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BY MELISSA LAUBER
UMCONNECTION STAFF

'Can I go?' was the first question to come to mind for Jan Carder when she heard about a unique outreach opportunity for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

'I just didn?t want to send money. I wanted to do something hands-on and be of use,' she said.

'When I heard that Allegany County was offering its bookmobile to the people of Hancock County, Miss., ?Can I go,? was my immediate response,' said Carder, a lifelong member of Emmanuel-Bethel UMC in Cumberland.

She didn?t consider all that was involved in taking the library-on-wheels more than 1,500 miles to Pearlington, Miss. 'I thought it was a great project and I wanted to get in on any part of it I could,' she said.

An employee of the Allegany Library System, Carder drove with two fellow employees to Mississippi in December. In the large bookmobile trailer, they carried 4,000 books and $12,000 donated by 23 other library systems.

The drive took four days, Carder said. After passing through Jackson, Miss., Carder began to be 'shocked by the devastation and desolation,' along the roadside.

'People?s belonging were still

hanging in trees,' she said 'It was hard to believe it unless you saw it first-hand. There was desperation everywhere, desperate faces. The people there have nothing.'

A 20-foot wave of water had washed through the local library. While the walls still stood, every book and all the other materials were destroyed. 'There was still mud on the ceiling.'

Carder remembers one woman in particular whose life was 'wiped out,' by the hurricane that touched down on the Gulf Coast Aug. 29.

'She smiled when she saw us.' Carder said. 'We pulled into town and it was the first time she smiled. The people there couldn?t believe our generosity.'

For Carder, the trip was a matter of faith. 'There was a lot of prayer involved,' she said. 'I prayed for a safe journey and I prayed for the people. I?m still praying.'

Carder believes the books that they left in Mississippi will have a profound effect on the local people, especially the children.

'Books can take your mind off your problems,' she said. 'You can travel through books.'

When she returned home from Mississippi, Carder put her faith together with her library expertise in her own church and rebuilt the library at Emmanuel-Bethel UMC with her father.

'The whole thing was remodeled, and it is a huge success,' she said.

Carder is not sure where her hands-on approach to faith will take her next, or how the echoes of her trip to Mississippi will resound in her life.

'I was so glad to be a part of this experience,' she said. I feel like I was really able to do something to help the hurricane victims and I wanted to share my story with the United Methodists in this conference.'