wfn.org | [ENS] Out of Deep Waters: Parish gets back much more than it gave

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

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Out of Deep Waters: Parish gets back much more than it gave to evacuees

By Mary Frances Schjonberg

ENS 091405-2

[Episcopal News Service] St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Monroe,
Louisiana,
knows what it means to be under water. The spring rains of 1991 flooded
the
parish's low-lying neighborhood and ruined the brand-new parish hall.
Since
then the parish has often sheltered people looking for a place to get
out of
the way of storms in its rebuilt parish hall and it was no different
after
Hurricane Katrina.

This time, however, the decision to take in evacuees was in the hands of
Senior Warden Reese Little. St. Alban's, which has an average Sunday
attendance of 80 people, has been without a rector for two years. He and
his
wife Dewana knew on Saturday, August 27, that the hurricane headed for
Louisiana was going to be bad.

"We decided we needed to do this again," Little said.

They began putting the wheels in motion. He printed up flyers and sent
his
two children to distribute them to the desk clerks as Monroe hotels. As
evacuees arrived in town and began to search for rooms, some found
hotels
full. Desk clerks then passed them the word about St. Alban's. At the
height
of their sheltering effort, 43 evacuees were living in the parish hall.

Little admits being a bit worried about how his fellow parishioners
would
react. "But they were all there, day and night," he said. Some
parishioners
who had not been around much in the last two years showed up and worked
alongside everyone else.

"We had a lot of support from other churches," Little added.

Help came from the community as well. A real-estate agent with no
connection
with St. Alban's as far as Little knows called one day to ask if they
had
lunch covered for that day. When she was told they did not, the agent
called
a caterer and had lunch sent in. A local country club did the same on
another day. The night shift at a nearby factory that makes light bulbs
for
General Motors vehicles made barbecue for the evacuees.

A Red Cross representative came looking for the St. Alban's shelter one
day
and got lost. She stopped at Tommy Smith's house for directions. She was
actually about two blocks from the church so Smith took her there.
Little
said that when Smith saw evacuees sleeping in the parish hall, he came
back
later with passes to the Monroe Athletic Club which he owns. He told
Little
that evacuees were welcome to come over to shower, swim, work out and
watch
television. Many evacuees went to the club especially to watch CNN for
its
hurricane coverage. Little said the Parish Hall doesn't have cable. "All
we
had was 'rabbit ears,'" he said.

The evacuees were a diverse crowd that included Christians, Muslims, a
Jewish man and people of all ages. The parish hosted three baby showers
for
evacuees, two for mothers with nearly newborns and one for a young woman
about to give birth.

Some people had resources to get back on their feet and did so. However,
parishioners have raised $20,000 to help the others. They helped rent
seven
or eight homes, according to Little, paying rental and utility security
deposits and first month's rent. If people need a second month, Little
said,
the money will be there.

The last evacuees left St. Alban's on September 6, according to the Rev.
Terry Pannell, the parish's supply priest. Pannell said he learned a lot
from watching St. Alban's parishioners in the last two and a half weeks.
"They showed me what it means to really come together as a ministering
community," he said.

Little said the relief effort "really pulled our congregation together."
There have been heartbreaks and hard work along the way, he said. One
day
his wife took a phone call from a family looking for shelter. She
thought
they couldn't take in anyone else. "She was trying hard to say no,"
Little
said.

But she listened to this mother's story and she told her to come. The
mother
had a baby who is on a heart monitor and their alternative was to live
in
the back seat of their car, Little said. Dewana Little stood up a recent
service at St. Alban's and told the congregation "don't ever say no."
Pointing to the mother and her baby, she said, "this is who I almost
said
'no' to."

She thanked the evacuees. "You all have done so much more for us than we
have done for you," Little reported his wife as saying.

Little said the parish is energized by its hurricane-relief work and
hopes
to capitalize on the renewed interest he senses in the parish. He wants
the
parish to develop a disaster plan and buy supplies so that parishioners
are
ready to go for the next group of evacuees because he knows "we're going
to
do it again."

-- The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is national correspondent for the
Episcopal News Service.

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