Church leaders witness United Methodist relief work
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Web-only photo photo by Larry Hollon A sidewalk leads to what remains of a building at Gulfside Assembly in Waveland, Miss.
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This
former building at Gulfside Assembly in Waveland, Miss., is one of the
many structures destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The entire assembly was
wiped away by the storm. A UMNS photo by Larry Hollon. Photo #05-H016.
Accompanies UMNS story #505. 9/13/05 |
Sept. 13, 2005 A UMNS Report By Ciona Rouse* Three
United Methodist agency executives were moved as they saw firsthand the
effects of Hurricane Katrina on parts of Louisiana and Mississippi. “The
churches of Louisiana and Mississippi have carried out remarkable
humanitarian service under the most difficult conditions imaginable,”
said the Rev. Larry Hollon, top staff executive of United Methodist
Communications. “Many volunteers have themselves lost their homes and
possessions, yet they are in the front line helping others who have been
evacuated from New Orleans and the gulf shore.” Hollon,
the Rev. Randy Day, top executive of the United Methodist Board of
Global Ministries, and the Rev. Paul Dirdak, executive director of the
United Methodist Committee on Relief, toured the Gulf Coast area Sept.
7-11. They met with the bishops of Louisiana and Mississippi, visited
shelters and viewed the damage wreaked by Hurricane Katrina and
resulting floods on area churches. Working
with UMCOR staff, the conferences devised plans for responding to the
disaster that left hundreds of thousands displaced and killed an unknown
number of people. Day, Hollon and Dirdak observed the conferences’ work
and asked about assistance the denomination could provide. Dirdak
assured the conferences that UMCOR would be around to assist with
long-term needs. UMCOR is one of the few non-governmental relief
agencies that has experience with displaced people in international
situations, he said. Day
said he was pleased to see conference leaders working side by side with
UMCOR, a unit of the Board of Global Ministries. “In addition to UMCOR,
all of the units of the Board of Global Ministries will work with our
local churches and institutions as they rebuild their lives and
communities across these three states,” he said.
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Web-only photo photo by Larry Hollon Storm evacuees search websites for information on missing persons at Trinity United Methodist Church in Gulfport, Miss.
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Trinity
United Methodist Church in Gulfport, Miss., provides satellite wireless
facilities for storm evacuees. The computer stations allow evacuees to
search for missing relatives and friends, contact emergency agencies and
go to Web sites for assistance. A UMNS photo by Larry Hollon. Photo
#w05-H017. Accompanies UMNS story #505. 9/13/05 |
The church leaders
visited shelters run by United Methodist congregations, as well as
churches hit hard by the hurricane. They met people such as Isidore Wolf
at the Galloway United Methodist Church shelter in Jackson, Miss. The
church hosted a wedding for Wolf and his wife, Rya, two evacuees who
grew up in New Orleans. The
couple had planned to marry in December and had bought a wedding gown
and a ring and begun payment on a banquet hall. All was lost in the
storm. They asked the church to help them get married and expected the
Rev. Ross Olivier to arrange a small ceremony for them to say their
vows. “They gave us a whole wedding,” Wolf said. “They made us feel like we had family here.” Hollon
was impressed with the “competence and comprehensiveness of the
services offered by local congregations” for displaced people. The
churches offered feeding stations, medical and social services, and
pastoral care, he noted. Some churches helped find apartments and jobs
for displaced families, bought uniforms for students enrolled in school
and even provided Internet access to help people search for lost family
members. “While
one cannot overstate the depth and breadth of loss, what displaced
people have found is not abandonment as many feared, but community,”
Hollon said. The
agency executives heard stories from two retired Louisiana pastors, the
Rev. Carol Cotton Winn and the Rev. John Winn, who could not locate
their son who lived in New Orleans. They
met Kevin Porter, a lifetime member of Hartzell-Mt. Zion United
Methodist Church in Slidell, La., as he first surveyed the flood damage
in the church his grandfather built. “I
can’t believe this. This hurts,” said Porter, looking at the scattered,
muddy remains of the sanctuary that was once under more than five feet
of water.
