USA TODAY International Edition
CHURCHGOERS COME HOME
Many Houstonians downplay Harvey, look to the future
Last Sunday, Hurricane Harvey was lashing Southeast Texas and dropping a flood of unimaginable proportions on the Greater Houston area.
On Sunday, exhausted Houstonians, many of whom lost all their worldly possessions to Harvey’s wrath, poured into churches throughout the region.
At Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Houston, the Rev. Barkley Thompson rallied his congregation to action from the pulpit by likening the city’s tribulations with those of Moses.
“Forty-two thousand are presently housed in shelters across this city and state. Forty people have died. Rockport was devastated. Beaumont drowned. One runs out of superlative adjectives to describe things — and then one simply runs out of the energy to speak at all,” Thompson said during his homily.
The Episcopal church enlisted attendees to volunteer to feed the homeless, provide temporary housing, help with home cleanups and host neighborhood potluck dinners.
Established in 1839, Christ Church Cathedral operates The Beacon, which typically dishes out 300 lunches to downtown homeless people, five days a week.
City officials and the Houston Coalition for the Homeless asked The Beacon to start serving three meals daily from Sunday through Sept. 15, Thompson said.
South Main Baptist Church also donated 300 pairs of shoes Friday to The Beacon so the homeless could trade in waterlogged, ruined footwear, he said.
Christ Church Cathedral has established an Uber account for parishioners who lost their vehicles to floods. The church also set up a list of parish attorneys to offer pro bono assistance for insurance or Federal Emergency Management Agency paperwork.
At Holy Name Catholic Church, a predominantly African-American congregation in Baytown, Texas, many of the parishioners watched their homes flood during Hurricane Harvey. The church rectory flooded, and for days after the storm passed, the neighborhood around the church was accessible only by boat.
But Sunday, there seemed to be an agreement among the church’s leaders and members to downplay the damage.
“My house? We got flooded, but it wasn’t that bad,” said Mary Norman, 68, of Baytown. “I only got 4 inches of water inside the house. But other people in my neighborhood had water running over their roofs.”
The Rev. Nixon Mullah’s service Sunday stuck to the normal schedule of homilies for Catholic churches across the country. He spoke about the importance of eschewing the flashy comforts of this world and instead waking up every morning and making the hard decision to be good.
Everyone in the church knew that Mullah’s home, in the church rectory, had been flooded by knee-high water. They knew he’d been cut off from his congregation for days, with no phone service and his church accessible to the outside world only by boat.
They already knew, Mullah said, so he saw no reason to remind them. Better, then, to fo-
cus on eternal love rather than these passing pains.
“We are already living in the storm. What can I add or subtract from that?” Mullah said. “So I thought what I can do instead is to spread the message of hope.”
Lilly Auzenne’s house in Baytown was flooded last year, and it took her six months and $24,000 to rebuild, she said.
She moved back into her house two months before Harvey made landfall. The water seeped in first through the front door, then through the back. It destroyed her carpet and her furniture.
“Oh, I know I’m going to be fine,” said Auzenne, 80, as she pointed to the ceiling. “I talk to God all the time.”
At Fifth Ward Church of Christ in northeast Houston, parking was so scarce during the 11:15 a.m. service that many attendees had to park nearly a halfdozen streets away from the building.
One of them, Helen Benjamin, 78, crossed a set of railroad tracks near the church.
About two blocks away, smoke billowed into the air, creating a mouth-watering aroma, as more than a dozen people prepped a pair of large smokers.
“They’re going to feed us today,” said Benjamin, who has been displaced from her Fifth Ward home and is staying in a hotel. “God is good. We are blessed.”
Nearby, scores of people lined concrete sidewalks making their way in to the church.
“I think it’s good, and it shows community and family unity — that somebody has their back,” said Nijia Thomas, 37, of Cypress.
Inside the building, a TV screen broadcast a man praying from the pulpit addressing Harvey’s aftermath.
“We know you, only you, can heal,” Willie Spriggs said. “Father, all that we can do, we ask that you touch our hearts to be compassionate in this time.”
In the sanctuary stood Blan Chrane, a minister at Franklin Church of Christ. Members of his congregation were the cooks manning the grills.
“The whole state of Texas has been devastated,” Chrane prayed. “We ask that you help us stand and provide a little assistance to those around us.”
During the baptism invitation, congregants sang Softly and Tenderly. Notes echoed through the sanctuary as they sang, “Come home, come home … Ye who are weary, come home.”