My soul was vibrating, God was about to do something big. That spur-of-the-moment decision, ended one journey for me and began another. It was as if I had been traveling toward this destination all my life and having arrived I found myself on a precipice. The view was stunning, but it was a precipice. I had a choice: I could turn back, or jump.
I jumped.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“We are all bound up together in one great bundle of humanity….”
—Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
The Beginning:
By Peggy Kligman
Don’t Call Us Refugees…We’re Survivors!
We weren’t sure if they would let us in but we had to go anyway. Ever since Katrina destroyed lives and most everything else in its path, we needed to do something.
“If I could just place my book in someone’s hands,” my friend Wanda said. “I want to look into their eyes. I want to hug them.”
Wanda had visualized Operation Soul Survival just days after Katrina ravaged New Orleans and parts of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and nearly a week before the survival centers sent out a plea for reading materials. We had talked about it over lunch. She stressed how important it was to feed, shelter and clothe the victims of the storm.
“But we must feed their souls as well! They will need hope and inspiration, to build a new life. Books can be a road map. They are food for the soul,” she emphasized and finished with, “We have to get inspirational books into their hands...we will call it “Operation Soul Survival.”
That night, Wanda typed her mission...including a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt to be added to the books. Then she sent it through cyberspace. She asked in her letter if someone would develop a website explaining Operation Soul Survival and to list mailing addresses where books could be sent. It all came together as if by the hand of God.
As a result of “Operation Soul Survival—Books for Katrina Survivors,” individuals, schools and organizations around the nation began delivering inspirational literature to shelters throughout Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas. God’s assignment was manifested.
Then evacuees were brought to our town. There were four of us and I did the driving. My trunk filled with Wanda’s own book, “The Search for Peace: A Woman’s Guide to Spiritual Wholeness,” along with collections of tennis shoes, towels, clothes, purses and suitcases just in case we were allowed to fulfill Wanda’s hope. We drove to the convention center nestled on the edge of a boarder town next to Mexico. Wanda, leaning forward from the back seat said, “Go around to the back. Maybe there is a loading dock or someone we can ask about getting in.”
Driving toward the back of the rounded orb-shaped building, we saw a gated area with uniformed police officers guarding the back entrance. It appeared that they were keeping watch over the five hundred guests who were being temporarily housed inside. There were small groups passing in and out while signing their names on a ledger. It reminded me of routine check-ins at a college dorm. Each one wore the official white name tags with a long black cord that hung low around their necks.
After parking the car next to the curb, I walked over to the guardsmen to ask if it was possible to go inside. “We’re with Operation Soul Survival, a grassroots movement started by El Paso’s internationally published author of “The Search for Peace.” That’s her over there,” I quickly explained trying to sound official as I pointed to Wanda who was already attracting a group of evacuees. She wasted no time opening the trunk of my car, grabbing her books and signing them. She added prayerful messages inside the cover and then thoughtfully placed her hopes and dreams into their hands.
Katie and Margie assisted by reaching into the trunk for more books while Wanda spoke with each woman and man around her. It seemed all were delighted to meet the author who wished to share her book of peace and perhaps, for a moment, the memory of their losses were forgotten.
“Ma’am, we’re not authorized to make those decisions,” the officer explained. “Try asking them at the front door.” After thanking him, I walked back to my opened trunk. I offered our collection of tennis shoes, clothes, towels, and suitcases to those gathered around as Wanda, Margie, and Katie fulfilled Wanda’s hope to place her inspirational book into their hands. Tearful hugs were also freely given and received.
As we readied to leave, I heard one lady plead, “Please tell everyone not to call us refugees…we are survivors!” Wanda looked into her eyes and said, “Amen…you have survived...It’s an honor to have met you!”
The next day Wanda entered through the front entrance to the convention center and met Miss Betty Jefferson
.*********
Friday, September 9, 2005
Dear Betty,
Today I met you. You were standing alone in the Convention Center, temporary home to more than 500 people...all evacuees from Hurricane Katrina’s wrath. I was there because, like the rest of the country, my heart was broken. We had watched in stunned horror as Katrina ripped into the Gulf Coast and just when we thought it couldn’t get worse...the levees broke in New Orleans and a sea of humanity flooded into the streets.
