When Rev. Hadley Edwards returned to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, he wasn't sure what would be left of Bethany United Methodist Church.

Edwards has pastored the church in the Pontchartrain Park neighborhood for the last decade. It was a vibrant congregation of young families and others who were active in the community. A fall drive for school supplies had just ended when Hurricane Katrina landed.

"I didn't know what to expect," Edwards says. He knew the building had outlasted Hurricane Betsy in 1965. And, he says, there was never water in the church.

But when Katrina dumped enough water on the city to breech the canals, Bethany sat in nine to 11 feet of flood water for three weeks.

"It had been totally devastated," Edwards recalls. "On any given Sunday morning, you sit in your church and look around. Everything you see in your church I need in mine. I've lost it all."

A sanctuary that once seated more than 300 people held only warped pews, water-damaged hymnals and Bibles, and walls crumbling with mold. Musical instruments, a baptismal font, banners and flooring—all were decimated.

The Bethany congregation dispersed throughout the region and the country before the hurricane made landfall. Most still have not returned. Of the 855 church members pre-Katrina, Edwards says only about 170 have returned to New Orleans.

They meet in the gutted church building. The remodeling is about 30 percent finished, Edwards says. Parishioners sit on folding chairs donated by Paradise Valley United Methodist in Paradise Valley, Ariz.

"That's our prized possession," Edwards says of the chairs.

Paradise Valley purchased the 152 folding chairs and some tables with a portion of the Christmas missions offering. They worked with Adirondack, a company that is offering special pricing, freight savings and extended payment terms and free expertise on furnishings for churches that are rebuilding.

Paradise also launched a large-scale fundraiser to help bridge the $160,000 gap between the insurance money and the actual cost of the rebuilding at Bethany.

Edwards traveled to Arizona this month to speak with the Paradise Valley church. Along with the chairs, and the fundraising, Associate Pastor Jenny Smith says Paradise is giving this hurricane battered minister some respite.

"He has to be so upbeat and hopeful for his congregation," Smith says of Edwards. "So we've really been a pastoral care provider for him."

Hymnals, Bibles and an offering box shaped like a church sanctuary are among the debris removed from a church destroyed by flood waters after Hurricane Katrina.         UMNS photos by Mike DuBose

That sort of soul soothing is important in the face of unimaginable devastation, she says. "The amount of destruction is far more vast than anything I would imagine," Smith says of her impression of New Orleans. Also unimaginable, she says, is the lack of progress toward recovery.

"It's a long process," Edwards says.

Rebuilding Bethany began in December. The sanctuary and education wing were gutted, rewired and re-plumbed. The biggest need now is money to finish and money to furnish.

Adirondack partnered with the North American Mission Board to offer church planters steep discounts on refurnishing. Some 300 to 400 Southern Baptist churches sustained damage from the hurricanes last season, according to William Perkins, editor of the Baptist Record in Mississippi.

He told the Associated Press in a May 4 story that most churches are rebuilding like Bethany, with the help of insurance settlements, (most of which are not enough) donations and volunteer labor. Some have financial assistance from larger denominational bodies. (See sidebar.) Few seek federal money. But according to a May Christianity Today story, some 2,000 religious organizations have applied to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund.

This month that fund will begin disseminating some of the $20 million earmarked for church rebuilding. According to The Advocate, applications for these funds will be accepted until July 31. Grants up to $35,000 will be reviewed and given on a rolling basis from the end of May to October.

First United Methodist Church in Santa Monica, Calif., has been raising money for Bethany through red beans and rice dinners.

"We figured if everybody starts seeing this maybe they'll keep the Gulf Coast in mind," lay member Cindy McQuade says.

The church has been involved in sending supplies, donations and work teams. McQuade, a social worker, says she also personally wrote to some of the people on the membership list just to say she was praying for them.

"We really see Bethany very similar to our church, very active and reaching out to the community," says McQuade.

Even in the midst of devastation, Edwards says that is the church's job. From practical help to spiritual help, he says the church is a key component to the community's comeback.

"That's why I'm working so hard."