WINTER GARDEN — Ward Veith, a member of Orlando’s Pine Castle United Methodist Church, is overseeing the construction of a new house for William and Sherri Steele. Theirs was destroyed Feb. 23, 1998, when a string of tornadoes hit Central Florida, leaving 42 people dead.

As Veith lays out the path for a new driveway, Dan Siplin, Sherri Steele’s father, stops by and tells Veith to help himself to some tangerines in his citrus grove next door.

"That’s one of the great things," Veith said. "I get to plug into people’s lives instantly and have a rapport with them. If I’d been out here two years ago, I would have been trespassing. Now, I get welcomed like a member of the family."

For Veith, the relationships he builds with the people he helps is just one of the benefits of being involved with disaster response, a ministry he has embraced since 1992 when Hurricane Andrew devastated the Miami area.

Andrew wasn’t the only disaster Veith experienced that year. His wife filed for divorce and refused him contact with his two-year-old daughter. "That divorce shattered my world," he said. "Three months after it fell apart, a friend introduced me to Christ."

Veith said his priorities changed after that. "I was a yuppie wannabe," he said. "My priorities were home, family and security, with money as the base for everything. Now, I’ve got this T-shirt that says, ‘Will work for Jesus.’ My priority is to be where I can be the most help."

After working for the Hurricane Andrew relief effort, Veith headed north to Albany, Ga., to help people affected by the 1994 floods. He joined the Central Florida tornado relief effort in 1998, directing the reconstruction of homes in Kissimmee and Winter Garden.

Veith says he is amazed at how God has used him in ways he did not anticipate. "Here I am, my background is in accounting and I have a degree in finance, and I’m building houses," he said. "It’s not about special skills, it’s about being here…it’s all grace."

Although he had worked under contract with the United Methodist Committee on Relief and Operation L.O.V.E., an ecumenical relief effort in Winter Garden, since 1998, Veith said he has been working on a volunteer basis for the past three months, after Operation L.O.V.E. lost its administrative funding.

He said the rebuilding process in Winter Garden has taken longer than expected. Because of the area’s recent building boom, Veith said the only construction crew he can get works only on weekends, and inspectors take a minimum of three days to get to a site.

Finding volunteer work crews has also been difficult. "It’s two years after the fact," he said. "How many hurricanes, floods, fires and other natural disasters have there been since the tornadoes?"

Despite the difficulties, Veith said he expects to complete his final four houses in the next two months, leaving only two houses left to rebuild. The Salvation Army has responsibility for those.

Overall, Veith said his experience in disaster relief has been rewarding and spiritually renewing because he has gotten to see lives rebuilt. "I’m just trying to make something good out of something bad," he said. "It’s a hope thing."