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Vermilion Faith Community of Care Uniting the faith community of Vermilion Parish in service |
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PRESS RELEASE Contact: Rural Louisiana faith-based organization urges continuation of effective intercessory prayer for protection from hurricane destruction. Abbeville, La. Like residents of so many other areas in the Gulf of Mexico and on the Gulf Coast, the residents of the southwestern Louisiana parish of Vermilion have learned firsthand of the destructiveness of nature’s most powerful storm, the hurricane. In October 2002, the eye of Hurricane Lili passed directly over the parish, leaving a path of damaged homes, downed trees and power lines that took about 2 years to recover from. In 2005, the parish was not directly affected by Hurricane Katrina, but Hurricane Rita brought two storm surges into the parish that flooded over 600 square miles and brought major damage to over 6,000 homes. Local residents have also learned the power of prayer to affect the course of storms even as powerful as these. In the few days before Lili made landfall in 2002, she had become a massive storm inching up toward Category 5 status. She was on a very steady course headed directly for the Vermilion Parish coast. Obliteration of the Vermilion Parish towns of Abbeville, Erath, etc., was forecast, much in the way that coastal towns in Louisiana and Mississippi were demolished in 2005 by Katrina. The steadiness of Lili’s path gave Vermilion Parish residents time both to evacuate and, for those so inclined, to spend some quality time in prayer. When they arose the morning of October 3 to find that the strength of the storm had diminished drastically overnight, down to a strong Category 1 storm (“the most dramatic weakening since Hurricane Ethel in 1960 dropped from Category 5 to Category 1 in six hours” – Wikipedia entry for ‘Hurricane Lili’), it was a time for great thanksgiving in the midst of the destruction that took place. Many people believe that their prayers were a major factor in the storm’s decline. By the end of 2005, the most active and the costliest hurricane season in US history, weather forecasters were all predicting that 2006 would be another very active year. Based on their experience of the effects of prayer on Hurricane Lili, Dr. Jim Grant, the Executive Director of Vermilion Faith Community of Care, a faith based hurricane relief organization that had been spawned by that storm, began calling for a Day of Prayer for Protection from Hurricanes for the 2006 season. Dr. Grant talked of “Building a Bridge of Peace”, blanketing the Atlantic with prayers for calm seas and winds, from the West Coast of Africa to the Caribbean and all around the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts. He gained support for these efforts from local Christian churches and several governing bodies in Vermilion Parish. A newly forming statewide interfaith organization, the Louisiana Inter-religious Disaster Recovery Network, became a co-sponsor of this call. Through this network, adherents of a number of other faith traditions – Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Baha’i, and Unitarian Universalist – added their efforts and prayers in their own way. Both Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and the Louisiana Legislature proclaimed June 1st a Day of Prayer for Protection from Hurricanes. The Catholic Church throughout Louisiana followed suit, for the date of June 2nd. Word of this Day of Prayer was spread to states around the Gulf Coast and to communities in West Africa. By May, forecasts for the 2006 season had not changed significantly. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on May 23, 2006: “The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Monday predicted another hyperactive hurricane season this year — the 10th in the past 12 years — and warned that the trend of more powerful storms could persist for the next decade or longer. Forecasters said warmer ocean temperatures and favorable wind patterns in the tropics have set the stage for a ‘very active’ hurricane season beginning June 1 and lasting until Nov. 30. After a record 2005 capped by Hurricane Katrina, the agency this year expects 13 to 16 named storms, eight to 10 hurricanes and up to six intense hurricanes during that period — activity that is about 50 percent greater than normal.” At around the same time, in a message to Church Twinning International, an ecumenical ministry that pairs churches in Africa with churches in the United States, Dr. Grant wrote requesting prayers that “the strength and intensity of hurricanes this season be greatly diminished, far below what the weather people are predicting.” Now, in mid-September, with the hurricane season more than half over, 2006 is proving to be a remarkable hurricane season – remarkable in its calmness and in its deviation from predictions. Recent projections about the entire season reflect a radically different picture from the one virtually all agreed upon in June: “The hurricane forecast for 2006 has been revised from Tropical Storm Risk's original prediction of above-average activity to slightly below-normal activity. The London-based group of insurance, risk management and seasonal climate experts, led by the Benfield centre, say the new forecast indicates hurricane activity will be 10% below what has been the norm from 1950-2005. This new outlook is a far departure from the group’s original statement that indicated hurricane activity would be 40% above the norm for the same period. This revision to a hurricane prediction is the first time Tropical Storm Risk has been required to reduce an earlier forecast by such a great degree.” http://www.canadianunderwriter.ca/issues/ISArticle.asp?id=60130&issue=09122006 This report went on to talk about how the forecast had been revised in response to the “'unexpected and influential presence' of dry air and Saharan dust blowing off Africa over the main hurricane development region between the west coast of Africa and the Caribbean." For those involved with this intercessory prayer process, these results reflect their heartfelt prayers and the faithfulness of the Source, however named, to which all these prayers have been directed. Even the storm-inhibiting presence of dust from the Sahara, which appears to be a factor for the first time in 2006, seems to be a logical outcome of this process, since believers throughout West Africa have been active participants. Dr. Grant urges people of faith everywhere to join in with and continue these prayers on a regular basis throughout the rest of the hurricane season. If seas remain calm and any hurricane activity that does occur stays far from land, human and other types of communities can be safe and protected. Those still scrambling to recover from recent hurricanes all along the coast can have burdens of anxiety lifted and move more quickly toward that day when their lives will have been restored. “It is not the number of named storms or hurricanes that is going to be the real measure of this year’s hurricane season,” Dr. Grant concluded, “but the amount of destruction. At the current rate, we could easily see the total destruction for all of the Atlantic’s 2006 storms being less than 1% of that of last year.” |
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