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A UMNS Feature
By Doreen Gosmire and Barbara Dunlap-Berg*

1:00 P.M. EDT July 26, 2011

The marks on the pews in Faith United Methodist Church show just how high the floodwaters rose inside the sanctuary. Donations and trained volunteer cleanup teams are desperately needed. UMNS photos by Keith Nelson.

Now that the floodwaters have receded, residents of Minot, N.D., are facing huge cleanup tasks. The tough part is knowing the stifling 100-degree temperatures will plummet dramatically in September when the first snow is likely to fall.

That worries the Rev. Debra Ball-Kilbourne. Her church — Faith United Methodist — faces an estimated $1 million to $1.5 million to rebuild after the Souris River swept over levees in June.

“We need volunteers,” she said. “That’s the bottom line.”

A few days ago, Ball-Kilbourne; the Rev. Keith Nelson, Sakakawea District superintendent; and church trustees returned to the building for the first time since they evacuated June 24.

A picture of the entryway to the church shows how high the water reached into the Faith sanctuary. In other photos, one can see that the water nearly covered the pews.

The estimate to clean up and sanitize is $150,000, and the $1 million to $1.5 million estimate is to replace 10 furnaces and rebuild the elevators. Trustees will meet on July 27 to review initial appraisals.

“Parts of the church did not look so bad,” Nelson said. “Other parts look horrible. The absolute worst room was the kitchen.” Ball-Kilbourne envisions a major task ahead.

The kitchen area of Faith United Methodist sustained the worst damage and shows the growth of mold.

Feeding ministry continues

“I have been involved in disaster relief for several years of my ministry,” she said. “This is the worse I have seen since Hurricane Katrina and the Grand Forks flood” of 1997.

When it became clear the floodwaters would reach Faith, the 70-member congregation prayed on the steps of the church, realizing rebuilding the church might be beyond its means.

However, the congregation went to work to save its food ministry and to help others. They took kitchen and food supplies to higher ground to wait out an anticipated month of floodwater.

On July 11, less than three weeks after the floodwaters rushed in, Ada and Bob Lower of Faith United Methodist Church reopened the Lord’s Cupboard food pantry — a 20-year-old ministry — in temporary space in a 20-foot trailer on a parking lot. The Lowers, along with other Faith members, had lost their homes but not their faith and commitment to service.

“We know that these people are displaced, probably need the food more now than ever, and we have to be there for them,” Ada Lower said, reflecting on the nearly 11,000 routed by the flood. The soup kitchen was open to all during its usual hours of 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday and Wednesday. Last year, the ministry served more than 45,000 meals.

The first day back was “like a family reunion for our recipients to see us and for us to see them,” she said.

Ball-Kilbourne’s husband Gary is the pastor of Minot’s other United Methodist Church — Vincent. For now, the Faith congregation is meeting at Vincent United Methodist Church on Sunday morning and Wednesday evening. But as autumn approaches and church schedules fill with activities, space will be at a premium.

“What happens in the fall,” she said, “we don’t really know.”

The entryway into the church shows marks from the floodwater. Calligraphy still legible reads, “Faith United Methodist Church ‘A Beacon of God’s Glory to the World’ ‘To Make Christ and His Gospel Shine in the Community and World.’”

Future filled with uncertainty

The cleanup continues. United Methodists from Faith, Vincent and area congregations are hard at work. Volunteers labor for a couple of hours, take a quick break from the scorching heat and the stinking sewage, and then go back to work.

Many more volunteers are desperately needed. The conference office is fielding calls from potential volunteers and relaying the information to the North Central Jurisdiction Volunteers in Mission coordinator.

“They can have their choice of 4,000 houses to clean up,” Ball-Kilbourne said wearily. “Take their pick.”

Even homes that cannot be rebuilt must be cleaned out and dismantled. Every nail must be pulled out and materials neatly stacked. Affordable housing, which was scarce before the flood, is even harder to find now, Ball-Kilbourne said. FEMA trailers are arriving. There is no place to rent. A middle school is gone, and other schools sustained heavy damage, so the coming academic year is another concern.

While some people consider rebuilding, many do not want to rebuild where their waterlogged homes now stand.

“People are really concerned about next year,” Ball-Kilbourne said. The ground is soaked with this year’s floodwater, so additional runoff has nowhere to go.

Ball-Kilbourne’s days are crammed with cleanup and case management — “listening to people’s stories, telling them where to get resources and referring them to trauma counselors.”

While the road ahead is rocky and filled with unknowns, she said, “the spirit is good” as United Methodists continue to be God’s people.

*Gosmire, of Mitchell, S.D., is associate director of communications for the Dakotas Annual (regional) Conference. Dunlap-Berg is internal content editor at United Methodist Communications, Nashville, Tenn.

News media contact: Barbara Dunlap-Berg, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5489 or newsdesk@umcom.org.