This past week I, along with several members of Talk Radio News Service, decided to continue our “embedded journalist” coverage. Only this time, we were not in Iraq, we were in Mississippi. We were not with soldiers in uniform, but soldiers of charity. We were not covering a war, but the survivors of a war waged by nature, not man.
Katrina ripped through their homes and uprooted trees with a force that made oak trees look like pulled weeds tossed aside onto their roofs. The lucky homes were flooded. The not-so-lucky ones had a tidal wave of water turn the contents of their homes into the spin cycle of an industrial washing machine. Some homes were “re-located” – as in re-located to a lot 30 feet away. The cars became a floating armada that eventually docked, sometimes upside down.
We spent the week with Katrina’s survivors – the family members, leaders, parishioners and community of the Mt. Zion Methodist Church in DeLisle, Miss., and their joint congregation in Pass Christian, Miss., as well as the greater Gulfport area. The residents of this small community have struggled daily to hold onto their homes, no matter how small or how damaged. They do so on their own dime, with their own sweat – with a pride and tenacity I have never witnessed. The week was a graduate-level education in community and leadership with a minor in home renovation and logistics.
My favorite definition of the word leadership is “influence.” A true leader has the ability to wield a powerful influence on their environment. They have the ability to drive the values, take responsibility and appropriate benefits for their communities. The leaders of our adopted community renewed my faith that, yes, one person can make a difference.
Here is a brief introduction to the leaders we had the privilege to spend a week with: The Reverend Rosemary Williams and her husband, the Reverend Theodore Williams, are the cornerstones of their community. Theodore’s church was about an eighth of a mile from the water and was completely wiped out, as were the homes of his congregants. Rosemary’s church, the Mt. Zion Methodist Church was further from the water and on higher ground, so to speak. Her church became the central point of distribution for everything from food and to soap to love.
Most of the church’s neighbors were not so lucky. In fact, 65 people ended up in the second floor of one person’s home in order to avoid drowning in the rising water. They had stayed in DeLisle because it was supposed to be relatively safe.
How did we know which Katrina survivors to help? As it says in the book of Isaiah, “A little child shall lead them.” I was on a plane from Jackson, Miss., to Baltimore, Md., where a woman and two small children were sitting next to me. Before long, the children were crawling all over me. I am no fan of little people, but tried to be sympathetic as I assumed the woman was leaving the area due to Katrina.
I began plying her for information. Before long, I knew all about her aunt, the Reverend Rosemary Williams, and her husband, Myrick Nicks, a vice principal at Gautier High School, now home for about 1,000 relief and Guard workers.
Shantrell Nicks, a lawyer with little legal work in the wake of Katrina, along with Myrick, have opened their home to the four of us and have shuttled us from person to person in order to target our resources and labor to those in the most need. They have taken ownership of Katrina’s aftermath and will lead her survivors to higher ground.
I heard Bill Clinton once say that for all his years in public service, the most important thing he had learned about community is that if a community is to be successful, it must have shared values, shared responsibility and shared benefit. The problem with building an “American community” is that even if we could agree on values, we would still remain divided on who takes on the responsibility and who gets the benefits. One side focuses on individual responsibility and the other side focuses on the fact that the other side seems to get the majority of the benefits.
These arguments on public policy are lost on Katrina’s survivors. They are individually taking the responsibility to ensure that all benefit, while solidifying their values of charity, hope and love at the same time.
The residents of this small Mississippi community have harnessed their resources and the sweat of their brows to bring healing to this ravaged community and, in doing so, they will build a better life for all.
It is their prayer, and mine, that our president will ensure that last Thursday’s promises to the nation will not end with his words. While those words were the most moving of his presidency, the true test of this leadership will be if he can bear down on Congress, contractors and companies to ensure that Katrina’s survivors are employed in the rebuilding of their beautiful community.
The one thing that the Mt. Zion Methodist Church cannot give their community is employment. This will require that the president’s leadership be as strong as his faith.
