They came, and we are humbly thankful

Hello Massachusetts and Happy Thanksgiving. I have just finished my homily for tomorrow's service and stopped to check my mail before going to work in the kitchen. (My children are coming over from New Orleans and so I need to be "Mom" tonight.)

Thanksgiving is a reflective time for me as my memory of being in the "Pit" with The Rev Dn Daphne Noyes for Thanksgiving, 2001, is still very fresh - even after these six years. That year a group of National Guardsmen from Spartenburg, SC prepared and served dinner for us and the thousands of others who were working to remove the still smouldering wreckage. My gratitude to them for coming to serve is much like that expressed below. This letter to the editor of the Sun Herald came to me through email from the volunteer coordinator at Camp Victor, one of the volunteer housing sites in this area. I have pasted it here so that you who have traveled to MS and who will travel soon can get a glimpse into the depth of the gratitude that we here in MS feel toward those who have come to help.

"The following appeared in the Biloxi Sun-Herald newspaper on Tuesday, November 20, 2007. It is a letter to the editor from a grateful Gulf Coast resident. We believe it expresses the unspoken thoughts of so many people here. Happy Thanksgiving.

They came, and we are humbly thankful
When the wind died and the water receded, we were on our knees in prayer and despair — broken people with broken lives but thankful to be here still. Would we ever be able to rise again? So much work; too much work; where to begin?

Then they came out of their broken homes. Hand in hand, they came with chainsaws and trucks and chains and removed the barriers to our streets. Maybe we could, we thought, with help.

Then darkness fell again, so dark, so quiet, only questions and the sound of generators and helicopters. Sounds of life. Did anyone know of our plight? Would help come? They came.

They came by the hundreds, then the thousands. God had heard and we were thankful. They came — firefighters, military, police officers, doctors and nurses, linemen and engineers, truck drivers and preachers. They knew. They came. They all came.

The whole world came and we were thankful. They came and suffered with us. They came and lived in tents, slept on the ground, but they came and we were thankful. They clothed us and fed us. They sheltered us and tended our wounds.

They lifted our hearts and we were thankful. They came with full hearts and open hands. They sweated and cried with us, not knowing where tears ended and sweat began, and we were thankful. They lifted our spirits and helped us to our feet, and we were thankful.

They came — teachers and students and lawyers, craftsmen and laborers with strong backs and hammers and saws and brick and mortar. They came. They built our homes, our schools, our churches, our lives. Praise God, they came. They became us and we became them, as one.

With our wounds deep, our fears and memories fresh, they came. And as we heal, they come, still . . . still. With a full heart, I am thankful, we are thankful. Still. They come.

RITA DUFFUS
Gulfport"