Half an hour before they attended a service at Thibodaux First Presbyterian Church on Sunday, five mostly middle-aged men conducted an impromptu service of their own.

But they didn't pray.

They didn't sing.

They didn't moan and wail.

Under a scorching Louisiana sun, they bonded – the Cajun Country Convoy plus one. Five men, four denominations.

The quintet batted around questions that had been rattling in their heads since arriving in this southeastern bayou town of 14,200.

Why had they volunteered? What spiritual nourishment will they gain from their experiences here? What philosophical concepts drive their outlook on life?

Not simple stuff to answer, they agreed, but simple enough to practice.

"We're all here simply because we saw a need and had the time and commitment," said Randy Riddle of Greenville's Hollywood Presbyterian Church. "I think a lot of people would love to do this if they could."

Riddle, one of four men in the Convoy, arrived in Thibodaux with his buddies Saturday afternoon after leaving Greenville early Friday morning. The non-Convoy relief worker, a Newport, R.I., native from yet another denomination, arrived three days earlier.

Dick Carney, 66, of Peace Presbyterian Church, Randy Riddle, 50, Danny Gonzalez, 50, of Covenant Methodist Church and Homer Tyre, 24, of The Memorial Baptist Church – will dedicate at least the next week to victims of Hurricane Katrina. They arrived at Thibodaux First Presbyterian Church Saturday in a 14-foot box van and a truck towing a 16-foot trailer – each loaded with goods bound for those in need.

The fifth man, Jay Cafasso, is overseeing the logistics of this religious-based relief effort, dubbed Y2K. The no-nonsense 53-year-old – a Catholic marine salvage/hazardous materials expert – was on a barge in the North Sea when he got a call to help Katrina victims. The operation is a joint undertaking between Catholic Community Services and Presbyterian churches affiliated with the Presbyterian Disaster Relief Agency.

The Greenville men were called to Thibodaux at the request of Thibodaux First Presbyterian Church Rev. Bill Crawford. Crawford is helping coordinate the effort through the Presbyterian agency.

Crawford has impressed his Greenville guests.

"Bill Crawford is the ideal Presbyterian minister," Riddle said. "He's very humble, and he's a servant-based man in the way he moves, thinks and acts."

The same might be said for Carney, Riddle, Gonzalez and Tyre, who, themselves, brought a slew of much-needed skills to the storm-torn Thibodaux area.

Riddle owns a heating and cooling business. Gonzalez is a building contractor. Carney's a carpenter/handy man, and Tyre, a former United States Marine, now sells real estate. Sunday, the crew was about to begin its second day of a mission they had volunteered for without reservation.

First stop: Thibodaux's supply staging area.

Sort, unload, sort some more, keep things flowing. Baby diapers go here, baby food goes there, adult underwear goes somewhere else, canned beans stay where they are. The men sped to their tasks like racehorses out of chutes on their first full day of relief work.

Tyre, a long and lanky, fatigue-clad spitfire spent most of his morning boxing up lose packs of diapers.

"It's not the most exciting thing in the world, but at least I'm doing something to help," he said. "Being here is a reminder that people are actually out there suffering, and it gets me out of the comfortable, complacent environment at home."

Riddle hoped the initial sorting work would help streamline the distribution of supplies from the staging area, held inside the Thibodaux Fireman's Fair Office and Warehouse.

"I'm feeling very positive, and it's the first day we can make an impact," Riddle said. "By the end of the day, we want to have this warehouse organized."

To further that goal, the Greenville men decided to build four 32-foot-long plywood shelves to hold supplies. Carney and Gonzalez purchased the plywood and 2-by-4s at a local building supply store, and the others cut wood, hauled the pieces and nailed the frame together. In about four hours, the shelves bisected the length of the center of the warehouse, offering an easy-to-reach, efficient method for cataloging and distributing supplies.

"We've done shelves like this for a food bank in Grimesland so people can pick up what they need without looking through boxes," Gonzalez said. "We can also inventory the supplies and see what we're short of this way."

Gonzalez and Carney were left to finish the shelving job when Cafasso dispatched Riddle and Tyre to Grand Isle, a small town about two hours south of Thibodaux that Katrina had pummeled. The men were asked to assess the area's particular needs before the team delivers supplies to the area later this week.

As all of this transpired, Thibodaux disaster relief program director, Ann Exline Starr, a Delaware lawyer who'd spent nine months in Baghdad in 2004 helping open the Iraq stock exchange and securities commission, telephoned potential relief organizations to help with the operation.

Cafasso calls Starr the brainchild behind the Thibodaux program.

"Without her, this wouldn't have happened," he said. "She was responsible for creating the team."

Starr sees a two-pronged Thibodaux relief program. First, help Katrina's victims; second, service the relief effort's first responders.

"I hope that we fill a gap in terms of having a cleaner, meaner operation," she said. "We have a diverse group of donors who want a more personal pipeline into the affected areas."

The Cajun Country Convoy expects to be in Thibodaux until the end of the week before pointing Riddle's truck northeast toward Greenville.

It's anybody's guess what exactly they'll be doing between today and then, but as Tyre said: "It's an adventure being here that few folks get to experience. And we're helping people, too."

Editor's note: Reporter/photographer Paul Dunn is traveling with a group of Greenville men delivering relief supplies and providing assistance to the area near Thibodaux, La. The men arrived in the area on Saturday.

Paul Dunn can be contacted at pdunn@coxnc.com.