Tomorrow I will fly home.  None too soon.  I am very proud of the work done by our group of chaplains here.  But ready to go home, and leaving things in good hands here.  Did sing my “Blessing” song this a.m. for our Headquarters morning meeting, which was well received, and meaningful to me to do.  Will post a poem (Tearing), hoping it is not too heavy.

- Jim

Last days have been very full.  Integrated Care Teams have been out doing work with people who lost family in the tornadoes.  Chaplains have done some wonderful work as team members.  Stories are heart-breaking, such as a mother whose child was literally ripped from her arms while she was doing all in her power to hold on.  There are no words.  Trying to get help to people when they have no homes, have lost family members, etc., is what these care teams are about, with (ideally) a nurse, a caseworker, a mental health worker, as well as a chaplain.  We have some experienced top-notch chaplains in the field, who are in many cases taking the lead in terms of the personal interactions with the family.  Personal needs can be addressed as primary, and then the information, signatures, forms, etc. can be addressed by others.  Other chaplains are going to Disaster Recovery Centers and doing the work of spiritual care for people who have been impacted profoundly by the storms.  Alabama will be coming back for a long time.  I am definitely going to be ready to head home on Saturday, but feel very good about being here.  Thank you to all for your prayers and support.
Jim

Saturday (5/14) was my first day being fully “in charge” here, as the previous manager was “out-processing” and getting ready to return to his home in the Cincinnati area, where he now is.  It was a non-stop day but at day’s end we chaplains, 9 or 10 of us, were able to gather at an area restaurant where we had a room somewhat to ourselves, and a round table so we could carry on a single conversation.  It was inspiring just to hear people identify themselves and what they do back home, and realize the wonderful breadth of talent and experience that was there, some with lengthy history working with AIDS victims, another from a children’s hospital ICU, a retired chaplain (who happened to be the unit chaplain on my clinical assignment for my first unit of CPE!) who is now pastoring two small Methodist churches in Wisconsin, etc., etc.  Our “model” is an Integrated Care Team, made up of a chaplain, a mental health worker, a caseworker and a nurse, but we also have chaplains who go out to Disaster Recovery Centers, shelters and other places in the hard-hit areas.  It is hard for me to not be going out any longer but it does seem that I am the person best qualified to do this managerial task right now, so my focus is on helping this talented group utilize their skills to meet the needs around here, which are still quite substantial.

On Sunday, we had the day mostly off, I went to mass at the Prince of Peace Church, a nice liturgy, so refreshing to see children and families etc., in “normal” situations; did laundry (first time in a long time I used a laundromat) and went to the Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham which is across the street from the 16th Street Baptist Church where the 6 girls were killed when the KKK bombed the church while they were in Sunday school – a turning point in the Civil Rights movement, as the whole world could see what the nature of the racist system really were.  Last evening there was a get-together for as many Red Cross workers as could make it from around the state, to recognize and entertain as well as feed them.  About 600 came (they had planned for 300-400) and we chaplains did the “Flexibility” song – lyrics I wrote to the tune of “Unforgettable” which I wrote when I was in Texas for Hurricane Ike.  I changed the bits that had been specific to our Texas experience.  It was fun, and appreciated.  (Although less meaningful to me personally than singing “Workplace Blessing” a cappella for our morning meeting here at Headquarters last week.)

The stories are many and poignant.  One is of a 6-yr.-old child who told the chaplain she had not been frightened during the tornado because her grandmother had taken her and her brother to the basement and read to them and held them.  She knew something was going on, but felt safe with her grandmother.  Fortunately that house was not one that the storm completely destroyed.

Blessings to all, prayers are welcome, especially for the people here.  Recovery will be, as the Red Cross people say, a marathon, not a sprint.  But lives are being touched.

Jim

Hello, all -

I am sorry for taking so long to be able to send anything.  Have been incredibly busy here and with not a combination of access and time to enable me to do it.  Was in Tuscaloosa earlier in the week.  Incredible destruction there, entire neighborhoods virtually stripped bare.  Other areas with lesser but substantial damage.  Talked with people, heard stories, accompanying the vehicle taking out meals.  Have been transitioning to take leadership of the chaplains group here, which I assume fully today, till my return which will be 5/21.  It was hard for me to not be out in the direct service, but the need was there and I have a group of about ten good chaplains and keeping them properly plugged in is what I am trying to do now.  Most are in Integrated Service Teams consisting of a nurse, a Mental Health worker, a Caseworker and a Chaplain.  They go out into the counties and follow up on deaths, which sometimes have been only recently confirmed.  The weather was hot but has cooled.  Red Cross is now of course also dealing with the flooding, and some focus is shifting there.  Miss you all, please keep me/us in prayer, hope to see you soon.

Jim

Dear family and friends,

It is hard to believe I am home in Evanston, sitting on my deck, the trees slightly changed in color since I saw them last. Same blue sky as Baytown, but temps there were consistently upper 80′s and low 90′s; here a gorgeous early fall day in 60′s.

