[piano intro] - Up next from "The Assembly," a split in the Methodist Church divides congregants, one woman's mission to improve literacy with horses, and hurricane recovery in the age of COVID.

"The Assembly" is a digital magazine about power and place in North Carolina.

[audience applauds] - All the way from here all the way to... [gentle upbeat music] - [Announcer] This program is brought to you with support from the Carlton and Wyman Family Foundations.

- Welcome to "The Assembly."

I'm Dwayne Ballen.

A decades long debate among United Methodists over how the church views gay and lesbian members and clergy reached a boiling point last year.

In May, 2022, the more conservative Global Methodist Church launched to separate or disaffiliate from progressive congregations seeking to be more inclusive.

Based on reporting by writer Barry Yeoman, this story takes you into the lives of two people this decision has affected.

This segment mentions sexual assault and suicide.

If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.

- [Donna] No matter what someone may think of me because I'm gay, I still love my church family.

- [Chris] We're squabbling, fighting.

Sexuality has become the flashpoint.

- When I hear that there's part of the church that just wants to leave because we can't come to some compromise over who we are at our core breaks my heart - I would never tell somebody God doesn't love you, but I can honestly say God doesn't love what you're doing.

- I didn't choose to be suicidal.

I believed what people told me, I'm going to hell.

Guess what?

I've already been, and I've walked right through it.

[ducks squawking] [water lapping] [people chattering] [wind blowing] - If a church has objections of conscience related to legislation adopted by the 2019 General Conference in regards to human sexuality or has objections to the actions or inactions of its annual conference in regards to that same legislation, it may be able to take advantage of the disaffiliation process.

Today you as conference delegates will vote to affirm the disaffiliation petitions of 17 of 18 churches.

- I thought COVID was the hardest part.

The conflict within the church is even harder.

- [Announcer] Bellevue.

- I see friendships, relationships, strained, if not broken.

It's painful to watch.

- There's been several people that walked out of our church.

I wish they would've come to me, not that I would've changed their minds, to show my humanity.

[gentle music] My family was a part of building this church.

When I walked into this church, it was either 2011, 2012, I had the sense of I'm home.

You know, I'm home.

They immediately welcomed us.

As a child, I was dunked as a Baptist, and I was taught that everything you did in life God was writing down.

I remember this fear, gay or homosexual or any of that was talked about at home and how horrible it was.

As I got older, drugs and alcohol became a part of my life.

It was for fun.

Everybody else was doing it, but I have those addictive tendencies.

And so when I picked up drugs and alcohol, I picked up drugs and alcohol.

[wind humming] I was raped twice in the military, reported it.

Nothing happened.

I was so homesick.

I hated being there.

My drinking really picked up.

Through a lot of therapy, I know that it's not my fault today, but again I'm thinking God's up here writing all this stuff down.

[Donna yells] I just gave up hope for anything.

♪ We are the ones singing ♪ I stayed away from the church for a long, long time.

I was fortunate that I was able to find gay and lesbians within the recovery program that I was in.

So I got to see, yeah, you can have a career.

Yeah, you can have a loving partner.

Finally, I just cried out to God, and I said, "Listen, either make me who you want me to be or provide me the grace to accept who I am, who you made me."

This peace washed over me, and I was able to provide myself that grace that I could be who God made me to be.

That started me back on that walk of faith.

- [Sherry] I didn't realize how tall that one was.

- [Donna] Ah.

I have a partner.

We've been together for almost 23 years.

We had our holy union, and we asked our family and friends to make a commitment with us.

They would make sure that we held our commitment to one another.

[guests applaud] [birds chirping] [Chris speaks indistinctly] - Oh mercy.

Okay.

I was born into an ecclesiastical family.

Actually, I'm the 15th Methodist preacher in the family.

♪ We can come, come along ♪ - I'm now in my 43rd year of ministry.

I knew what the church subscribed to and upheld, and I said yes.

One of the vows was, "Will you uphold the discipline of the United Methodist Church?"

Yes, I will.

And now there is such a push to change all of that.

[no audio] I don't believe that the essence of the issue is about sexuality.

I think it's about scriptural authority.

Literally, does the Bible have the authority to tell me what's right and what's not?

This congregation had everything from very progressive to almost fundamentalists.

They give the preacher a workout on Sundays.

[chuckles] ♪ Two, three, four ♪ [congregation clapping] [gentle music] - If you happen to walk into an office where there is intimidation of your faith, then you need not cower in fear.

You too can stand tall and tough and true.

I do not know which way this congregation will go.

I've told them which way I will go.

Thank you, man.

They knew I was a traditionalist.

I make no apology for that.

[hymnal organ music] Now I've heard people say it won't be a splitting.

It'll be a fracturing, a shattering.

When Christians don't want to be together, to me, that points to a sickness of the soul.

When you face opposition, don't look for a place to run.

Find a place to stand.

Yep, thank you.

- Uh-huh.

- Bye, Sylvia.

Whew.

- If our church ever decided, I mean, it's a possibility.

They could one day look at me and Sherry and say, "There's the door.

