SMITH ISLAND, Md. -- An old man stood up in the rough wooden tabernacle, feet shuffling through the cedar shavings on the ground. "Show me the path where I should go, Lord," he read from a Bible, his voice barely rising above the drone of insects.
One by one, watermen rose to thank God for getting them through countless storms. Times have been hard here for decades, and the past year brought a hurricane and a winter that iced islanders in for a couple of weeks. And so on the final day of the 117th Smith Island Camp meeting, an annual Methodist revival, they also prayed for renewal.
Sherry and Jeff Steele perform at the Smith Island Camp meeting, a revival where watermen thanked God for getting them through countless storms.
(Kevin Clark -- The Washington Post)
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A woman looked up at the rafters and started singing a hymn softly: "Jesus, Jesus . . . there's just something about that name . . . like the fragrance after the rain."
Smith Island, a marshy cluster of islands in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, has always been vulnerable -- to weather, to erosion, to the fickle economics of the bay. Yet the 285 islanders stand firm: When Hurricane Isabel bore down last September, about 60 of them refused an order to leave.
They know the odds against keeping their island alive. Every year, they lose people to the mainland, or to death.
Surrounded as they are by water, they have long relied on the Chesapeake's crabs and oysters. As those dwindle, so does the community. Now there are empty shells of houses, worn by wind and rain. A road that once led to clusters of homes stops dead, overgrown by the marsh.
And yet, "seems like when camp meeting's going on here, the whole town's got a different outlook on things," said lifelong resident Wes Bradshaw. "When you meet people in the road, they're more jollier, more smiling."
A century ago, hundreds of people would sail to Smith Island and stay in tents around the tabernacle grove, crowding into the outdoor chapel to shout, stamp their feet, shake and sing and pray. The Methodist church still binds the people, but now many work through camp meeting week and come to worship just in the evenings and on Sundays.
At one of the Sunday morning services this month, a trio of singers from Tennessee turned on synthesizers and microphones and belted out gospel. People jumped up from the wooden benches, clapping and singing along: "Sometimes the miracle starts with whatever you have left."
Old-Timers Rooted
As Hurricane Isabel barreled toward the East Coast, Maryland officials issued a mandatory evacuation order for Smith Island. Jennings Evans, a 73-year-old former waterman, greeted a state trooper at his front door. "We've been out here in these storms since the 1600s," he said. "We've got the faith that as long as we're trying to do right, someone wants to keep us here."
Winds of more than 100 miles an hour were forecast, and when the officer turned to leave, "he looked kind of sad," Evans said.
The storm hit Smith Island's wetlands and three small towns with less force than expected, knocking down some crab shanties and soaking living-room carpets -- but the next day, the sun was out again. Everyone was fine.
Some old-timers say there's nothing like a hurricane for bringing out the crabs the next season. And this summer, sure enough, has been a little easier on the island's crabbers.
For generations, the island has lived by the ebb and flow of the bay. Men dredged for oysters and scraped for soft crabs. Women picked the crabs, singing hymns as they worked.
