[StBernard] Rebirth seems a miracle amid St. Bernard's dormant churches

[Westley Annis]

RISING AGAIN
Rebirth seems a miracle amid St. Bernard's dormant churches 
Sunday, January 21, 2007
By Bruce Nolan
Staff writer 

The excavator's heavy mechanical bucket pulled down a huge chunk of wall in
what was once First Baptist Church of Chalmette's education building. A
shower of broken drywall, bricks and flailing electrical wiring tumbled to
the ground as the church's pastor, the Rev. John Dee Jeffries, looked on
from across the street. Soon, a new church complex will rise on the same
lot. 

 
"So, is this a good sight, or a sad sight?" someone asked him recently. 

Jeffries, 58, considered for a moment. "Bittersweet," he said. "Bittersweet.
Now, months ago, when they had to chain saw the pews into pieces to haul
them out of the church, that was bad." 

He paused again. "I'd prayed over those pews. Before services on that
Sunday, before the people came, I'd put my hand on one and pray to God to
bless the people who were coming and who'd be sitting there. 

"So, yeah, that was bad." 

But now it appears that Jeffries and his current flock, down to 75 from 350,
have turned a corner in a long, rugged road. 

Soon construction workers will pour the slab for a new, $3.5 million church
and education complex for the 58-year-old church that stands on St. Bernard
Highway, in the shadow of a refinery. 

A new education building and fellowship hall will be attached to a restored
sanctuary where three feet of black water swirled for two weeks after
Hurricane Katrina. 


Volunteer builders 

No less than other institutions, all of St. Bernard's churches are
struggling to recover. Most were demolished by the hurricane, which damaged
or destroyed nearly every building in the parish. 

Sixteen months after the storm, six of seven Catholic parishes remain
dormant, their parishioners gathering at Our Lady of Prompt Succor in
Chalmette, St. Bernard's one functioning Catholic church. 

Three of St. Bernard's seven autonomous Southern Baptist congregations were
destroyed; the remaining four continue to pray together, although none in
their old sanctuaries. 

Much of the rebuilding at First Baptist will be done by 600 to 1,000
volunteers. They will be funneled into the job between May and August by
Builders for Christ, a Southern Baptist construction ministry that, like
Habitat for Humanity, takes willing workers and organizes them into teams
under skilled supervisors. 

Those volunteers will follow an architectural plan devised by Alexandria
architect Jeff Sampson, who donated part of his time. And the work will be
overseen for free by Gary Morrow, a Baptist layman who, with his wife,
Marilyn, closed their Marshall, Mo., contracting business to come live in
New Orleans and rebuild its churches. 

At least some of the money from materials comes from donations across the
country. A gift of $50,000 came from a Baptist church in Lynn Haven, Fla.,
whose pastor, the Rev. Bill Montgomery, helped rebuild the Chalmette church
when he was its pastor after Hurricane Betsy in the mid-1960s. 

Charity breakfast 

Another $25,000 came from a church in Texas whose pastor passed Jeffries a
check over breakfast, moments after meeting him for the first time. 

And that does not count the Baptist congregation in Sarasota, Fla. --
strangers all -- who put Jeffries on their payroll a few weeks after the
storm. 

"This is a God thing," Jeffries says frequently in re-telling his story of
loss and rescue. "The body of Christ all over the country has responded to
this and heard his voice to get this done." 

Jeffries remembers that on the day before Katrina hit he stood before only a
dozen worshippers instead of the usual 350. The storm was bearing down; most
of the city had already emptied. 

They sang "Because He Lives I Can Face Tomorrow." Jeffries cut his message
to five minutes. He dismissed them and encouraged them to get out of town. 

Twenty-four hours later their church, like virtually all of St. Bernard
Parish, lay destroyed. Two members drowned. 

Jeffries and his wife, Genny, found themselves in Livingston. His church
members were scattered all over the South, their homes gone and their lives
in disarray. 


Cafeteria worship 

A few weeks after the storm Genny suffered a brain aneurysm, then a serious
stroke. 

Members of First Baptist were not reunited for four months, until hundreds
of displaced St. Bernard residents from many churches began meeting on
Saturdays in Baton Rouge to worship together, then to participate in town
hall meetings on their parish's future. 

Today members of First Baptist join others from St. Bernard Baptist Church,
another Southern Baptist church, in weekly cafeteria worship at Chalmette
High School, Jeffries said. 

Jeffries hopes they will be in their rebuilt church this fall, with his
recovering wife at his side. 

His story of the past 16 months is filled with gifts out of the blue, with
chance encounters that led him to critical help at moments of need --
whether the discovery of a volunteer trucker to haul food and water right
after the storm, or his later chance discovery of Builders for Christ, who
will rebuild his church. 

Jeffries describes his church's continuing recovery as a series of
moment-to-moment encounters for which he could not have prepared, and which
would be hard to teach to another pastor. 

"There's no traditional way of doing this," he said. 

But a friend mentioned something that stuck in his mind and keeps coming
back, he said. 

"In the beginning, all miracles are messy." 

. . . . . . . 

Bruce Nolan can be reached at bnolan at timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3344