It is of course hard to describe an experience so intense, so profound. I know I will be unpacking it for a long time. I am taking today to decompress and re-enter a “normal” pace of life. It is hard to say how grateful I am to be home, to sleep in my bed next to my beloved, no ear-plugs or eye-mask required. One song I began down there is about “the things we take for granted most of the time.” (The staff shelter was in a Baptist church and I was able to use the piano there occasionally, a real gift.)

Some of my work down there was with Red Cross staff persons, who are very impressive but who operate under extraordinarily demanding conditions. I cannot say enough about the “salt of the earth” people who volunteer for these things. In addition to the Red Cross people, the North Carolina Southern Baptists staffed and ran the kitchen. (They had evening meetings at the church and I played a song for them at a few of these. Many of them recognized and especially appreciated “Was It a Morning Like This.”) These folks stayed also at the staff shelter (the Baptist church about a half mile from the kitchen, which was set up on the parking lot of a former K-Mart), and during the day prepared the food that was so important. The ERV’s (Emergency Relief Vehicles) would then take the food to outposts where the storm had done the most damage. Meals would also be distributed at the site of the kitchen twice a day, people driving in in a very regulated fashion, and I spent one day working on the line for the noon meal, doing some of that distribution, checking in with people to see how they were, etc.

But most days I spent driving to areas near Galveston Bay, driving the neighborhoods, offering water or GatorAde and visiting with people. Chaplaincy comes under Disaster Mental Health in the Red Cross structure and most of the time I was there we had two chaplains and five or six other mental health professionals. I was very blessed to be part of a great team that both worked well together and exhibited lots of humor. (See the song “Flexibility” with which we serenaded the ERV drivers and other workers, to our enjoyment and theirs. We did the song on the one day it rained, and were clothed in black garbage bags with holes for our arms and heads, so we were quite a picture as well…) The person who led the team most of the time was the other chaplain who came in the same day I did, and with whom I traveled from Ft. Worth to Houston and then Baytown, a female Episcopal priest from Long Island with a lot of energy and flexibility – a term which came to have more meaning than I could have envisioned! (The song gives you an idea…) I was further blessed to team up early with a psychologist from Atlanta, Betsy, and we quickly developed a lot of trust in working together. She is a skilled practitioner who demonstrates much respect for the spiritual dimension of people’s lives, and the rapport we had was truly a gift and not to be taken for granted. She also came in the same day as I, and went home to Atlanta yesterday as I did to Chicago and Evanston.

There truly is no way to describe the amount of destruction we saw, as anyone who has witnessed first-hand a disaster of such a scope knows. I did take pictures which I hope to put together and perhaps post, at least a few, on my website. The first few days we were in the “East Bay” towns, such as Shore Acres, Sea Brook, Kemah, LaPorte. What these folks experienced was both the 100 + mph winds and also a surge of water that, from seal level, was twelve to thirteen feet. Some were people of means and will have insurance that will help them. Many were of modest means and will receive some help from FEMA and possibly insurance (though insurance companies tend to be very creative about deeming the damage flood-related if the coverage is for wind, or vice versa) but what help they get will not nearly replace what was lost. The resilience of many of these folks was quite remarkable, along with, in a lot of cases, their pulling together with one another. But these homes took in water (not just “clean”) that was usually four to seven feet high in the house, and ruined literally everything. So houses would always be completely emptied, with the front yards filled with everything from inside, including stove, refrigerator, etc., that might be brand new, but ruined. People were trying to protect the possessions so that FEMA and/or insurance adjusters could assess their damage, and were often not wanting strangers around, but our Red Cross vests gave us access, as people were virtually without exception appreciative of what the Red Cross was doing.

Countless poignant stories, but a couple of brief ones to give a picture: A woman, about my age, who had moved there last year with her husband, confided to me that she had thought she was doing pretty well. She lived in a pretty nice place and the main living unit was elevated, as was often the case, and had been spared. However, these folks would usually finish part of their lower part and use it for appliances, storage, etc., and she had stored lots of stuff down there and never relocated it after their move. And just that day (about ten days after Ike hit) she had found and discarded, as they were completely ruined, all her brother’s letters and items from Vietnam, things she had promised her mother to preserve, as he had died over there at the age of nineteen. No one can put a price tag on that kind of loss, tied as it was to the loss of her brother, and her voice broke as she told me, as she knew it. I hope as I am writing this that she is able to talk with someone about all that. And in many cases it was things like this, or photographs, whose loss hurt people the most – things that cannot be replaced.