Don't come back."

That would kill me.

If you're excluding people and telling people they can't have faith, that's not what Jesus said.

We're in it all together no matter how much some people don't like that.

[solemn music] [solemn music fades] - To learn more about Chris Fitzgerald, Donna England, and the Methodist split, visit theassemblync.com to find writer Barry Yeoman's full story.

Next we meet Caitlin Gooch, the equestrian and literacy advocate who founded the nonprofit Saddle Up and Read.

Known online as the Black Cowgirl, she uses her growing platform to advocate for reading, the history of Black equestrians, and diversity and inclusion in the horseback-riding community.

[gentle dreamy music] - Growing up on a farm, it's so cool.

Like, how could I not share it?

I grew up around Black people that owned horses, like my entire life.

I was born into this culture.

Now more people are like, "Oh, there are Black cowboys, and there's like a history of Black equestrians."

We aren't always seen.

Being able to be outdoors and to know where food comes from and to have those experiences with horses, I just think that's really important for other children.

We need to do everything we can to preserve this.

[birds chirping] [engine humming] Yeah, hopefully I get this on the first try, but I parked kind of weird, so.

Growing up, I had to learn to help around on the farm.

For me, it was fun.

I graduated college in 2015.

I started working at a Boys and Girls Club as an education coordinator.

I saw that the kids didn't like to read.

That prompted me to look into the literacy rates in my area in Wake County.

Eat your cookies.

They were poor, but they were more so poor amongst Black children.

Let's take books.

Let's take horses and put it together.

[light intriguing music] Here was something new, Saddle Up and Read.

Good morning, everybody.

- [Attendees] Good morning.

- Good morning.

How are y'all doing?

The horse is what draws the kids in, and then I'm like, "Here's a book.

Read."

Things really took off in 2020.

I just like really quick snapped a picture, and then I uploaded it to Twitter, and I was like, "Hey, I'm taking my horse out into the communities and giving away books.

Share to get the word out."

My phone was like off the hook.

That went viral, and I have been doing interviews nonstop.

It's really overwhelming.

When people would donate books, I would be like, "Okay, multicultural and diverse."

I wanna show kids that y'all are welcome to the horse industry.

Y'all can ride horses if you want to.

You can own horses if you want to.

You can have a farm if you want to.

- Now... - I'm gonna go down.

It's a hill after the stairs.

I'm gonna go down there.

- That's right.

- I'm busy as heck, but I'm happy because I get to share it.

Like, that was the point of all of this, to share my lifestyle, to share the horses, to help kids know that it's really important to love to read.

- I love that.

I'm all about literacy.

That's awesome.

- Oh, thank you.

Okay, so how many of you like to read?

Man Man, he likes to read, too.

You do?

- [Child] Me too.

- Good.

Frida had an idea.

Look-it, she's holding an empty jar.

I wonder if she's really gonna put her blueberries in it.

That is one of my favorite new books called "Memory Jars."

- [Child] Excuse me?

Do horses have teeth?

- Yes, that is a very great question.

Hold on.

- [Child] Neck.

- That's his neck.

Good job.

Oh my goodness.

[gentle music] [horse whinnies] Horses are pretty magical in many ways.

Being around them helps us become more aware.

They just teach us a lot.

[horse whinnies] I just feel like this is my calling.

I grew up doing this.

Now I get to pass it to not just my children, but to other children.

- To learn more about Caitlin Gooch and her nonprofit, you can go online and visit theblackcowgirl.com and saddleupandread.org.

Finally, we meet Pastor Willie Jordan on the homestead his parents built near the Northeast Cape Fear River in Pender County.

Residents of the area known as the Whitestocking community are no strangers to flooding, but Hurricane Florence in 2018 changed everything.

For many residents, the pain of having to relocate outweighed the massive task of rebuilding.

The pandemic slowed already painstaking recovery efforts to a crawl, but residents and volunteers pushed forward.

And after more than four years, the Jordans were able to move back into their family home.

- Yep.

[vegetable leaves rustling] Whitestocking is a strong community because our ancestors had to go through so much.

We heard, "Why don't you just leave?

Why don't y'all just sell out?

Forget about that area and go somewhere else and start all over again."

Well, where is safe at?

Whenever there was areas that had never been hit by water before, and these places were flooded, too, where is safe at?

- [Reporter] The wrath of Hurricane Florence, gargantuan storm stretching across 500 miles.

- [Reporter] Thousands are still living in shelters.

- Florence broke every single record that we had here in Pender County.

How do you plan?

How do you prepare?

How do you build for a magnitude flood of 36 inches of rain over a 72-hour period?

Many, many people were caught off guard, and we are still recovering four years later.

- It takes you years to accumulate what you have, but then hours, it's gone.

We have never ever experienced nothing like that in our life.

Everything you possess, all the pictures, the important papers, the mold that was growing on your bed, it was just devastating.

It really was.

It works on you emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually.

I've had to let it go and had to let God take full control of the situation because this is home.

We've not going anywhere.

[chain rattling] ♪ Creation ♪ ♪ There at the start before the beginning ♪ - I don't know of no other place but here.