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Web-only photo photo by Larry Hollon A van at Gulfside Assembly rests in a ravine after being deposited by Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters.
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A
van at Gulfside Assembly rests in a ravine after Hurricane Katrina,
demonstrating the power of floodwaters and hurricane winds that
destroyed the historic United Methodist assembly in Waveland, Miss. A
UMNS photo by Larry Hollon. Photo #w05-H018. Accompanies UMNS story
#505. 9/13/05 |
The group also
visited the grounds of the denomination’s historic Gulfside Assembly in
Waveland, Miss. The assembly, like much of Waveland, was wiped away by
the storm. “Not
only were New Orleans, neighboring towns and the towns of Mississippi
heart-wrenching to observe, (but) it was also particularly painful to
walk through the historic grounds of Gulfside Assembly and not see one
building standing,” Day said. Day said that he was “very hopeful and confident that we, as a whole church, will rebuild Gulfside Assembly.” He
reflected on the scenes and faces of poverty the media has shown since
Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi on Aug. 29. “I
have no doubt that Katrina was the worst natural disaster in the United
States in a century, yet this devastating hurricane did not cause
poverty in New Orleans and areas of Mississippi, which we observed,” Day
said. “Rather,
Katrina attracted cameras and intense coverage of the other America —
the one about which rich America has been in denial for decades. “As
I’ve said repeatedly in the past three years, poverty kills. It will
continue to kill Katrina victims and millions of others who were nowhere
near the storm. I believe the United Methodist Church must make
stronger efforts than ever to eliminate racism and all of its evils.”
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A UMNS Web-only photo by the Rev. Larry Hollon The
Rev. Ray Stokes (second from left) discusses relief with (clockwise,
from left) the Rev. Tom Hazelwood, UMCOR; Irene Howard, GCFA; Bishop
Hope Morgan Ward; and the Rev. Jerry Beam.
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Mississippi
Conference and general church officials discuss hurricane relief. From
left are the Rev. Tom Hazelwood, United Methodist Committee on Relief;
the Rev. Ray E. Stokes, pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church in
Gulfport, Miss.; Irene Howard, General Council on Finance and
Administration; conference Bishop Hope Morgan Ward; and the Rev. Jerry
Beam, Gulfport District superintendent. They are surrounded by relief
supplies at Trinity Church, which serves as a major distribution site
for food and supplies to evacuees of Hurricane Katrina. A UMNS photo by
the Rev. Larry Hollon. Photo #w05-H019. Accompanies UMNS story #505.
9/13/05 |
The Louisiana
Conference established a storm center to match the offerings of help it
has received with requests for help from affected areas. The storm
center, housed at the conference center in Baton Rouge, can be reached
toll free at (888) 239-5286, from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through
Friday. Long-term
recovery will include rebuilding, but neither the Louisiana nor
Mississippi conferences have organized volunteer-in-mission groups for
this stage of response yet. The
Rev. Tom Hazelwood, UMCOR director of U.S. disaster response, cited
five ways people can help: give monetary donations to UMCOR, give
appropriate physical donations such as flood buckets or school kits,
pray for all affected people and relief workers, invite corporations to
contribute to UMCOR, and contact Volunteer-in-Missions and join or form a
work team. Donations to support the United Methodist response to the Hurricane Katrina tragedy can be made online at www.methodistrelief.org
and by phone at (800) 554-8583. Checks can be written to UMCOR,
designated for “Hurricanes 2005 Global,” Advance No. 982523, and left in
church offering plates or mailed directly to UMCOR, P.O. Box 9068, New
York, NY 10087-9068. *Rouse is a freelance writer in Nashville, Tenn.
News media contact: Tim Tanton, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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