Houston: When did you first realize that Hurricane Andrew might  hit Miami?

Ashley: Probably Saturday night the Saturday before.

Houston: Did you take the threat seriously?

Ashley: No.

Houston: What kind of preparations did you make?

Ashley: Very few; filled jars with water, put water in the bath tub, that’s about it.

Houston: As far as the church?

Ashley: The church  Cal and I put up some shutters that had been there forever, put some plants inside.

Houston: Were windows in the church affected?

Ashley: We’re finding breaks in them now, I don’t know if that’s from shifting of the structure because I didn’t notice them right after the storm.

Houston: Where were you during the storm?

Ashley: I was in my apartment.

Houston: Alone?

Ashley: Alone.

Houston: Oh no!

Ashley: It was certainly my choice and I have no regrets about that. I found it a time of real selfdiscovery and prayer.

Houston: Were you praying during the storm?

Ashley: Yes.

Houston: Can you tell me what happened to you during the storm? Any incites, any reactions, fears  how did you feel being alone?

Ashley: I was very aware of feeling safe not necessarily physically safe, although it really didn’t occur to me that I would be injured or die. It occurred to me later when I saw what the storm had done. But, there was a sense of power, a sense of danger, but also a sense of my own larger safety in it, that whatever happened there was a larger “o.k.ness” about whatever happened that comes out of God’s care for me. I was aware of being very grateful for the radio and just imagining being living in a time when there was no warning for such a storm or much less warning and no communication during it. My gratitude was for the statement, “here it is now, here’s the time frame we’re looking at”. For somebody to be in the middle of it and not have any idea when it might be over – I found myself really imagining what it would have been like without the resources that we have. Sort of aware of that vulnerability and glad for the contact with the outside world. Especially of course, for the way Bryan Norcross was.

Houston: You were listening to Brian?

Ashley: Yeah his manner as well as whatever else was going was something.

Houston: What was the first thing you did after the storm?

Ashley: I walked outside my apartment for a few minutes. The weather was still icky enough that I waited for awhile longer and then I walked over here to the church.

Houston: You live within walking distance ?

Ashley: I live over by Dadeland, so it was a bit of a hike.

Houston: You walked from Dadeland, that is a hike.

Ashley: But it made sense to me not to drive because of what they were saying about not getting in the way and once I was out, they said not to drive because of the impassability of the roads.

Houston: So, immediately after the storm you walked from Dadeland to here. I find that interesting.

Ashley: I wanted to know what was happening.

Houston: There must have been a lot of debris and trees to walk over.

Ashley: It was incredible. I was just agape... of course this area was not nearly as damaged as other places and yet when I walked out of my place and saw what had happened, I thought this is devastation beyond imagining not realizing the level of devastation further south. But since every communication was down and I just really wanted to know what happened here ...I don’t know why it wasn’t a very reasoned thing, I just wanted to know. I was, of course, sure in some part inside me that I would need to be dealing with whatever had happened here.

Houston: I find it amazing that you walked that distance. How many miles?

Ashley: I just put on my hiking boots on and took my camera and set out. I wanted very much to see here but also just to see, just to know what happened.

Houston: What type of help was offered to you or did you offer after the storm?

Ashley: I didn’t need help in the sense of destruction to clean up or things to take care of, children to take care of or anything like that. I had lots of offers of people to stay with or kind of general, “if you need anything let me know” kind of thing but...

Houston: Did you have electricity after the storm?

Ashley: I got electricity back on a few days after the storm. So on the days after the storm I got on my bike, rode around to visit people in the church and basically what I was doing was just getting…

Houston: You were trying to comfort them?

Ashley: The help that I was offering was being there and connecting them with each other. People were very eager for news of each other. It was almost an impossibility finding anything out and, of course, if they could get through to somebody, it would be family members and then later the church family. It was not where people could spend time those first few days saying, “how are you” because it would take an hour to get through to somebody.

Houston: Your role was kind of like a messenger?

Ashley: Yeah I was sort of a, so many people in the church, almost everybody had destruction ...almost as one, as I would ride away they would say, “we only have half a house but there’s part of it that’s dry and if some body doesn’t have a dry place they could come and share. People gave me drinks of water along the way and sandwiches and things like that.

Houston: What effect has the hurricane had on your daily life?

Ashley: Several levels of effects the most obvious visibly I suppose is the amount of time I spend on the recovery stuff  insurance people, roofers, things like that; but more deeply lots of shifts of consciousness. One that I think will be lasting in my ministry is how to give and receive help. We had a lot of help extended to us that was more of a burden than a help and I will not do that ever again as a giver of help. I will be more...

Houston: Can you give me an example of what you mean?

Ashley: Well, people came down and unloaded diapers in the big room. We don’t need diapers here, so I either had to let them sit there not being used or use my time to figure out how to get them someplace else. They were so proud of themselves for getting down here with this stuff. It was like ... it didn’t help me! They would have been more helpful to have done the work to get those things exactly where they were needed. Another piece of help that came our way, a former Pastor of this church is Director of... he called me and said not, “What do you need?” but, “I am sending a crew of four skilled workmen and they are bringing plywood and carpentry. They will do whatever you tell them”. They were here by early the second week after the storm... That direct “here is what I’m doing, here is how it’s going to work, you can make use of this in whatever way is appropriate” that was dynamite! They patched a lot of roofs of people in the church and neighbors of people in the church... They came selfcontained, they brought all the food they needed. They didn’t need anything from us in the way of a place to cook. They brought their own generator, it was dynamite! So part of the difference in my life... is the church considers its mission to be much more creative about what is truly helpful to people who need it and not to impose our sense of what’s useful but be much more in communication with people in circumstances of need, and be much more willing to be directed and to make ourselves available to do what ever. So that’s one kind of consciousness – another kind of awareness for me is that there are all kinds of suffering and whatever kind of suffering somebody is in is valid. I’ve had so many people say, “We’re not starving to death, we’re not at the level of devastation as those in the Homestead area, but the upheaval in people’s lives, the personal turmoil of having every routine and every selfunderstanding turned upside down is also suffering and people came down here to help and patched some people’s roofs; people who obviously had resources in the larger sense of having means, but in the moment they were helpless. It was the helplessness more than the patch on the roof that needed to be addressed. I mean the patch on the roof needed to be addressed too and the people who came down to help had no idea of the unavailability of that help. It looked here were monied people, they should be able to deal with this and we learned that it didn’t matter how much money you had. If you couldn’t find a person who had the materials and knew how to do it, a million bucks couldn’t get you a patch on your roof. So learnings like that...