I was born and raised here, and I love it.

I love it just like if it's a parish.

My family love it.

My wife love it.

♪ So will I ♪ - As a neighborhood, we're still putting back the pieces together.

Yep.

- [Announcer] There are those things in life.

- Yeah.

You got to start from scratch, and the process was enormous.

It was just terrible.

I had that extra pressure on me because I gotta take care of my wife.

- [Speaker] Know as well as I do.

- [Minnie] That's my very first book I sewed, my very first one.

- I was about to let 'em go, and I was like, "No, she put too much time in 'em.

I'll go ahead and try to save 'em."

- I'm glad you saved 'em.

- Yeah.

- Oh my goodness.

- She was in an accident.

It was a four-car pileup.

She was the one the cars piled up on.

- Yeah.

- She used to make them every year and sell 'em.

- Yeah, years.

- Around Christmas, always she had a pile of 'em.

- I stopped making them afterwards.

- Yep.

- [Announcer] That's 800-728-7005.

[gentle ambient music] - [Willie] The church blessed us with the ramp.

It has been pretty tight.

Did I ever say that I wished I had something bigger?

I did.

I was just being honest.

A lot of things we take for granted, we wouldn't take it for granted anymore.

- [Announcer] We're tracking severe weather on the move tonight across the mid-Atlantic, a flash food-warning issued for the areas surrounding Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia.

- [Minnie] Yeah, those are collards.

- Yeah, this is a ride going back every time she come over.

- Oh yes.

- Yep.

- We had a beautiful day today.

- Yeah.

[gentle ambient music continues] This right here is what you call progress.

[laughs] The water in here I think got somewhere right here, to that high in here.

Yep.

And I don't hope to see that no more in my lifetime.

I don't wanna see that anymore.

Nope.

- You're done?

- Yeah.

- Insurance or not, it takes many years to rebuild.

You don't have 24 hours a day, seven days a week just to focus on rebuilding a home.

Many, many faith-based organizations in the hundreds came and worked.

All that was steamrolling ahead.

In early 2020, COVID hit.

It's a long, stressful process.

This has now been drug out for many more years.

[hammer banging] [birds chirping] [boards creaking] - I was just asked to come out like a day a week and help.

Once I got there and got around the people, within two weeks, I was there six days a week.

No matter how bad a situation was, Willie showed up.

He had a smile on his face.

He was joking and upbeat, and that was pretty much everybody in the community.

We relied on a lot of volunteers, tons of different groups, but it's not like all these groups went in and just rebuilt their community for them.

They were a huge part of that themselves, both from the financial standpoint but also helping, you know, doing the labor.

Everybody worked together.

Everybody got along.

Everybody was just trying to work towards the same cause.

When COVID hit, our executive director came to Chris and I and just said, "It's up to you.

If you wanna continue, you can, but if you do, it's just the two of you."

It just slowed things down a lot.

Willie in many situation was about as difficult as any.

Chris Dewey did have to leave a few weeks before we finished, but we accomplished what we set out to do.

[paper tearing] - Every house that he went in, you can tell that he took his time and fixed it almost like it was his.

These people don't know me from nobody, and they made a great impact.

[raindrops falling] [gentle music] There was a second there I'm like, "Man, it won't be this year."

It's like Lord have mercy.

I thought I could be in there Christmas, but thank God we'd be in there by Christmas.

Matter of fact, we'll be in there for Thanksgiving.

You know, that's gonna be joyous.

- That is it.

[raindrops falling] [people chattering] [pop music] [people laughing] - So everybody go that way.

- [Guest] Go in from here?

- Y'all go through that way, and I'll go this way.

- [Guest] That's okay.

- [Guest] I sure did.

- [Minnie] Ooh, nice.

- Yes, sir.

[guests chattering] [guests laughing] - That's right.

- [Guest] Give him the keys, guys.

- Words can't express for what I feel what y'all have done.

It has been a journey, really has.

We stuck together, and that's the reason that we're still here.

These up?

Ooh.

Now God, before we go to the eating part, we wanna thank you for Rebuild, Greg, Dan, and Heather, for the expertise work that they've done for us.

God, we thank you for your support, that we can love one another and help one another and be friends with one another.

We thank you and praise you for everything that's been said that in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

I know we're in hurricane season right now, and nobody knows what lies for tomorrow, but I'll sit here in this chair and say if it happened again, I'm going nowhere.

I would repeat the process over again, and I'll tell you why.

Up here at this graveyard is where my ancestors is staying at.

That's where they at right now.

My roots is here.

That's what you call love.

Through life, we go through oppositions or whatever, but, you know, we don't have to give up.

Don't let nobody make you lose your focus on home.

- That's all for this journey across our state with "The Assembly."

We invite you to learn more online at theassemblync.com.

I'm Dwayne Ballen.

Thank you for watching.

- [Announcer] This program is brought to you with support from the Carlton and Wyman Family Foundations.

[gentle upbeat music] ♪ [gentle upbeat music continues] ♪ [gentle upbeat music continues] ♪