Loss, lament, and gratitude in the aftermath of Florence

Alumni Spotlight: Bill Hawkins

BY JOE SLAY

When the Rev. William L. “Bill” Hawkins (D.Min’80) began his sermon on Sunday, September 23, at First Presbyterian Church in New Bern, North Carolina, he didn’t know whether to offer a lament or thanksgiving.

There was reason for both.

Hurricane Florence had made landfall on the North Carolina coast on Friday, September 14, and had brought death, destruction, and record-breaking flooding across Eastern Carolina. Hawkins’ inland hometown of New Bern, at the junction of the Trent and Neuse rivers, began feeling the hurricane on Wednesday and its interminable rains through the rest of the week.

“It was so slow moving,” Hawkins said, “…two miles per hour…and it just kind of sat on top of us,” with the winds, the endless rain, and the fast-rising rivers.

Evacuation was mandatory and remained in force through the following Friday. There would be no service on Sunday, Sept 16.

“It was terrible,” said Hawkins, who had served as pastor of First Presbyterian for almost 18 years. Businesses were wiped out.  At least 4,200 homes, a third of New Bern’s housing, were damaged. Roads were impassable. Education came to a halt. The experience of Oaks Road School was typical: it was converted into shelter, which meant, of course, that there would be no school. “Ninety percent of that student body’s families had lost everything,” he said. “We want to get schools going again and can’t because they’re shelters.”

Medical needs, he said, are great.

“If you haven’t been in a hurricane — and this is my third or fourth — you just can’t appreciate having no landlines, spotty cell service, no internet.

“We are suffering something terrible,” he said. “There’s always been a lack of affordable housing in New Bern, and now a lot of that is gone with the floods—uninhabitable—and three hotels have closed down. Most people don’t have flood insurance. It’s never been required. It never floods in New Bern!

“People have been feeling a kind of paralysis …they’re disoriented,” he said during the week following Florence’s devastation.  “Things are drying out, but we are only now beginning to get our heads together and clean up the muck and the guck.”

Hawkins returned to New Bern on September 17 when the evacuation order was lifted. He could see that First Presbyterian, which was built in 1821 and is the oldest Presbyterian structure in North Carolina, was spared a direct hit. The sanctuary was fine, but 10 classrooms were flooded, a section of the church’s pre-school roof caved in, and a tree was leaning against the fellowship hall. The church’s overall physical structure, though, was okay.

“So many members of the congregation lost everything, said Hawkins, “and some of our real ‘go-to’ people are those victims.”

Now, he said, “We are putting in the apparatus so that outside groups can help us.” He was especially thankful for Craven County Relief Disaster Assistance and for the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance arm of the General Assembly. “These are veterans and are in it for the long haul.”

In his September 23 message, Hawkins said, “Perhaps the most important help will come from those persons who don’t make the headlines, who have only themselves to give, but whose daily acts of kindness and generosity will heal our souls. Let each of us be counted among those.”

His sermon was, indeed, both lament and thanksgiving, and it drew from Job, from Matthew, and from John 9, when Jesus was asked whose fault it was that a man was born blind …the man’s or his parents’? Jesus answered, “…so that the works of God might be made manifest in him.”

Hawkins saw that answer lived out in the response of the members of his congregation to the disaster, who, he said, decided in the aftermath of Florence to “go and help.”

“It has been overwhelming.”

Yet, he said in his sermon, “We are thankful for our lives and grateful that our families and friends are safe. We are thankful that we are here.”

Want to help? Contact Hollis Brannon at hollis.brannon66@gmail.com or 252-639-8282; or contact Carl Chapman at newchap@suddenlink.net or 252-229-2040. You can give online at http://www.firstpresnb.org or mail your gift to First Presbyterian Church New Bern, NC 400 New Street, New Bern, NC 28560, or at the same address, Craven County Disaster Relief Assistance. You can also do so through the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), online at http://www.pcusa.org, or 100 Witherspoon Street, Louisville, KY 40202-1396, (David Myers, 502-200-4878).

Rev. Bill Hawkins is pastor of First Presbyterian Church in New Bern, North Carolina. Photo credits: Bill Hawkins