While I commend these men for their actions in seeking God's help, the
tragedy of situations like this is that most people forget all about God in
their daily lives, until something terrible happens. Then they scurry to get
on their knees. Lord help us all to have a true daily relationship with the
Lord, and not to just superficially worship God when it is for our personal
benefit and convenience. One thing is for certain: God certainly has their
attention now!


Seeking God's Help for a Wounded Gulf

By DAN BARRY - NYT

June 27, 2010


BON SECOUR, Ala. -- In a small white building along the baptizing Bon Secour
River, a building that once housed a shrimp-net business, the congregation
of the Fishermen Baptist Church gathered for another Sunday service, with
the preacher presiding from a pulpit designed to look like a ship captain's
wheel.

After the singing of the opening hymn, "Ring the Bells of Heaven," and the
announcement that an engaged couple was now registered at Wal-Mart, the
preacher read aloud a proclamation from Gov. Bob Riley that declared this to
be a "day of prayer" -- a day of entreaties to address the
ominous threat to
the way of life just outside the church's white doors.

Whereas, and whereas, and whereas, the proclamation read. People of Alabama,
please pray for your fellow citizens, for other states hurt by this
disaster, for all those who are responding. And pray "that a solution that
stops the oil leak is completed soon."

In other words, dear God, thank you for your blessings and guidance. And one
other thing, dear God:

Help.

The governor's words hung a moment in the fan-turned air. Then the preacher,
Shawn Major, summoned the men of the church to the front to "ask God to do
something special."

Two dozen men, many of them wearing short-sleeve shirts in summery colors,
knelt and sat with heads bowed and eyes closed, while a half-mile down the
street, other men -- and women -- underwent training in the use of a more
secular form of hope, the laying of boom.

The wall between church and state came a-tumbling down on Sunday, as elected
leaders from the five states on the Gulf of Mexico issued proclamations
declaring it to be a day of prayer. Although days of prayer are not uncommon
here -- Governor Riley declared one asking for rain to relieve a drought a
few years ago -- these proclamations conveyed the sense that at this late
date, salvation from the spill all but requires divine intervention.

In the two months since the deadly Deepwater Horizon explosion began a
ceaseless leak of oil into the gulf, damaging the ecosystem and disrupting
the economy, the efforts by mortals to stem the flow have failed. Robots and
golf balls and even the massive capping dome all seem small in retrospect.

So, then, a supplementary method was attempted: coordinated prayer.

In Texas, Gov. Rick Perry encouraged Texans to ask God "for his merciful
intervention and healing in this time of crisis." In Mississippi, Gov. Haley
Barbour declared that prayer "allows us an opportunity to reflect and to
seek guidance, strength, comfort and inspiration from Almighty God." In
Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal invoked the word "whereas" a dozen times -- as
well as the state bird, the brown pelican -- but made no direct mention of
God. In Florida, Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp asked people to pray that God "would
guide and direct our civil leaders and provide them with wisdom and divinely
inspired solutions."

The suggestion by government to beseech God for help -- to petition a power
higher than any elected official -- rang out in churches and halls from
Pensacola, Fla., to Galveston, Tex., as well as here, in Bon Secour, where
Brother Harry prayed with head bowed.

The Fishermen Baptist Church has been in this village, whose name means safe
harbor, since 1989. An anchor is planted in its front lawn. Its walls are
adorned with paintings of nautical scenes. Its collection boxes are a
miniature lighthouse and a treasure chest. The dock across the street is
used for baptisms and fishing.

These are all reflections of the church's founder and pastor, Wayne Mund,
who grew up here. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather were
fishermen, and so was he, until the age of 21, when he dropped his nets and
went off to Bible school.

Pastor Mund, 66, lanky and proud to call himself a Bible Baptist, works hard
to incorporate his seafaring past into his mission. He sees the Bible, from
the Book of Genesis to the Book of Revelation, as a nautical book, and the
sea as a mesmerizing draw. He will end conversation by warning that those
who do not climb aboard God's boat of salvation "will drown in a sea of sin
and despair."

And now the oily despair in the sea is affecting his small church, his
community. Fewer envelopes are being slipped into the treasure chest and
lighthouse at the back of the room because some of his 200 congregants can
no longer afford to tithe. Fewer people are attending service because
fishermen, who normally take Sundays off, are now working for BP to help
clean up its goo, which is washing up in Gulf Shores and Mobile Bay.

"The sea, the sea, the sea," Pastor Mund says. "It has to do
with the sea."

Pastor Mund expected to be out of town on Sunday, so he assigned an
associate pastor, Mr. Major, to preside over the 10:30 service. Mr. Major is
46, stocky and more apt to smile than his boss when proselytizing. The spill
affecting the river, the world, has been difficult for him to fathom, and he
expects that the human toll will not be felt for another year.

Mr. Major spent Saturday with 70 men and women, all learning the proper way
to lay boom. But now he was with 70 other men and women, all praying from
nine wooden pews; all saying amen to his assertion that "We are still a
Christian nation"; all nodding when he said that everyone knew "who
ultimately will stop" the spill.

A missionary about to leave for Brazil was waiting to make a multimedia
presentation, but first these kneeling men, led by Brother Harry -- Harry
Mund, a relative of the pastor's -- needed to finish their prayer.

Please God, help us with "this awful oil spill," he said. In Jesus' name.
Amen.

The men rose from their knees and returned to their pews, a couple of them
rubbing the salty wet from their eyes.



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