The last couple of weeks have been enjoyable. We have had crews from the Arkansas Presbytery, Fifth Ave. PC(NYC), Stillwater, Minnesota, New Bern, NC and Virginia. There were familiar faces in the New Bern group and the Arkansas group. Yesterday evening a crew from the Presbytery of Western North Carolina arrived. A lot of them are from Gastonia.
Many in each of these churches have been down three, four or five times. The last few days we were able to treat the Minnesota folks to some northern weather, lows in the evening have kissed the freezing point or hovered a little above. (I brought in my epiphylum a couple last week.).
One of the Gastonia group came to me this morning to tell me a woman had driven up in a truck and was looking for a place to stay. I went out and found her.
Standing by her truck looking in I noticed her pillow and blanket were in the reclined passenger seat. I asked her how she was doing and her story came out in bits and pieces.
“I drove over from Tallahassee and have no place to stay. “
“What are you doing in Gulfport?”
“I came over to take care of my father over in Van cleave.”
“Can’t you stay with him?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, his wife doesn’t much like me and will not let me stay there.”
“So, how can you take care of your father?”
“I came over to be sure he gets his shots. I slept in my truck last night and I am about frozen. To tell you the truth, I got drunk to warm up last night. I’m looking for a place to warm up and stay just for tonight. I think I have a room tomorrow. Do you have any place warm I could stay for today?”
I could tell she had been drinking from the strong alcohol odor about her. She probably was not in any condition to drive her truck.
“Do you want some coffee? We’ve got some in the dining tent.”
“Sure, that sounds good.”
“What do you want in it?”
“Just black, please.”
She was wiping tears from her eyes when I brought out the cup of coffee and gave it to her.
“Don’t you want something to eat, we have cereal and toast in the tent?”
“I just need a place to cry.”
“Well, come on in the tent and sit, you can warm up.”
She came in and sat down, still crying a little and dabbing her eyes with the paper towel she was holding in the truck.
“Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat? We’ve got toast.”
“That sounds good, I could use some toast and butter.”
I made the toast while I prepared my own to eat with my oatmeal. While she ate her toast and I my oatmeal we talked some more.
“So what brings you to Gulfport?”
“Oh, I used to live here.”
Her story was getting a little confusing so I asked, “I thought you said you came from Tallahassee?”
“No, Pas Christian. When Katrina hit it washed me up past I-10, I treaded water and swam up to the Lutheran emergency center.”
I was having a little difficulty believing all this since I know a little about the surge, but I just listened.
Since it wasn’t wise for her to drive in her condition I thought I might buy an hour or so inviting her to our church service. I went to look for the pastor. Having no luck (I was an hour early, the clocks turned back last night) I returned to the dining tent to see her heading for her car.
“I have to tell you that we don’t really have any good place for you to stay in the Village other than our pods. But, there is a Salvation Army Shelter in Pascagoula that takes in folks that don’t have a place to stay.”
“How far is that about 40 miles or so? No, I don’t guess the gas in this old truck would make it that far.” She got in the truck and said, “ I just wanted to use your facilities.”
She slammed the door and left.
In the tent I bumped into the team leader for the Gastonia group. We talked a little about the homeless issue and how we served the homeless during my time in Atlanta at Central Presbyterian Church. I mentioned that our associate pastor, Kim Richter, had the pastor’s position in Ashville, Westminster Church, I believe. Not only has this person met Kim (he participated in a class she taught in his Presbytery) but he has read a book by her husband, Don.
As I say, it’s a small world, a shrinking denomination, or I’m near some gravitational sinkhole that pulls my past along with me.
Later in our church service today one of the reading was from Second Corinthians (8:8ff) where Paul talked to the poor Macedonian Church. It seems apropos.
“I say this not as a command but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love is also genuine…it is best to complete what you began so that your readiness in desiring is matched by your completing it with what you have. For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable to complete it according to what a man has, not according to what he has not… I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened but that as a matter of equality your abundance at the present time should supply their want so that their abundance may supply your want… As it is written, ‘He who gathered much had nothing over, and he who gathered little had no lack.’”
Peace and Grace
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