Bishop Gary Lillibridge, bishop co-adjutor of the Diocese of West Texas, described the reaction of his teenage daughters as they interviewed evacuees arriving at the huge KellyUSA shelter in San Antonio after Katrina struck.

“They won’t forget that. They were just stunned,” he said of the girls’ responses to those they encountered during long hours at an intake desk.
Families arriving from New Orleans, and later from East Texas when Rita hit, brought to life the TV news reports Lillibridge and his family had been hearing. More than 13,000 arrived in the first wave.

“When they got off those buses from the airport, they hadn’t showered in four days. They hadn’t eaten. The diabetics hadn’t had insulin… these people were just desperate,” he said. “There were thousands. They just kept coming, in waves, an amazing number of little children.”

The immediate reaction in San Antonio was generosity. Hundreds of volunteers showed up at shelters, others emptied their linen closets, their wardrobes, and their piggy banks. With its offices in San Antonio, the Diocese of West Texas quickly realized it would need to respond and so began organizing a Disaster Response Task Force. Meanwhile, many, like Lillibridge and his family, went immediately to where they thought they could help.

“It was sort of a you-ring-the-bell-and-people-come response,” said Lillibridge. “The Red Cross, FEMA, the churches, the business community, the medical community… In that shelter we saw humanity at some of its best… It was a place of sanctuary.”

Now, weeks after the disaster, with the shelters somewhat depleted but the city still full of temporarily housed evacuees, the diocese has taken on the role of training those who would help resettle the thousands who remain.

Using resources, expertise and materials provided by Episcopal Migration Ministries, including its director Richard Parkins himself, the diocese is offering training sessions for volunteers from two to three dozen churches, synagogues and mosques.

Demi Prentiss, ministry development director at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, has taken on the leadership of that effort. The diocese is offering the training through an interfaith organization formed after 9/11 --Volunteer Organizations Assisting in Disaster (VOAD). Prentiss taught the first of many sessions, with more than two dozen volunteers present, on Sept. 29th.  She was surprised and encouraged by the turnout on such short notice.

“We have to do this right,” she said. “We cannot afford to make promises to a family and then let them down.”