Green said he and his wife “wanted never to live in a hurricane zone. Living on an island with a beach was never our dream. … But the call of God was so very clear and the hand of God in bringing us here was so very strong. We don’t have any regrets about it.”
Green and his family moved from Charlotte, N.C., three years ago. Since Hurricane Ike hit Galveston last September, they’ve been involved in triage, both for an historic church building, constructed in the 1870s, and for a congregation that took the full force of the storm. Across Galveston Island, about three-fourths of the homes were considered uninhabitable after the storm. A major employer, the University of Texas Medical Branch, a medical school and hospital complex, considered leaving for good.
“When you live on an island, you do have the sense that you live at the end of the earth,” Green said. And, with the nation’s attention diverted by the broader economic crisis, “there is a pervasive sense around the island that we really have been forgotten.”
The church itself suffered significant damage — several feet of water filled the sanctuary and washed out some of the foundation. Demolition of the interior is now complete, and reconstruction about to begin. In the meanwhile, First Church is worshipping at Moody Memorial First United Methodist church, which suffered less damage. Its Web site says “Still Standing to Serve.” The Methodist Church rearranged its own worship schedule so the Presbyterians could hold services at 9 a.m. on Sunday mornings, and has also opened its doors to a charter school and a plethora of community groups.
“I describe what they’ve done for us as one of the most stunning acts of compassion I’ve ever seen from a Christian congregation,” Green said. “They’ve offered far and away more than we could ever ask with a clear conscience.”
The Methodist pastor said, essentially, that “It’s not our fault that ours happened to be the building that did OK this time,” Green recalled. In a coastal community, “we all expect that ours will be the place that gets hit by the water,” sooner or later.
In his three years in Galveston, Green has learned that “time on the island is told by hurricanes,” with people speaking fluidly of the storms of 1885, 1900, 1916, 1961, 1983, and now 2008. “Look around the sanctuary, you can see visible reminders of each of those storms. Every one has left a scar” – from broken panes in a stained-glass window to the air-conditioning, put in when the building was opened up for mold remediation.
And now, many of his pastoral visits involve simply listening as one-by-one, the people of his congregation tell their stories – how they evacuated, or didn’t, or tried to.
“My visits tend to be very long,” Green said. “People are still processing their stories of being here during the storm. They want to talk,” about the evacuation, the shelters, what they saw and experienced.
“There’s a healing power in those words,” Green said. “On the one hand, it helps them reclaim a voice they lost in the storm. They’ve lost their homes, they’ve lost their possessions, they’ve lost their sense of security. But they still have their words.”
His congregation now has less than half the members it did before Ike changed everything. Green expects more will come back over the summer, “but a third of our congregation is not coming back, they’ve moved out of our community,” including renters who can no longer find apartments to rent and retirees who have decided not to risk another storm. “It’s heartbreaking,” he said “Each one of these people is dear to me.”
Just before Ike came calling, Green had started a sermon series about Moses leading the people of Israel into exile. And in the weeks to come, “that became our story,” he said. “When people walked out of Egypt, they didn’t know what to expect, and it was awful. But God was still with them.”
People of faith know that, at least in their heads, Green said. But in difficult times, “it really finds a different meaning. It’s one thing to know that God is with you if you potentially should ever be in the wilderness.”
But it takes on a different meaning, he said, when your children watch you hauling the gifts you gave them last year for Christmas and dump them at the curb, covered with mold.
This year, the Greens made a point to be back in their house for Christmas, even though the house was not ready. They wanted their three children to celebrate Christmas in their own home. “The fact that we didn’t have any furniture in the house didn’t seem to bother them,” Green said. “They had lights on the Christmas tree. They had a couple of friends in the neighborhood. How great is that?”
Standing on his back porch with spring coming on, Green said “I can smell the floodwaters,” six months after Ike, as the cleanup begins of some nearby apartments.
“We still have people who have not broken the seal on their flood-ravaged homes. In about four weeks it’s going to be very hot and humid, and the mold is going to be a very significant problem. We invite people to come. We need their help.”