Another visit I will tell about was in Oak Island, where Betsy and I spent much time in the last week we were there. It is around on the other side of the bay, south of Anahuac, and the devastation there was in many cases complete, so that for instance on a street where there had been eighteen houses there are now three, with the rest piles of rubble or simply bare concrete slabs, the storm having swept everything inland. A Vietnamese woman was standing by what had been her home. (There were a number of Vietnamese people in this area, often involved in the fishing industry.) She was wearing the conical hat many of us have seen in pictures. She spoke no English, but as she received our meager gifts of cold water and, in this case, an apple and banana, and looked into our eyes with enormous sadness, she gestured at what was there and and then turned back to us and wept, as Betsy hugged her. The grief she felt transcended language barriers, but so, I think, did at least a measure of caring from some fellow humans.

I could of course go on and on. I am more tired than I can say, but was truly blessed to be in touch with these people. They are in my prayers as I think of them. I was also inspired by people like Pastor Eddy, of the Baptist Church there in Oak Island, his building uninhabitable but a tent outside serving as a center for so many people to find clothing and food (one of our ERV’s made twice-daily visits there) and also simply to gather together, to talk and share. Up the road at Our Lady of Light Catholic Church in Anahuac, Pastor Neil, in a bilingual (English/Spanish) homily (there were also many Mexican people in the area), addressing parishioners who were in many cases very poor even before the storm, reminded them in an authentic way that gratitude is possible in any circumstance. That may be a good place to stop, as I pray and invite prayers for these and so many people who are showing true faith-in-action as they confront a situation whose devastation is beyond description, but in which hope lives and grows also. Please join me in praying for them all. And I thank you deeply for your prayers and support for me.

love,

Jim

Greetings, Leszek et al -

I am at the Sterling Municipal Library where they are graciously letting me use one of their computers. People down here are very appreciative of the Red Cross and the help many people from a number of organizations are bringing here. Red Cross has a policy of seven days on, then one off, so today is my day off. It is nice to look forward to heading home a week from today.

Yesterday I went out, along with a Psychologist (chaplains work under Mental Health) into some of the hardest hit areas in the bays. While the worst and most dramatic destruction was down on Galveston and the Bolivar Peninsula, what we saw is the equivalent in many ways, as people’s homes lost all possessions, as the surge brought water through the area up to a five-foot level, effectively destroying everything in the homes and making it necessary to gut the home and rebuild completely from within, assuming it was not rendered impossible by the foundation being affected. The winds, of course, were 100 mph+. Add to that the fact that most homes are too low and may not be approved for receiving FEMA funds unless they are raised, and you see what dire straits these folks are in. Yards are filled with their possessions. Many places still do not have power but even if they do, homes in such areas are not habitable. The power helps for bringing in a small refrigerator and for tools used in clean-up; those who can afford it park trailers in their driveways to live in while they are trying to work at clean-up. The hardest part, of course, in terms of what they have lost, is the things that cannot be replaced, such as pictures. Most people are of modest means and many have lived in their respective area for generations.

The Red Cross ERV’s (Emergency Recovery Vehicles, I think…) go out each day to various sites and distribute hot meals, which are so appreciated by people. The meals are prepared at Community Kitchens around the area, many of which are staffed by the Southern Baptists. Our kitchen is staffed by the North Carolina Southern Baptists; that of the place I went to in League City, about 40 miles away, by the Texas Baptists; etc. Our staff shelter is in a Southern Baptist Church, about a half-mile from the kitchen (the kitchen is all outside, in tents, and is a mind-boggling operation in itself) as is the League City staff shelter. Many of the client shelters for the persons who are homeless and do not have relatives or friends to stay with, are also in Baptist churches.

Our work in Mental Health is especially in helping Red Cross and other staff, who are working under a great deal of stress; and in going out into the stricken areas, as I described doing yesterday, cruising the streets and seeing whether people are visible and if so, offering them water or GatorAde and, in cases where there are children, small stuffed animals that have been donated. We converse with people for a while and listen to their stories, give them what support we can and move on. Even brief conversations can have a great deal of meaning for folks. And the resilience of these people, most of whom do not have a lot of resources, is inspiring. More than one person has told me of personal losses, e.g., a spouse dying in last year or two, and that being much harder than all the material loss, even though the latter is in many cases literally everything they have. One big payoff, of course, among many, is seeing a child’s face light up as they clutch the Mickey Mouse or Teddy Bear we give them. These folks have incredible challenges ahead, so pray for them. This situation is not receiving anything like the attention Katrina got, but for those affected – a lot of people – the effect is much the same. People’s appreciation for the Red Cross is very real and palpable, and there is no other organization that can do what they do.

Anyway, that is it for now. I rarely get a shot at a computer, so I tried to give a feel for what I am doing. I much appreciate people’s support and encouragement and of course prayers. I cannot pretend it is not challenging (sleeping in a room with a large number of men lets you realize the limits of ear-plugs!) but I am grateful to be here and available to people, and feel it is a natural and appropriate extension of my ministry as a chaplain and of the Resurrection Health Care Mission.

Blessings to all,

Jim