It is shortly after 10:30 a.m. when Argile Smith, dressed informally in slacks and shirt sleeves this remarkable Sept. 18, rises before a remnant of his scattered Southern Baptist congregation and summoned them to prayer.
It is shortly after 10:30 a.m. when Argile Smith, dressed
informally in slacks and shirt sleeves this remarkable Sept. 18, rises
before a remnant of his scattered Southern Baptist congregation and
summoned them to prayer.
The white steeple still stands atop First Baptist
Church of Belle Chasse, but a patchwork of blue tarps cover the bald
spots on the roof. They mark the places Hurricane Katrina stripped off
the shingles one day short of three weeks ago.
Meanwhile, in the parking lot, three dozen Oklahoma
Baptist relief workers prepare to cook 10,000 boxed meals for the Red
Cross to deliver to stricken New Orleanians across the Mississippi
River.
Everywhere around the church, trees are snapped, billboards crumpled, roofs scalped of shingles.
Inside, Judy Winfrey, who rode out the storm as her
roof disintegrated, bends over the keyboard this second Sunday after
Katrina and launches into “The Name of the Lord.”
Arrayed before Smith stands perhaps one-third of the
usual congregation of 250. They were among the first to return to the
high ground of upper Plaquemines Parish, whose lower third lay in ruins
downriver.
These are make-do, informal times. Many in the
congregation are in jeans and clean tee-shirts. Most had fled the area
before Katrina. On their return, most found that their homes had been
spared from flooding and were more or less dry. They were damaged, but
fixable.
They are a rare group, blessed for having a
relatively undamaged church on high, accessible ground in a community
just beyond the city and open to returning residents.
Although the New Orleans area has gushed a torrent
of prayer since Katrina struck Aug. 29, the worship of its organized
faith communities remains largely disrupted. Masses and Sunday services
have begun to return in St. Tammany, the river parishes and, to some
extent, in Jefferson Parish. But closer to the city, they are almost
nonexistent.
The largest churches in New Orleans – a trio of
Pentecostal congregations – are flooded, wrecked or inaccessible. Their
congregations are scattered like those of much smaller churches.
The city’s iconic St. Louis
Cathedral appears relatively undamaged in the high-and-dry French
Quarter, but the area remains sealed by civil authorities. No public
mass was celebrated there Sept. 18. The city’s Christ Church Episcopal
Cathedral on St. Charles Avenue is similarly dry but also in an area
under lockdown.
So, services close to the city, like the one in Belle Chasse, were rare Sept. 18.
But an early return does not necessarily translate
into a secure future, either for First Baptist Church of Belle Chasse
or hundreds of other similar congregations.
Four weeks ago, this church was stocked with dozens
of families with children, Smith says. They fled New Orleans on a few
hours’ notice. They landed – they thought temporarily – in distant
cities. Now, circumstance has forced them to put
down roots in unfamiliar places and enroll their children in new
schools on short notice.
Nobody yet knows how many of First Baptist Church’s
missing faces will show up next week – or ever, Smith says. Still, the
first words out of his mouth on this Sunday are these: “How we have
missed the opportunity to worship together – and how grateful we are to
be back at it.”
If this is the moment for asking the big theological
question – Why did this happen? – Smith opts not to seize it. Instead,
he takes his message from Hebrews 10:24-26, urging his flock to do good
deeds among one another, worship together and encourage each other.
“On this side of the storm, I don’t have to tell you
what love looks like,” he says. “It looks like doing good works, where
you look after your neighbor as well as yourself.”
But some, it is clear, have begun to grapple with
the meaning of Katrina. And since these are the self-selected faithful,
they stand on the bedrock of Christian belief.
“I’m just so happy to see these people again,” says
Lorraine Hess, a church member for 36 years. “It gets you kind of
choked up when you greet.”
Most congregants seemed safe and well, she says.
At 74, Hess is no stranger to adversity. A few hours
before coming to worship Sunday, she telephoned a 24-year-old Marine
grandson to say goodbye, literally hours before his deployment to Iraq.
“God is in control, “ she says firmly.
Then, paraphrasing the New Testament book of
Matthew, she adds: “There will be storms and rumors of storms. God is
always in control. If only we put our faith in him, he will pull us
through.” (RNS)