Worship at Camp Dawson

Georgia, Mary, and Marie from St. Peters, and Karen and Ruth G. from St. John's traveled with me to Camp Dawson tonight for worship with the evacuees.

When we got there, I nearly flipped my lid. I was asked almost two weeks ago to lead this service, and when I arrived I was told that another church was there to lead worship.

What!?

When I calmed down, I realized that this could be a wonderful blessing. It's tragedies like Katrina which remind us that we all call on the same heavenly Father. This other church was an Independant Baptist church who had brought in this evangelist from Florida. After saving some souls, and some really very good music, the Episcopalians were the second act.

I sang my usual "Great is Thy Faithfulness" routine, and preached a sermon on Lamentations 3, where many of the words for hymn come from. Lamentations is a book written after Jerusalem was destroyed, many of its inhabitants were killed, and the survivors were taken away to Babylon as slaves.

I asked the congregation if they could imagine their city being destroyed, men, women and children being killed, and being dragged off to a place where they had never been before. . . . Of course they could. I told them that I felt sheepish giving the sermon, because it was their story - their sermon to give.

They sang with reverence - they listened intently, and interjected with 'amens' - and they passed this one beautiful child (named 'Heavenly') around. It was so wonderful. Graceful. Holy.

We then had communion together. (Interestingly the Independant Baptists slipped out the back when the Communion table came out. . .) "The Body of Christ, broken for you. . . the Blood of Christ, shed for you. . ." Those broken people, who had gone hungry, and who are so wounded were being fed by the broken Body of Christ, and the Balm in Gilead was healing wounds.

They held out their hands. They opened their mouths to have the wafer put in for them. They Communed with the God who morning by morning showers down mercies upon us all, and whose faithfulness is great.

Afterwards a couple came up to me to thank me. He was brought by his sister (?) to church, not really wanting to come, but was leaving with a smile from ear to ear. He was fed in more ways than one.
We are One Church, gathered under our One God, and we are the recipiants of new mercies every morning - no matter who we are, where we are, or how bad a storm has devastated our life.