wfn.org | [UMNS-ALL-NEWS] UMNS# 549-New Orleans pastor finds home, church,

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

New Orleans pastor finds home, church, in ruins

Sep. 29, 2005

NOTE: Photographs and related coverage are available at
http://umns.umc.org.

By Kathy L. Gilbert*

NEW ORLEANS (UMNS)-When the Rev. Darryl Tate left his church and home to
escape Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 27, he took enough clothes for a
three-day trip.

What he packed that day is all he has left. On Sept. 27 - 30 days later
- he was finally able to return home for a look at what was left.

"It looks like a bomb was dropped here," he says, surveying his Lakeview
neighborhood.

"We kept a better yard than this," he says under his breath. He walks
through thick black mud to try and open the front door of the parsonage,
which serves St. Luke's United Methodist Church.

"It was a pretty little house, wasn't it?" he asks his friend, the Rev.
Chris Blanchard, as the two stand outside the ruins. "I'm glad Carolyn
isn't here to see this."

Blanchard, pastor of St. Charles United Methodist Church, is one of the
"lucky ones." His church is still standing and is being used as a relief
staging point. On this hot September day, volunteer work crews from his
church are busy cutting tree limbs and cleaning up in another part of
New Orleans.

Today, Blanchard is there to offer pastoral support to his friend.
Carolyn, Tate's wife, had one request for her husband when he went back
home. "She wants her gumbo pot."

Blanchard advises Tate to stay outside as he goes into the kitchen to
look for the pot. He comes out with the pot, a couple of chalices and
the top to their wedding cake. Nothing else can be salvaged.

Tate looks around his backyard. A picnic table that isn't his stands
upside-down. An old wooden handmade swing he got 22 years ago hangs
lopsided on part of the carport. His white car, with a "United Methodist
Pastor" plate on the front, is painted with mud. The water line on his
house looks like it would extend beyond the roof if it had someplace to
go.

"There's our barbecue pit," he says. "When you are a pastor, you don't
make much money. The things you have you are proud of because you
sacrificed to be able to buy them for your family."

Tate, like many other people in New Orleans, is living in a part of town
that is not supposed to flood, so he has no flood insurance. Renter's
insurance covers his personal belongings.

Driving from the church to his parsonage, he passes two houses
spray-painted with a code indicating a dead body was recovered. The
military hasn't made it down Tate's street yet to check for bodies.

St. Luke's Church

To get to St. Luke's United Methodist Church, Tate has to pass a
checkpoint set up by the police. He explains he is going to see his
church, and the friendly officer says, "Go slow. If you run into any
trouble, call us."

Pulling up to the church, the only color one sees is brown. Everything
is dead. Brown grass, brown plants, brown trees cover the church
grounds.

"There goes $10,000 worth of landscaping," Tate says, looking around.

A banner still hangs in front of the church entrance. Tate reads it
aloud as he heads for the front doors: "Welcome: A Place for You."

As soon as the door opens, the smell jumps out and hits like a physical
blow. Tate moves up the stairs to the choir loft to survey his
sanctuary. Purple pew cushions block the front entrance; the piano and
organ are upside-down. Sunlight streams through the beautiful
stained-glass windows and sends lovely red and blue lights through the
destroyed church.

Mold has devoured everything on the flood-soaked first floor. There is
nothing left to save here. The water from the broken levee had no regard
for anything, not even the cheerful poster painted by loving hands
outside the nursery that says, "The School Bell Rings at St. Luke's."

"Fellowship Hall is full of mold," Tate notes. Upstairs, things look
better. Inside his office, Tate finds his Bible, his clerical robes and
some precious photos and his hard-won clergy credentials.

"I really didn't think I would have anything to take," he says, as he
gathers as much as he can. On one wall is a clock that stopped at 9:32
a.m. on Sept. 27. "That is exactly the time we left," he says.

Displaced pastors

Tate is one of the more than 90 displaced pastors from Orleans Parish.
Bishop William Hutchinson has assigned him to be director of the
Louisiana Conference Storm Recovery Center.

Sitting in the office a day before Hurricane Rita is scheduled to hit
the beleaguered state, Tate tells his story.

"I had come to the conclusion that I just wasn't going to leave," he
says. "I told my wife I thought we could just weather the storm in our
house." But as reports kept getting bleaker he changed his mind.

At a prayer service he held at his church Aug. 27, he questioned all the
people there about where they were going. Most had already packed their
cars and were ready to leave. Evelyn Brandon, a recent widow, wasn't
going to leave.

Tate and his wife begged her to change her mind and offered her the
hotel reservations they had for a room in Houston. She finally decided
to leave. Tate is not sure everyone else did.

Brandon is safe and now back in her home. She and Tate have a tearful
reunion after he sees the church and his home.

"I thought I would never see you again," she says, hugging him. They
discuss plans to have a church service at Haven United Methodist Church
at 5 p.m. on Oct. 9.

"People need to get back into church," she says.

"This will be a service for the people of St. Luke's," Tate assures her.
"I need to get back to preaching."

While dealing with the upheaval caused by the storm, Tate gets some good
news. On Aug. 31, two days after Katrina hit New Orleans, he had been
scheduled for a medical procedure to remove a malignant tumor. On a
later visit to doctors in Baton Rouge, he learns the tumor has
disappeared.

"We Methodists are praying people," he says. "That's the power of
prayer."

*Gilbert is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in
Nashville, Tenn.

News media contact: Kathy L. Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470
or newsdesk@umcom.org.

********************

United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org

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