When Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005, local families responded to the devastation — and some are still responding five years later.

Meet Doug Smoker, John Horst, Kevin Watterson and Barry Yoder.

These four men and their families — all members of Keystone Church in Paradise — have devoted themselves to this challenging mission.

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Doug Smoker said the simple reason he would uproot his family in Conestoga and head to New Orleans is because "God called us there."

Smoker said he had planned to help for just one week with the team from Keystone Church "because I had the skills (as a Lancaster County construction contractor), but I was pretty moved by the need that was there."

But how truly devastated Louisiana was "got lost in the news coverage over time," he said.

After his first stint in the Gulf Coast in 2005, Smoker returned to Louisiana in 2006 to serve as construction manager for a year with TouchGlobal, a ministry arm of the Evangelical Free Church of America.

As construction manager, Smoker managed, guided and trained teams of volunteers who came to Louisiana from different parts of the country each week.

At the beginning, they were just cleaning up trees and yards, then they moved into the rebuilding phase, Smoker said.

"My four kids — Shelby, now 20, Tianna, now 19, Leesha, now 18, and Devon, now 16 — went down grudgingly and came back grudgingly," Smoker said.

While in Louisiana, Smoker's wife, Vonda, home-schooled the children and Smoker taught them hands-on trades, such as plumbing, drywalling and roofing.

The family moved back to Conestoga after serving in Louisiana for a year. They have, however, made short trips back and are planning on a couple more.

After Shelby finished high school, he went back to Louisiana on his own, arriving just as Hurricane Ike hit the region in September 2008. He subsequently was sent to Galveston, Texas, where he has served ever since.

"The interest (my children) came out of it with was exciting to see," Smoker said.

Shelby said he was heading into his junior year of high school when his father asked him to go to Louisiana.

"It was one of the most important years academically, and I was rooted in Lancaster County with a lot of friends. I had no desire to leave," Shelby said. "But I went down and saw what the ministry was about, and I fell in love. I felt called to come back. But then Ike hit, and I ended up in Galveston."

Shelby said he's seen a lot of "awesome" ways God's been working in the area as his group ministers to the people.

He said one family was "down and out and out of hope." TouchGlobal rebuilt their house and the wife began going to church, where she eventually accepted Christ as her savior.

Although the husband remained "hard," he agreed to host a Bible study in their home, Shelby said.

Now, Shelby is living in their home — rent-free — after they inherited another house following a family death.

"They turned around and are blessing others. It's a real cool thing to see," Shelby said.

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Another of the Paradise church members, John Horst, also got involved as the relief effort began in the months after Hurricane Katrina.

Horst arrived with a team for a short stint in January 2006.

Then, three months later, the director of TouchGlobal spoke at the church of his vision of putting together a team to send down full time. He was looking for people to commit themselves to six months to a year.

"I felt God call us to partner with them at that point," Horst said.

Horst, his wife, Chris, and their three children — Allison, now 18, Abigail, now 15 and Adam, now 10 — moved to Covington, La., in October 2006.

Although Horst committed himself and his family to six months of service, "God had more in mind for us."

The Horsts returned to Pennsylvania for 11 months before moving back to Louisiana in March 2008.

Horst now is the ministry manager of TouchGlobal, which has been partnering with Trinity Church in Covington.

"In the wake of every crisis, there's a mission field created," Horst said. "We have a holistic ministry, (meeting) physical and emotional needs and speaking to spiritual needs."

Physically, they rebuild homes, repair roofs. "We're gutting homes still five years later," Horst said.

Horst, who worked in the construction trade for 20 years in the Lancaster area, said he never thought he'd leave Lancaster County.

Although he grew up in upstate New York, Lancaster County always seemed like home to him.

"I always told people I was moving to Lancaster County. Then I met my wife in college and she was from New Holland, and it all fit into my plan. It's where I belonged," Horst said.

But God had other plans, he believes. "Now I know wherever he wants me is home," Horst said.

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Kevin Watterson also went down with a team from Keystone and "fell in love with the idea of doing ministry and talking to people about Christ and at the same time do the work to get their property cleaned up and houses repaired.

"Be hands-on and at the same time build relationships with people."

When Watterson sold his heating and air-conditioning business to Summers & Zim's, he didn't really know why he wanted to sell.

"I had felt God call us to sell it, but I wasn't sure why. Six months later, I knew why," Watterson said. "It freed us up to come down (as a full-time ministry worker)."

Watterson and his family committed themselves to one year working with TouchGlobal in Louisiana, but nine months later "I knew this is where God wanted us to be."

The Watterson family — which includes wife Babette, daughter Kendra, now 12, and son Logan, now 10 — became permanent Louisiana residents in July 2008.

"My label is chief hatwearer and role player," Watterson said.

He now helps with physical repairs because of his heating and air-conditioning background and mechanical aptitude and oversees the physical and spiritual health of the staff members, making sure they are not overworked.

There are "very different" conditions between the city of New Orleans and the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain, where the Wattersons are located.

When the Wattersons arrived with Keystone in December 2005, "it looked like Katrina had just hit. There was no telephone, no electricity, and trees were down everywhere. We just did a lot of debris removal," he said.

Today, the north shore is pretty much back to normal, with only some hurricane damage still evident, mostly with the "marginalized folks who don't have a lot of resources to work with. If they can raise funds or get grants to get materials, we can provide the labor."

But New Orleans is another story, Watterson said. Fifty thousand homes have been gutted, but little repair work has been done since Katrina.

"There are whole neighborhoods that have not been touched," he said. And there are some areas where there are only two or three families in one block.

And what is there now is not like the New Orleans of old. "The houses do not culturally fit with what New Orleans was. It's more like a Southern California transplant of housing. The landscape has changed dramatically in the cities," Watterson said.

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Another Keystone member, Barry Yoder, has gone to Louisiana with church teams once or twice a year since the hurricane hit. The last trip was in July with 29 youths and nine adult leaders.

"You still see a lot of abandoned houses, but there's been a lot of progress (since his first trip in December 2005)," Yoder said.

One problem Louisiana residents encountered was unscrupulous contractors who took the money and ran after doing incomplete work, Yoder said.

"We've finished the jobs contractors didn't do (in New Orleans)," he said.

Although he has no plans to return to Louisiana, chances are he will go back again, he said.

"I'm really drawn to the people down there," Yoder said.

"During my first trip, I couldn't understand why people had stayed, but as I talked to the people — many of whom had several generations living in the same house — my heart goes out to them. There's still a need there, for sure."

lvaningen@lnpnews.com