August 31, 1992

FAITHFUL ASSEMBLE IN GRATEFUL PRAYER FOR LIVES SPARED

PAMELA FERDINAND, DONNA GEHRKE And JOHN DONNELLY Herald
Staff Writers

On the seventh day, South Dade celebrated life.

Parishioners sat on damp pews in churches without steeples or roofs. They looked up at open sky. They faced broken altars.

One Mennonite congregation in Florida City held outdoor services on eight folding chairs in front of their flattened church.

And yet even here at the heart of Hurricane Andrew's destruction, churchgoers' weariness evaporated at the sight of friends and neighbors not seen or heard from since the storm.

"I came here to see our family and friends and to see that everybody is alive together. I need to hear that everything will be OK," said Maxine Plummer, 51.

Plummer said she was deeply moved by the sight of donations -- thousands of bottles of water, diapers and stuffed animals -- stacked in hallways at Christ the King Catholic Church at 16000 SW 112th Ave. near Perrine.

"My faith has been strengthened by seeing what people have donated and how they're helping out," Plummer said.

That, and the visions of hope spoken from pulpits, may have helped some people answer questions of why them, why their neighbors.

Some said they believed God was punishing them for their sins. Others said God was breaking down boundaries between people, between churches. In some communities, all-black churches and all-white churches joined together as one, divisions generations old that evaporated in seven days.

"We know scientifically why the hurricane came to Miami," said Woo Lee, a Miami Lakes Presbyterian who conducts services three times a week in Homestead. "But religiously we believe strongly there is some other reason. We have to repent our sins."

Roman Catholic Archbishop Edward McCarthy had a different answer: "The Lord permits these crises to develop because he's calling us to a new level of humanity and virtue. We've always been told that we're supposed to be suffering with Christ. This immediate morning, everyone is upset, but in the long term, there will be a little more meaning than today.

"You have to look at it in a broader perspective. There's power in suffering."

And so in hundreds of churches around South Dade, from the ripped-open to the air-conditioned and untouched, with the Rev. Jesse Jackson and several earthly powers that be moving from church to church, people left the pain aside for a few hours, celebrated fellowship and prayed for life.

In deep South Dade, the Princeton Church of the Nazarene off Southwest 248th Street was packed.

"I feel very up at the moment, happy because I'm here," said Don Bernecker, 54, outside the church. "Everyone I know is here. There's not a broken finger, not a broken bone, not a lost life."

Nodding his head toward the congregation, as voices raised to the strains of Because I Live, he smiled:

"We can sing."

Inside, under a vaulted white ceiling stained brown by rain, sobs of relief and empathy punctuated the Rev. James Spear's sermon. Children on parents' laps leaned through windows blown out by the storm.

At the back of the room, a man strained his arms holding a fan above their heads.

"We spent all week trying to board up our roofs and patch up our houses, but now we've come to give our thanks to the Lord," Spear said. "I'm just thankful that I'm able to say to you, 'Hello today.' "

Together, congregation members whispered, "Hello."

Ten miles north of the worst of the disaster, members of the University Baptist Church in Coral Gables said prayers for their good fortune.

"I don't have electricity, but many of my friends don't have houses," said Jelsys Perez, 28, of 7240 SW 13th Ter., as she waited to enter the standing-room-only church.

Over the loudspeaker, head pastor Dan Yeare exhorted the congregation, "We need to pray more. We need to pray now. We need to pray together."

Next to Perez, Clara Jenkins also was waiting to get into the church.

"We lost everything," said Jenkins, who lived off Old Cutler Road and 188th Street. "We praise the Lord and thank Him for being alive, the six of us. We were in a closet for five hours. I came today for inner strength to start all over again."

Assistant pastor Gary Stroope's voice boomed over the sound system: "People we know and love have lost their shelter. There are houses down, but Father, thank you that the home still exists."

Clara Jenkins looked at her feet.

A friend tapped her on the shoulder. Jenkins turned and burst into tears. They hugged on and on and shook, weeping.

There was a crack above as Archbishop McCarthy rose to speak at Christ the King.

White tiles fell from the ceiling, crashing onto the pulpit. Gasps. Then silence as parishioners cleared the debris, then ordered roofers down from the top of the building. McCarthy walked a second time to the pulpit.

Before him: a couple of hundred people sitting on plastic over the pews, their feet in puddles, some weeping. "You'd better be careful," he said, meaning the tiles above.

The archbishop praised the hundreds of people at Christ the King for helping other people even as they try to rebuild their own homes.

"I think we're building up a great charge card with the Lord," he said.

McCarthy said truckloads of food and supplies were arriving daily from parishes in Cleveland, Buffalo and elsewhere. The archbishop of Santiago, Cuba, sent a note of condolence and support, McCarthy said.

The Miami archbishop said he was moved by the suffering he has seen, including a badly dehydrated infant brought by a woman to St. Joachim Catholic Church at 11711 SW 193rd St.

"A nurse there saved her life," he said. "There have been many beautiful things happening."

McCarthy also tried to lighten the grim reality. He said he tried to comfort a sick relative by telling him that often the Lord's gift was a cross to bear.

Replied the man: "I wish the Lord wasn't so friendly to me."

Gov. Lawton Chiles traveled from congregation to congregation, delivering messages of hope.

As sunlight streamed through the roof of the darkened Bethel Baptist Church in Richmond Heights, he said: "Somebody said this area will never be the same. I think that's right -- it's going to be even better," to a chorus of "Amen!"

And at St. Joachim's in Perrine, amid aisles littered with stained glass, he quoted the Bible:

"You all are the harvest, and we will continue to get the labor in."