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April 2007 Issue
Keeping the faith in the wake of Katrina
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When Hurricane
Katrina destroyed their home in Bay St. Louis, Miss.
two years ago, Janet Donnelly and her son Tom Griffin
recognized two things: They had to leave the devastation
behind and the only way out was north on Highway 603.
Today, Donnelly recalls how her unwavering faith in
God continues to help through the recovery from that
crisis. She shared her journey with visitors in her
tiny apartment in Greenville – apartment 603. |
“We didn’t know where we were
going to end up, but God knew where we were going,”
Donnelly said. “It’s funny, because on a good
day there were only three roads out of Bay St. Louis, and
the day we left the only road north was Highway 603. And now
I live in apartment 603. I think God gets a kick out of what
he does sometimes.”
Faith in God tested by Katrina - On Aug. 29,
when Katrina began battering the coast of Mississippi and
sent a 13-foot high wall of water through Bay St. Louis, Donnelly
and her son were visiting a friend’s home. They survived
the deadly pull of the tidal wave by holding on to the home’s
porch posts for more than five hours. As the wind and water
wrought death and destruction all around them, they held on
to the posts with the faith that God would give them the strength
to survive.
“My son kept reminding me that God has
a reason for everything and that we would get through it,”
Donnelly recalled.
After the storm had subsided, Donnelly and
her son waded from house to house to get to their home, where
they learned they had lost their pet dogs and almost all of
their material possessions. At first they waited, hopeful
that recovery teams would be on the way to help them. When
government help did not arrive, they sought out friends and
stayed at a makeshift shelter in hopes of getting fresh water
and nourishment. A sense of hopelessness hung in the air.
“You could feel it, you could sense
this hopelessness,” she said. “I don’t know
why I thought [someone] would show up to help us. And when
they didn’t come, I began to fear the worst, that even
after the storm, we would not survive. I started to become
very depressed about the prospects of surviving the crisis.
I was used to waking up every day and knowing
what I was going to do for the next 20 years, and now I didn’t
know if I was going to make it through the week. I was physically
and emotionally drained.” But then Donnelly handed her
fate to God, citing Matthew 14:29 as inspiration to persevere.
“During those first few days, I jumped
out of my comfort zone,” she said. “But then I
remembered when Jesus told Peter to get out of the boat and
walk on water toward him. When Peter became frightened, and
began to sink, he started to doubt; he got out of his comfort
zone and became afraid. That is what I felt like. And then
my faith in knowing that God would take care of everything
helped me to move forward. The hurricane helped to strengthen
me. Right after the storm, people either moved toward God
or further away. I became better connected to him.”
A journey of many miracles - Once her faith
in God had been renewed, Donnelly and her son began a remarkable
journey, marked by what she called many small miracles that
brought them to Greenville. With the help of a co-worker,
Griffin was able to find temporary shelter for him and his
mother at the Long Beach, Miss., home of Glenn Mueller, owner
of more than 180 Domino’s Pizza franchises in the southern
United States.
After spending four days at the Mueller home,
helping to care for the thousands of the other refugees affected
by Katrina, the two accepted a ride to Hattiesburg, Miss.
It was in Hattiesburg that by chance they met volunteers from
the Greenville area who had brought a bus filled with supplies
for the hurricane’s victims. The group from Greenville
had hoped to return with many hurricane refugees, but due
to restrictions could only bring two. Those two were Donnelly
and Griffin. And so, on Sept. 7, they left behind their church,
their friends and all that they owned and headed north to
Michigan.
Shortly after arriving in Michigan, Donnelly
learned for the first time the destruction that Hurricane
Katrina had wrought. Her church, St. Clare Parish in nearby
Waveland, Miss. Had been destroyed; nothing was left but the
fl at cement foundation. The devastation in Bay St. Louis
and Waveland was so overwhelming that MSNBC used the two communities
as the focus of the project “Rising from the Ruins.”
Both towns continue to try to rebuild from the hurricane.
Once Donnelly settled into Greenville, she
began attending Mass at St. Charles Church. It was during
a Sunday Mass that Father Philip Salmonowicz mentioned to
parishioners that they had a Hurricane Katrina survivor among
them. Parishioners immediately went to work in arranging housing
and other assistance for Donnelly. “They have been very
supportive and everyone there has been so helpful in helping
me get back on my feet,” she said.
The help parishioners provided Donnelly was
a great example of the Gospel at work, Father Salmonowicz
said. “When Janet came to us she looked, understandably,
lost,” he said. “She had been so connected to
her church, St. Clare, and she was really looking for a place
she could call home. Luckily she found this parish. I had
simply talked about Janet’s situation at Mass and the
response by parishioners was overwhelming.”
A new parish, a new home - It was at a Mass
at St. Charles when a parishioner, who was a Habitat for Humanity
volunteer, learned of Donnelly’s story. Soon after,
Habitat for Humanity began discussions with Donnelly about
building her a new home. In January, Habitat for Humanity
began work on a house for Donnelly, which is expected to be
completed later this year. Although the 1,100-square-foot,
three-bedroom home could be best described as a modest ranch
house, she describes it a little differently.
“It is a mansion,” said Donnelly,
who may be able to move in the home in September – maybe
even on Sept. 7, the two year anniversary of when she left
Mississippi.
“Through all of this time, I kept saying
to myself: God is going to lead you to where you need to be,”
Donnelly said. “I guess now I know that sometimes you
have to get to a place before you realize you are there and
that God got you there.”
When Donnelly moves into her new home, she
plans to decorate it with two of the very few items she was
able to salvage from the hurricane: a photo of a woman standing
in front of St. Clare Church and a watercolor painting of
our Blessed Mother.
“You know, it’s kind of funny,
I used to look at those pictures hanging in my home in Bay
St. Louis and I always thought that I had hung them too high;
they were a little higher than normal eye level,” she
said. “But after Katrina, when my son was able to go
back and retrieve anything salvageable, they were part of
the few things that weren’t destroyed. And you could
see the water line from the storm, it was just a few inches
below the bottom of those paintings.”
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