I was there because a year before my first book was published. It was a very personal book for women about getting over the terrible things that have happened to us and creating a new life with God’s help. I knew the principals in the book would work for any survivor, because it had worked for me. I was also there because I had an assignment from God. I had to get that book into the hands of as many of the evacuees as possible.
Eventually, when hundreds were sheltered not three miles from my home, with my friend Peggy’s encouragement I showed up with books in hand and there you were. Another friend, Katie, went with me that day, two white Texans moving through a crowd of dark Louisiana faces.
We had approached a number of groups and were warmly welcomed. Ladies with soft southern accents patiently spelled out their names as I inscribed book after book...to Ophelia, Georgia, Louisa, Marquita, Sherline. Polite gentlemen shyly asked if they could have one for their wife, mother, sister, daughter, or friend.
With six books left we walked around a bit and then I spied you far across the room. At first I turned away but then felt strangely drawn back, and on an impulse suddenly took off towards you. Katie, scurrying to keep up asked, “What’s up?”
I muttered, “I don’t know,” and kept walking in your direction as if on a mission. My soul was vibrating, God was about to do something big. That spur-of-the-moment decision, dear Betty, ended one journey for me and began another. It was as if I had been traveling toward this destination all my life and having arrived I found myself on a precipice. The view was stunning, but it was a precipice. I had a choice: I could turn back, or jump.
I jumped.
When I landed, I was looking into your eyes and every person who had ever survived a storm from hell and lived to tell the story, wrapped themselves around my heart. I was dazed by their strength, wisdom, fortitude. I fell head over heels, helplessly, overwhelmingly, unconditionally, passionately in love with survivors. All of them.
We said, “Hello,” and I asked you if you were okay.
You smiled and said, “Yes.”
On one level we had an immediate connection. When I placed my book into your hands you asked if it was a Christian book. The way you asked, looking me straight in the eye, I knew we had something in common. You knew God as your Father...and I soon came to know, you also knew Him as your Peace.
W.G.
PASSING ON THE MESSAGE:
After my visit with Betty Jefferson I knew I had to somehow pass her message on to the world. As an outlet to the overwhelming emotions that were flooding my soul, I also began writing letters to her in my journal. These journal entries were letters to a woman I had met one time, had no mailing address for, didn’t know if I would ever see again, and yet day after day I wrote to her. Betty Jefferson became the face of the Gulf Coast for me.
After a while I realized I was writing to all survivors. In fact, Betty became every survivor on the face of the earth.
I began to tell people about the letters and they too wanted to write something, a letter, note, a poem, their heart. I wrote my email contacts, “If you are interested...just write whatever you would say to a survivor if you were able to talk to one...how you feel from your heart. If children in your family have something to say, help them write it.” I explained I would choose from the submissions, edit it and get it published. I added, “You will receive credit, but no money, any profit will go to bless survivors.” I ended the email with, “Any takers?”
Within hours I began to have takers from all walks of life, all faiths, all ages, all ethnic groups, from all parts of the country. Survivors, as well as those who needed to share.
A sociology professor in a Texas college gave her students the assignment to write a letter to the victims of Katrina. She then emailed me and said, “Within the next two weeks you should receive more than 100 letters.”
Many of her students who contributed to this project were themselves victims two weeks later when Rita roared up the Texas/Louisiana border. Even while they wrote letters of caring and encouragement to Katrina victims, the tide turned and some of them lost their homes and all their possessions. In the midst of picking up the pieces of their own shattered lives they fulfilled their sociology assignment and wrote letters to Betty Jefferson, now from with a whole new perspective.
—A reader in Missouri copied down her five-year-old child’s feelings, and what he had to say in his own words.
—A young teen penned a poem; her stepmother sent it to me.
