Earlier this spring, the Cookeville First Cumberland Presbyterian Church and College students from the TTU Presbyterian Student Association in Cookeville went on a trip of compassion to Long Beach, Mississippi. They worked in a small town nearby called Pass Christian.

Rev. Charles McCaskey says that the devastation was enormous and it will be several years before the community is restored.

McCaskey, Pastor of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church gave a little background of the trip explaining that the three groups worked on a total of four houses to get insulation in the walls, sheet rock put up, and taping and mudding the sheet rock.

Rev. McCaskey tells of an experience that another Presbyterian group had had right before the Cookeville group arrived where a church showed up at an address, gutted the water damaged parts of the house and placed the debris by the road. At the end of the day, the house owner then admitted to the team leader that he and his wife had just committed to a suicide pact, and had, in fact, been planning on killing themselves the next morning. But since the church group had come in and helped, they changed their minds.

Rev. McCaskey says that there's a lot of work left and that they'll be going back.