wfn.org | [ENS] Out of Deep Waters: Louisiana church provides radical

["Matthew Davies" <mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

Wednesday, September 7, 2005

Out of Deep Waters: Louisiana church provides radical hospitality to
evacuees

By Matthew Davies

ENS 090705-3

[ENS, Baton Rouge, Louisiana] Tirelessly reaching out to a community
shattered by the aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina, the Episcopal
Diocese of
Louisiana has temporarily relocated its offices to St. James Church in
Baton
Rouge, which is operating as a major distribution and sorting center and
where staff and volunteers are working around the clock to meet the
immediate needs of local evacuees.

"St. James is open 24 hours day and night so that evacuees can come here
and
take a shower," said Bishop Charles Jenkins of Louisiana. "We are in the
process of gathering food and essential items to take to our evacuation
shelters. "

The priests in Baton Rouge, especially those who've been trained by the
Red
Cross, have been working 24 hour shifts as chaplains in the shelters.
St.
James is coordinating with all the downtown Episcopal churches in
providing
ministry to those shelters.

"The Episcopal Church is like a good family," Jenkins said, "and when a
crisis comes a good family pulls together."

Immediate needs

Jenkins expressed his gratitude to the state of Texas and the Diocese of
Texas who "have been wonderful in responding to our needs," adding that
he
especially wanted to recognize the generosity of the Episcopal Church
and
Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) which is providing an additional
$50,000 to support the work of Episcopalians and assist the Diocese of
Louisiana.

ERD president Robert Radtke arrived in Baton Rouge September 2 to help
the
diocese with its recovery plan for evacuees.

"We will help the diocese create a strategy so that they can reach out
and
minister to the many hundreds of thousands of people who have been
dispersed
throughout the state," Radtke said. "We will also be reaching out
nationally
as many churches throughout the country have opened up their doors as
shelters for evacuees."

ERD has also partnered with the diocese to hire a disaster response
coordinator for the area who will serve as an ERD and diocesan liaison
and
help local parishes respond to the devastating impact of Hurricane
Katrina.

"A team from ERD was on the ground with us immediately, not just sending
money but with expertise, leadership, compassion and presence," Jenkins
said. "We here in Louisiana feel the Episcopal Church with us, through
prayer and through the presence of ERD."

Assessing the damage

Speaking from the temporary diocesan offices, Jenkins explained that he
and
Radtke were able to fly over New Orleans September 4 to assess the
situation
and the state of Christ Church Cathedral. "The water is so deep in some
places in New Orleans that you can see only the yellow roofs of the
school
buses," he said. "There were a number of fires around the city with no
fire
department to combat those blazes. There is a huge amount of polluted
water
in the city that has to be pumped out -- the city does not drain."

Although many Episcopal churches in New Orleans have been directly
affected
by the flooding, the Cathedral appears to have sustained little damage.

"We hope to be amongst the first back into the city," Jenkins said. "The
issues of tropical disease and water-borne disease are an important part
of
our consideration, but I think we will be allowed back in before others
and
then the Episcopal Church and ERD can be there as a service for
residents as
they return to the city."

Different look, different feel

The Rev. A. J. Heine, a deacon at St. James, which is the oldest
Episcopal
Church in Baton Rouge, explained that the city has taken on a
dramatically
different look and feel, because of the number of people who have taken
up
residence there, but also through the grief that many of their
parishioners
share with the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

"The situation here is fluid, it's changing so fast, as the needs
change,"
he said, adding that the first thing the parish did was to open its
doors to
diocesan staff as they needed a place to set up headquarters. The church
has
since developed into a major reception, sorting and distribution center.

Heine described how St. James had begun to cluster with other downtown
churches so that they could help one another rather than duplicate
efforts.
"We met to compare resources and compare what we had already started to
do,
and to see how we could support one another," he said.

St. James is receiving donations of bedding, pillows and clothing as the
evacuees, most of whom left New Orleans to go to the Red Cross shelter,
did
not possess such items or the financial resources to buy them.

"We are collecting the basic life necessities -- something to sleep on
other
than just a concrete floor, a change of clothes, toothbrush, toothpaste,
razors, shaving cream, shampoo, soap, those sorts of items," Heine
explained. "We are now set up to receive those items and then to sort
those
items so that they can be repackaged for individual refugees and put
into a
bag marked with a gender and a size so that the Red Cross can very
easily
distribute those to the evacuees."

The parish also has shower facilities and has teamed up with First
Baptist
Church which is housing mothers with newborn children. "We have
parishioners
who welcome the mothers, give them towels, clean undergarments, bars of
soap, shampoo, and to try to give them some semblance of home and what
has
become the great luxury of a hot shower," Heine said.

St. James has also opened the doors of its day school and is supporting
people who are housing refugee or relief workers by cooking them
breakfast
every morning.

"We are telling displaced families who are coming to us: don't worry, we
will make room for you, we will share what we have and offer what we
can,
and we will make a place for you," Heine said. "Some of the most
emotional
times I have experienced is to see these parents break down when they
realize that their children will be taken care of.

"It's a radical hospitality that we are called to and we are looking for
ways to take the resources that we have, the people that we have to the
needs that are out there and find ways to somehow ease some of this
suffering and to show the light of Christ in the midst of it."

Some relief workers who are been housed downtown in Baton Rouge are
sleeping
on the floor in state office buildings. They are also visiting St. James
in
the morning for breakfast and showers before they load up their trucks
and
head out into the field.

Need for prayer

Not forgetting the need for prayer, the church also offers daily
Eucharist
and has set aside a part of its facility for clergy hospitality, "to
give
them a place to work, to give them a place to try to get their church
back
together," and to contact their parishioners.

"You just have to stand on the corner in Baton Rouge and see people
driving
around, and you know from the look in their eyes and the confusion, that
they are not from here and they don't have any place to go," Heine said.
"And it's incredible to see their relief and gratitude from just the
smallest, smallest gestures of kindness or hospitality."

Eighty miles from the Louisiana coast, Baton Rouge has almost doubled in
population since Gov. Kathleen Blanco ordered a mandatory evacuation of
New
Orleans August 30.

"Baton Rouge is now the largest city in Louisiana," Jenkins said. "It
was a
city with 500,000 people, now I am told there are 850,000 people here.
So
our infrastructure is stretched sorely thin."

Stephen Craft, rector of St. Philip's Church in New Orleans, evacuated
the
city on August 28, the day before Hurricane Katrina made landfall. He
explained that many of the clergy from New Orleans have relocated to
Baton
Rouge.

"We are doing our best to work with the bishop and the diocesan staff.
We're
learning our new role as clergy in the Diocese of Louisiana in the face
of
this disaster," he said. "This has been a spiritual awakening. This is a
time when we as priests had better be practicing what we have been
preaching
in terms of the power of prayer, as the only way we're going to be
sustained
though this will be through the power of prayer."

St. Luke's Church, Baton Rouge, is providing a home and care for
families of
women who are in the women's hospital in Baton Rouge. "St. Luke's is
also
doing a wonderful job in getting medical supplies around the city,"
Jenkins
said.

Meanwhile, seven miles away at St. Margaret's Church, Baton Rouge, a
group
of 26 volunteers from community churches near Little Rock, Arkansas,
including a member of the Fire Department, were being housed and fed.
They
had selflessly spent two days helping to clear trees and debris from
people's home.

"Even in the midst of desperation, we see perseverance, we see strength,
and
as Christians we realize that that which seems to be an end is, by God's
grace, a new beginning," Jenkins said.

--Matthew Davies is staff writer and web manager of Episcopal News
Service.

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