Houston: Also no matter how much money you had, the fact that you don’t have electricity... What was it like the first time you saw the church?

Ashley: The first thing I saw was the fence all crumbled under the trees. I said, O.K. the fence we can deal with. I was eager to get inside the buildings and as I saw that the damage was minimal, O.K. this is manageable, we can handle this, we can live with this. I checked out the stained glass window which everyone had asked about as I was trotting around. You know there is something about the symbolism of that staying standing that was really heartening to people. I was really glad that the building and youth center were fine. That safety compared to the enormous ficus trees filling up the playground and seeing that and then seeing it so quiet…inside was like... eerie almost. Really immediately feeling O.K. so this isn’t going to be the big issue, now I can need to know what’s going on with people.

Houston: How has your role with parishioners changed or has it changed significantly since the hurricane? Has anything else changed? Do you feel closer to them?

Ashley: Oh, absolutely no question about that... I think in that first week I got hold of or saw or got news of everybody in the church and that sense of being absolutely in touch with 175 people was something that was very positive for me, and for them too and something that I usually try to keep aware of people but it’s not usually that close and now it’s not close again, but the desirability of being attuned to people and having that be a priority even now... compelling is just that much more comforting... before I would have been just a little hesitant at popping up on people’s door steps knowing that here are busy people with things to do. I don’t pop up anymore because phones are back but it’s much more a sense of connectable... it’s not a visit from the Pastor what do I do with that, it’s obviously you belong there of course, this is what we’re doing together. I think too that in preaching on Sundays, I’ve been very direct in addressing what I see going on with people and the hurricane and the questions that I see them wrestling with about what does this mean and where is God in this. I’ve been very direct about addressing those. I think people have been grateful to have that right up front.

Houston: That was one of my questions how do you answer people who ask, “Why do bad things like this happen to good people that go to church?”. Some people have the idea that God does these things to us. How do you answer this question? Why does God let this happen?

Ashley: Well, I’m very intentional about not giving a one liner  well, that takes care of that, next question. But more engaging in conversation that invites a larger look at that question and where some, of the directions that I hope we are all moving in is to acknowledge that there’s lots of pieces to my response to that question. art of it is out of this has come so many learnings and recognitions and liberations from over attachment to things. I have no sense that God is pulling puppet strings so that we learn our lesson, but I am grateful for the lessons and for the learnings that come out of it and for the experience that it has been. The whole recognition of God’s presence in the storm, out of the storm, after the storm sustaining people, suffering with people, not distant, not directing things but moving as part of it. Part of it is sort of facing the toughness of how, although I don’t see God as a puppet master, I have to acknowledge God’s responsibility in that God did not keep it from happening. So there’s a sense of saying what a radical respect God has for the freedom of all creation not to intervene. Part of it is leading us to recognize our own responsibility. We live in a place where hurricanes happen. None of us can claim ignorance about knowing that. We were just sort of innocent about what it really meant. Every hurricane season we’re told what could happen and here’s what you need to do. We have chosen to be here and so there’s a sense of our responsibility, but also God has made a world in which hurricanes take place and a real large view is that things like hurricanes are nature’s cleansing activity, creation’s selfrenewal. You can see the renewal going on all around us. So there’s a kind of letting go but I don’t want to gloss over people’s suffering in this and say, “Oh well, it’ll all turn out fine”. I don’t have any sense of that. I have a sense of the terribleness of what’s happened, of God’s sustenance through it, that our suffering is not pleasing to God. It is not something He would want to have happen, and yet, somehow part of it is a trust that somehow it must be necessary with a large view that I really can’t grasp but a trust in God’s purpose in the long run that allows me to stay with Him.

Houston: Is there anything else you would like to add that I haven’t asked  that you felt was important? How are the church members helping each other now?

Ashley: There’s a big sense of mutual support. We’re having an art festival. That seems so much in contrast to the storm and yet, it’s a way of saying, “Well, life goes on”.

Houston: (unimportant chatter)

Ashley: A week ago Sunday we had a brunch after church and some people in the church had written a song to the tune of... I don’t know what the song was... sort of a parody, a humorous but poignant telling of the Andrew story that really took it on and yet there was humor and release of the laughter and being able to be together and not have to explain ourselves to each other and know what’s funny about adjusters and roofers and agree on all that. That sort of spirit of life emerging afresh out of all of this. That ongoing sense of sustenance so that if one person is in the dumps, there’s somebody here that will be with them, sustain them and help do the things that are needed.

Houston: Is the church getting involved in Habitat again?

Ashley: Yes  definitely. There’s a crew going this Sunday down to Homestead and I’m sure they’ll be much there’s a big desire, people are aware of being on the receiving end of help and there’s a growing desire to now move into this long term recovery ourselves but also to help in the larger recovery very big desire to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.