—A middle school teacher sent a collection of insightful thoughts from his students.
I wrote everyday for weeks and the submissions poured in. Almost surreally “After the Storm—Letters to Betty Jefferson” flowed together. One day at a time, one thought at a time, one letter at a time, one prayer at a time.
When the collection was complete it had become a care package from Americans to Americans...a symphony of praise for the strong spirit of every survivor who has suffered great loss, yet will not give up. It is both a rousing grassroots rendition of God Bless America, as well as a protest song straight out of the 1960’s. A sympathy card and a call to arms. A written bit of graphic history captured for posterity. Above all it is an epistle of love from the heart of God through the hearts of people.
This anthology gives America a voice for the trauma we have all experienced...the survivors as well as those of us who pray with aching hearts and outstretched hands.
P.S. To Betty Jefferson, wherever you are, I sent your message.
This book is the response.
Blessings,Wanda Winters-Gutierrez
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Betty,
The more I try to identify with you...the more hopeless I feel…until I remember your parting words, “Focus...tell them to focus...focus on Him.”
Our focus is everything isn’t it? It is a law of physics that what you focus on will expand. If we choose to focus on death and destruction we can do ourselves in mentally, physically, spiritually. By focusing on the horror we will be effectively creating an atmosphere so cloudy we cannot see past the darkness.
Betty, when I met you I was struck by your peace, which no doubt came from your own focus. You had been in the dark horror of the New Orleans Superdome. You were there Betty with over 20,000 terrified people. Outside the flood waters from the fractured levee inched higher and higher as war seasoned newsmen wept into the cameras begging for someone to send help.
We heard unbelievable stories. It was reported that inside the domed prison mothers watched their babies die, while the elderly curled up in fetal positions and cried. They said gangs armed with guns and knives lurked in the dim hallways and then boldly took over the whole place. For a while there was no food, drinking water, or lights. There was no law and there was no order. You were there in the midst of it all, as people lay dying from fear, dehydration, gunshot, and knife wounds. You heard their moans until they could moan no longer.
A teenaged boy told of walking into the men’s rest room and finding a naked girl who had been raped. She was rocking back and forth on the urine and feces saturated floor holding the dead body of her murdered mother.
And Betty, the things that we heard happened to some precious little children should keep Americans turning in their beds for long hours of sleepless nights.
After it was over I watched on TV as a New Orleans official sobbed uncontrollably for the babies who had been raped in the Superdome. He had been powerless to help because many of the policemen had deserted the city.
Americans, seated comfortably in their secure little worlds, watched in shocked silence, not believing it could be happening. Surely it was only a movie script written by a deranged individual who had access to dialogue from outer darkness. Day by day it grew too terrible to be true and too true to be assimilated. Maybe in a war torn Third World country, but In-God-We-Trust America! Never!
It’s the age old question isn’t it? Why do the innocent suffer? Too many of even God’s dear children, who have known Him for years and years, suffer. You, who have spent countless hours in prayer...how could it happen that you, beloved of God, could find yourself in hell? Homeless, hungry, thirsty with only the clothes on your back sitting in a dark abyss surrounded by demons?
Ahhh...but focus! You were also surrounded by Him, weren’t you? One of the Scriptures you quoted me was Isaiah 26:3,
“You will keep Him in perfect peace,Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You.”
That’s what you were able to do wasn’t it Betty? You were able to focus on the love of God even in the grip of pure evil and He kept you in perfect peace. That’s why you could stand up in the manifest misery of the Superdome and sing a lullaby to the aching hearts of Father’s wounded children.
I can almost see you now as you must have looked that night, body exhausted but faith emanating through a voice of pure velvet, as you sang,
“Hush...now hush...dry your tears
Hush...now hush…He's listening
Hush now hush…He hears....”
That Peace was still surrounding you when we met a few days later. I’ve got to tell you my friend...you are my hero.
W.G.
After The Storm: Letters to Betty Jefferson can be purchased here....
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/after-the-storm--letters-to-betty-jefferson/231371
