GA vice moderator describes flight from devastated New Orleans
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, September 26, 2005
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Children in church nurseries play a two-handed game accompanied by a poem: “Here’s the church. Here’s the steeple. Open the doors, and here’s the people.”
But what if the church is flooded deeply and the people are scattered?
Jean Marie Peacock, vice moderator of the 216th General Assembly and associate pastor of Lakeview Presbyterian Church in New Orleans, gave a personal account of losing a church building and trying to find its members.
Speaking to the General Assembly Council during its Sept. 21-24 meeting, Peacock described her family’s flight from Katrina (first) and cancellation of its plans to return to New Orleans before Rita delivered a second blow to her neighborhood and Lakeview Church.
She described the neighborhood of Lakeview Presbyterian and many of its members as one of the worst flooded areas in New Orleans.
“Ours was one of the first communities to be inundated by water,” she said. “The water line on the church is seven feet inside of the building. In our presbytery, 36 of the 65 churches were damaged.”
Peacock and her family got out of New Orleans, leaving at 2 a.m. on the Sunday before Katrina hit. They went to Jackson, Miss., first, later Memphis, Tenn., and finally to Illinois to stay with her parents.
“Our church is dispersed all through the United States,” she said. “We have heard from many of our members. They share their stories in their e-mail.”
“We already know some of our members do not plan to return,” she added. “Whether our congregation can survive this as a viable entity, God knows. I do not.”
She cried softly as she spoke and choked back tears. “I suspect half of our members lost their homes.”
Peacock said she and her husband are “trying to create normalcy for our children, find work and if possible find work to sustain us.”
But she also worries about the Lakeview members. “We do not know how many actually evacuated, nor do we know the fate of others who chose to stay. It’ll be four to six weeks before we’re allowed into the area.”
“I had a dream that my colleagues returned to our church,” she said. “We are holding each other and are crying, and I prayed that God remind us that we’re standing on holy ground even in the destruction of our church.”
She was awakened by a phone call from the church secretary. “She was calling to report to me about the devastation in the church. She said they closed the door on the church and did not lock the door, that there was nothing anybody would want to take anymore because of the damage. She described the damage: ‘There is nothing green, no life here, a gray coat covers everything. When you get out of there you just feel numb. How is it that, when so many have been so impacted, that we’re going to manage through?'”
“I reminded her that we’re part of a connectional church and that hundreds of thousands of people across the United States have reached out and are reaching,” Peacock said. “She said, ‘That gives me great encouragement.”
As she prepared to leave the council meeting to return to Illinois and an uncertain future, Peacock said she was also encouraged.
“We are very grateful. Presbyterian Disaster Assistance has deployed teams. There are already volunteers in staging areas. It’s going to be a very long road ahead. It’s going to take years. With your help, we will make it through with God’s help, knowing that God is our anchor and salvation.”