A communion: After Katrina, churches connect
One is a business executive-turned-Baptist minister, presiding over a predominantly white parish in Needham.
The other is a Southern preacher, slowly but surely cobbling together a congregation after Hurricane Katrina displaced two-thirds of his mostly black parishioners.
They say their ''spirits resonate," though they have never met, and they live 1,500 miles apart.
For the past three months, Pastor Debora Jackson of the First Baptist Church in Needham and Pastor Allen D. Jenkins of the First Missionary Baptist Church in Bay St. Louis, Miss., have prayed together over crackly phone lines and have bounced ideas off each other about how to rebuild the coastal town.
As they build a bridge between the Northern and Southern towns, the black pastors also hope to bridge the racial divide that often separates churches.
''The fact of the matter is that 11 on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in our country," said Jackson, who became the senior pastor at First Baptist a year ago.
She took that ministry after completing her master's at the Andover Newton Theology School in Newton Centre. Previously, she had been the chief information officer and chief operating officer of SmartEnergy .
Jackson located Jenkins through Needham Cares, a townwide initiative that aims to put three Mississippi towns back on their feet by linking businesses with businesses, churches with churches, civic groups with civic groups.
Starting Nov. 28, Needham Cares will start collecting holiday presents for the estimated 5,000 children who returned to school recently in Bay St. Louis, Pearlington, and Waveland.
Volunteers from 20 Needham civic organizations and churches already have begun collecting donations for the 17,000 residents of the three towns.
The Needham Cares website soon will list what specific families or organizations need. For instance, the Smith family needs three sets of clothes for their daughters, said Fire Chief Paul Buckley, one of the project's organizers.
''It's great to donate to the Red Cross, but sometimes you get more self-satisfaction donating to a particular person," Buckley said.
Volunteers said forging long-distance friendships with people of different cultural, religious, and ethnic backgrounds has been one of the most rewarding aspects of the program.
Jackson said Jenkins had told her that his church was in the midst of a $250,000 renovation when Katrina ripped through the Mississippi coast.
Jenkins said he watched the storm and prayed that God would salvage the church. The water rose to 18 feet outside the church but never seeped through the doorway. Houses a stone's throw away were completely washed off their foundations.
''We were praying to God together on the phone. I was so moved. So touched," Jackson said.
Only 44 members of Jenkins's 110-member parish remain in the area. He is struggling to pay for the renovations without a congregation.
With a virtually untouched church and with pews that can accommodate another 70 worshipers, Jenkins hopes to recruit new members from churches that were destroyed. He said he has long wanted to promote more integration among Southern churches.
''People gravitate to where their parents went to church, and that goes back generations. They tend to gravitate to their ethnicity and denomination," Jenkins said in a phone interview.
Jenkins has opened his doors to Methodist, Pentecostal, Church of God, and Church of Christ worshipers. He has invited white Episcopal priests to give sermons. And he administers Communion to people of all denominations.
Jackson said the relief effort is serving to spread that ecumenical spirit thousands of miles from where the storms struck.
''Here's an opportunity for Needham churches to work with other denominations and other races," she said.
Predominantly white churches in Needham have asked specifically to pair up with predominantly black churches in the Gulf region.
Such was the case for Rev. John Buehrens of the First Parish in Needham Unitarian Universalist Church. Though the plans still are on the drawing board, Buehrens said the church wants to send its 20-member youth group to the Gulf Coast in April.
He said the ''kids will take away enormously" from the experience, and they are planning a rock concert next month to raise money for the trip.
Buehrens said the church-to-church cooperation could also breach religious divides.
''I think it would be a way of minimizing the differences in theological approaches," Buehrens said. ''We're good religious liberals. Most of the churches down there have conservative views."
Mississippi is home to six Unitarian Universalist churches, compared with 142 in Massachusetts, according to the Unitarian Universalist Association website.
Needham Cares is forging secular ties as well, such as the phone friendship between volunteer Bill Tilburg and Rodrick ''Rocky" Pullman of the Hancock County Board of Supervisors.
''He said, 'Mr. Bill' -- they're so polite -- 'You don't know what it's like one day to have your house, your car. You have everything. Now I have nothing. All I have are the clothes on my back,' " Tilburg said. ''I sat there in my home office and thought, 'Boy, the things I worry about.' "
When Needham officials were in talks about creating the Needham Cares project, Jackson helped get the ball rolling by suggesting they focus their efforts near Bay St. Louis, where she had been in contact with a family friend. Coincidentally, two Needham firefighters had been deployed there to assist the hurricane victims.
Jackson's contact, Art Clementine, a retired teacher and school administrator, put volunteers in touch with Bay St. Louis government officials and residents.
The Needham pastor called Clementine shortly after the hurricane and learned that his house was flooded with two feet of water. He had been living for a month, since the water had receded, in a tent in front of his house. Without flood insurance, Clementine was forced to go it alone.
Jackson's father traveled to Bay St. Louis to help Clementine repair the roof.
From his FEMA-donated trailer, Clementine said he has been surprised by all the people who have offered to help, among them the Indianapolis Colts head coach, Tony Dungy, a former student.
''My hope is based on the Supreme Being. He has never let me down," Clementine said.
Needham Cares is collecting holiday gift bags for 5,000 children from Nov. 28 to Dec. 10. More information may be obtained by visiting http://needhamcares.olin.edu 