said. That’s when he knew he had earned the respect of the team.
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