Starting over with a warm reception
Katrina victims arrive at St. Raphael’s to begin a new life
Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2005
E-Mail This Article  Click here to enlarge this photo Rachael Golden⁄The Gazette
Chris Dunckel of Bethesda holds a ‘‘Welcome Home” sign and waves to the bus arriving at St. Raphael’s Catholic Church. Dunckel’s father, Jeff, traveled 1,400 miles to Houston with the Rev. William Finch and other parishioners to help relocate people who evacuated from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
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The banner hanging above the crowd of about 75 parishioners outside the church read ‘‘Welcome to St. Raphael’s.”
Another handwritten sign held up by parishioner Chris Dunckel, simply read ‘‘Welcome Home.”
Three days after leaving the Rockville church, the Rev. William Finch was on his way back from Houston on a bus carrying 21 people who had fled their New Orleans homes, destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. All members of the extended Norwood family, the evacuees accepted Finch’s offer of a new start in Montgomery County. A group of five Vietnamese immigrants from New Orleans missed the bus, but flew in Friday afternoon.
‘‘The work begins now,” Finch said.
Finch and his parish at St. Raphael’s Catholic Church, located at 1592 Kimblewick Road, have arranged doctor appointments, dentist appointments, rental cars and job interviews. Six of the children have already been enrolled at St. Elizabeth’s School in Rockville. The church donated more than $100,000 for the effort and received offers from more than 40 families offering warm beds for up to a year if needed.
Scott and Cindi Sobel, parents of five who live two blocks from the church, are hosting two adults and five children. As they waited for the bus to arrive a little after 9:30 p.m. Friday, the Sobels said they spent the previous few days preparing their home and wondering.
‘‘Wondering who they were going to be, what their circumstances were, what they were going to need, what we could do to make them feel comfortable,” Scott Sobel said.
‘‘And,” Cindi Sobel added, ‘‘how will we make them feel like they’re at home without making them feel that they’re indebted. It’s a fine line.”
The bus arrived at about 9:45 p.m. to a round of applause and a chorus of ‘‘Amen.” The extended Norwood family received hugs and handshakes as they exited the bus before going inside to a meal of pasta, bread and salad.
Traveling behind the bus for the entire 40-hour, 1,400-mile, journey was 32-year-old Ferron Scott, driving the minivan he had purchased two days before evacuating New Orleans. Scott, his girlfriend Keyoka Norwood, 29, and the couple’s five children — Jonathan, 11, Keyohn, 10, twins Kendrick and Kendra, 6, and 2-year-old Ferron Jr. — will be staying with the Sobels.
‘‘It’s unbelievable what happened,” Scott said. ‘‘It’s like, something just totally destroyed us. One day they’re telling you everything’s going to be all right. A day later, your house is underwater. We had a townhouse. The upstairs and downstairs — underwater.”
Finch came up with the relocation plan after seeing the devastation in New Orleans on television and the strain on Houston’s resources as the city took in thousands of displaced neighbors. After sending the chartered bus off with a modest amount of supplies and blessing last week, Finch and a small group of parishioners flew to Houston to begin searching for people interested in relocating, with help from Catholic Charities.
For those people opening their homes, Finch’s relief mission offered the opportunity to do something more than write a check or send a care package.
‘‘When people are down like that and you’ve got so much that God has given you, you’ve just got to do something,” said Mike Richards of Rockville.
Richards, an assistant principal at Winston Churchill in Potomac, along with his wife, Pat Richards, a teacher a Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, and daughter Lydia, decided to volunteer as a host family after hearing Finch’s homily last week.
Lydia Richards, 16, a junior at Churchill, said she didn’t mind giving up her game room in the family’s finished basement.
‘‘If we can do something to help then we should do whatever we can,” she said.
Filling the bus was not easy. At 9:30 a.m. on Aug. 31, Finch had about 18 people who were interested. By noon, those same people had second thoughts. An hour later, he had another 23 people who might be interested.
In one of his frequent journal entries on the St. Raphael’s Web site, which he used to keep in touch with the parish while in Houston, Finch wrote:
‘‘People here are nervous about leaving even this temporary home. They don’t know what’s behind them. They don’t know what’s ahead. Although they have nothing, they are scared and nervous about moving again.”
But by the end of the day, the Norwoods had accepted Finch’s offer and the chance to keep their family of 13 adults and eight children together. Scott, who worked as a limousine driver in New Orleans, said he and his family would decide this week whether it will be possible to relocate here permanently.
‘‘I think this is a wonderful opportunity for us,” Scott said.
Jeff Dunckel, a parishioner from Bethesda who traveled to Houston with Finch, said he was frustrated that they did not fill the bus, but he was happy that they could help the Norwoods.
‘‘What we’ve learned from this whole experience is that this is really about trust, trusting in people,” Dunckel said. ‘‘And what you really need to do is be able to develop some personal relationships to get people to trust you. Fortunately for these folks we were able to do that on Wednesday.”
