Scattered by Katrina, Linked by a Church
Pastor and His Wife Keep Tabs on Their Far-Flung Flock

By Wil Haygood
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 5, 2006

HAMMOND, La. -- They can see every stained-wood pew. They can hear every soaring, sweet gospel number. They can see every face in their flocks.

"Had 250 members. 'Course, they all didn't show up every Sunday. You know how that goes," the Rev. Franklin Burke says.

Good Faith Baptist Church, where Burke ministered for 11 years, stands in New Orleans's Lower Ninth Ward. Right there at 1703 Benton St. Which means that Hurricane Katrina bent it to its will. Bibles floated right down the street. The hurricane displaced Burke's congregation, wide and far.

Nearly a year has passed now, and in New Orleans whole neighborhoods remain vacant. Schools are quiet. And churches stand in painful silence. Hymnless places, the worshipers gone.

Their ministers, like Burke, have not stopped worrying and trying to find the ones they have yet to hear from. They wonder if the faithful will ever come back.

Burke and his wife, Lori, grab at the mail as soon as it arrives, scanning the return addresses for familiar names. "There's still about 30 people we haven't heard from," she says.

They'll pop up in the middle of the night and grab a ringing phone. Might be a church member in a faraway locale, calling collect from a phone booth.

"It's really taken a toll on him," Lori says of the husband she married back in 1978. They were junior high school sweethearts. He's well-built and deep-voiced. She's a full-figured woman whose voice is all Southern-sweet.

They finish each other's sentences as they sit on a Sunday afternoon in their new home here in Hammond, 60 miles northwest of New Orleans, trying to place all their members.

"Chante Fernandez, let's see, she's in Houston," she says. "She's a mother of two. She went there with Byron, her fiance."

"That's right," he says with a nod.

"Elder Debra Joseph. She's also in Houston," she says.

"Cheryl Turner. She's a deaconess," she goes on. "In Dallas. Which is where I think McFadden is. What's Minister McFadden's first name?"

"I don't know. But he's got three sons," he says.

She's leaned her head back on the couch, as if in a dream state.

He crosses his legs. He's in a beige shirt and slacks and two-tone dress shoes. His cuff links are sparkly.

"Where's Freeman at?" he asks.

"Deacon and Deaconess Freeman. Juanita Freeman." She pauses. "I'm trying to think of Brother Freeman's first name."

"I can hear her saying his name," he says.

"His name is Larry Freeman," she remembers. "DeRidder, Louisiana. That's where they at," she says. "It's near the Texas border. The Freemans traveled there."

He nods. "Hmm mmm."

"Elder Darryl Turner and Deaconess Sandra Turner. They're in Jackson, Mississippi," she says.

"Mama Tremont's first name? On the tip of my tongue."

They stare intensely at each other -- as if their collective willpower will summon a member of the flock right into view.

"Willie Bell," he says.

"That's right. Willie Bell Tremont," she says. "We call her Mama Tremont. She's taking care of her grandkids. Mama Tremont's gotta be at least 75."

The Burkes met in eighth grade in New Orleans. They're both 46. They have three children: Franklin Jr., 27, Trenise, 26, and Lakeisha, 22.

Franklin works in the cement business. Trenise is a schoolteacher, and Lakeisha is a college student.

"Funny thing," says the Rev. Burke, "but Trenise took the hurricane hard. She was really down. But the youngest one, Lakeisha, went right on with her business."

"It was always 'Let's go, let's go' with her," says Lori.

"Hmm mmm," he says, making it sound like family testimony.

Outside the windows, a storm is threatening.

"Shreveport," he's saying. "Isn't that where Sister Yvette Brown and her mother went? The mother's name. What is it? Something like purple."

"Sister Lavender," she answers.

"Yes. Sister Lavender. I knew it had something to do with purple."

"Of course, we got a lot of members in Baton Rouge," she says. "Elder Tracy Hubbard. She's in Baton Rouge. So is Shaquita Coston."

"Her mama? Deaconess, Deaconess?" Burke can see the face, like an apparition in front of him.

"Deaconess Deverly -- like Beverly with a D -- Coston," she says.

"That's right," he says.

"Who else is in Baton Rouge?" he asks.

"Well, Sister Dixon is over in Baker," she says. "Can't recall her first name. I always called her Sister Dixon."

"Mother? How about Mother?" he says.

"Mother is mother of the church," she explains.

"Mother Edwards," he says. "We call her the mother of the church because she's the oldest member of the church under the deaconess ministry."

"Mother's in her eighties," she says. "Mother lost her son in the hurricane. They found his body a block from the church. I think Mother was the only one from the church who actually lost someone in the water."

Someone in the water. The death toll from Katrina was 1,710.

"There was a little girl," he begins to say. "Passed away in Houston."

"Oh. You talking about Sister Montana's child. Her baby was named Miracle. She had always been sickly. She was 2 years old when she died."

"Hmm mmm," he says, this hmm mmm sadder than all the others.

"And Monica Williams and her daughter and son are in Thibodaux, Louisiana," she adds.

"Branch. What about Branch?" he wonders.

"Oh," she says. "Joyce. Joyce Branch was in Oklahoma City the last I heard. Sister Branch is so talented. She put on a play out in Oklahoma City. It was to do with the hurricane."

"Now Nanny Bolden and her family moved here to Hammond," she says.

"Sure did," he says.

"What about Charlotte Jenkins?" he asks.

"She's the secretary of the church," the first lady of the church explains. "She's over in Bunkie, Louisiana."

"Albert, now, the teacher," he says. "He and his wife, Lyris, they're both teachers. They're over in Lottie, Louisiana, with their three kids."

He shakes his head, as if at the wonder of it all: the Good Faith flock, all over the map now.

"Minister Fondel, he's in Baton Rouge," he says.

"No he's not," she corrects. "He's in Denham Springs, Louisiana."

"Oh, okay," he says.

"Sister Monica's mom is in Port Allen, Louisiana," she says.

"I can't think of her name," he says, gently shaking his head.

"I can see her face," she says.

"You know, it makes you think of people we haven't heard from since the hurricane," he says.

"It's a lot on your mind," she says.

"Hmm mmm," he says. "You worry about their whereabouts and well-being."

"A lot of them will call and give us reports," she says, "about who they have heard from." (The Rev. Burke's outgoing voice-mail message hasn't changed in the aftermath of the hurricane: "This is Reverend Franklin Burke. Everybody is okay. Keep your head lifted. God is good. Thank you.")

"Their hearts really get heavy at night," she says. "That's when church members want to talk. They need somebody to talk to."

The Rev. Burke has a job as a cement finisher at the Waterford 3 nuclear power plant in Taft, La. He goes to New Orleans to work on the church five or six times a week after work. He chisels and scrapes. "Hope to open by Christmas," he says.

That's a prayerful deadline, she feels.

"We just waiting to go home," she says, meaning the church.

He nods. "Hmm mmm."

"These people in my church, they gave," he says. "They planted seeds. So God blessed them in return. I had two elders call around just recently to ask if anybody needed anything. They said, 'Naw, we all right.' "

She considers it a small miracle that their family pictures were saved as they were packing to flee. "My daughter-in-law, as we were getting ready to leave New Orleans, said, 'Let me gather up the pictures.' I said, 'Why you gonna do that? We gonna be back in a couple days.' So it's a blessing we got these pictures."

Her eyes rest on a picture of Franklin Jr.'s twin girls. They're 6 years old. Their names are Hope and Faith.

"A blessing," she says of the picture of two of the youngest members of Good Faith Baptist Church.

He nods. "Hmm mmm."