BISHOP T. D. JAKES (at the National Cathedral): Until we love enough to trade places with the poor, the disadvantaged, the disenfranchised, and, yes, even minorities in this country, then healing will not be real.
Meanwhile, a multifaith coalition sponsored a Compassion Sabbath weekend to raise money for Katrina's victims. Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others have mobilized an army of volunteers on the ground.
In many areas, those faith-based volunteers joined forces with the U.S. military. Fred de Sam Lazaro has our report.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Slowly this week, the death toll -- impersonal numbers until now -- began to translate into names and funeral services for neighbors.
Many churches no longer have a sanctuary. But survivors, many who also lost their homes, did preserve their Episcopal worship community. The Church of the Redeemer held Sunday Mass. Each morning, giant amphibious landing craft disgorge hundreds of sailors on Biloxi's beachfront. One of their first tasks was to clear debris, including the space for this service.Not far away, the new Chua Van Duc Buddhist Temple was damaged, but it still serves as a shelter for some in this area's large immigrant-Vietnamese community.
Other worship houses have become clearinghouses for the emergency aid that's poured in. Sailors helped sort through it all at the First Baptist Church in Biloxi.When we visited two weeks ago, the community around Biloxi's Main Street Missionary Baptist Church emptied refrigerators and pantries to keep a food line going. They told stories of elders who fled or were carried to the church's second floor to escape storm waters that buried the main floor. Today, the church is flooded with care packages from around the country -- the pastor's message, a simple one:
Reverend KENNETH HAYNES (senior pastor, Main Street Missionary Baptist Church): The only thing I could do was turn to Jesus, and that's what came out of my mouth was Jesus, and he said, "Now tell your people, stand on their faith, not on their fears." And that's what I'm telling them now.DE SAM LAZARO: At Sunday services, there was plenty of personal testimony to enduring faith through the worst storm in living memory.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I said, "Now Lord, you told me to come to 321 Main Street and I obeyed you."
DE SAM LAZARO: Testimony of those who fled to the church's upper floor.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: He said, "Go to the front up here," and he said, "Look at the steps. One for the Father, one for the Son and one for the Holy Ghost! You covered!"DE SAM LAZARO: That cover will come as much from faith as insurance in the months ahead. Pastor Haynes worries that this community, poor even before Katrina, won't get much of the money that will come to rebuild the area. Still, he says they are better off than New Orleans.
Commander MILT GIANULIS (chaplain, USS Iwo Jima): The next thing I need is five people plus myself. We're going to man the grills here. I need some people to man the food-serving line, give the people who work real hard in here a break. And I need some others to do some cleanup over at the tables.
TERRY JERNIGAN (sailor, USS Whidbey Island): A lot of the people look at the military as a war machine, but we are very humble people. We don't get a chance to do much here on our homeland. I was selected to be a driver, and I got a chance to drive around and see the devastation that happened here. It overwhelmed me.
Maj. BRISSON: He notices that Andrew was in the boat, one of our chaplains, and he asked if Andrew could pray with him. So Andrew actually got out of the boat, got on the man's porch steps, and they knelt down together on their steps, and they prayed together with all the men around. So that's the kind of stuff that paratroopers do.
