Contact: Amanda Ragland, D. Min.
The Vine Pastoral Counseling Center
(256) 461-8580 w; (256) 426-0199 c

[Huntsville, AL] [September 28, 2005] The Vine Pastoral Counseling Center is coordinating a Service of Worship and Grief Sharing Support Groups on Thursday, October 6, 2005 from 7-9 p.m. at First Baptist Church, 600 Governors Drive in Huntsville. Victims and refugees from Hurricane Katrina as well as community care-givers and relief workers are encouraged to attend this unique non-denominational service.

Drs. Amanda and Jack Ragland and the Rev. Jim Norris, pastoral counselors and marriage and family therapists from The Vine Pastoral Counseling Center, are volunteering time to coordinate the community wide effort. The Vine is an ecumenical pastoral counseling center supported by 18 local churches. According to Amanda Ragland, D. Min., the Vine chose to coordinate this service because so many people have been affected by this devastating tragedy. “There are more than 400 Katrina evacuees in the area, countless people in the city who have offered relief and many, many more people from local churches who have traveled to the Gulf area on mission trips. We feel that the overwhelming grief in all three groups calls for a coordinated community wide effort to offer and to spur further support,” stated Ragland. “We feel that we need to worship and to seek God together and experience some healing,” she added.

At 8 p.m., Katrina evacuees will have the opportunity to meet in small grief support groups facilitated by local therapists and pastors. “They have had some of their physical needs met, and now they are beginning to ask “what is next?” and “why?” They need to talk and find support,” commented Ragland. There are 15 therapists and 20 area pastors that have offered their assistance for this effort.

The Vine is also reaching out to care givers who have either returned from mission efforts in the gulf area or who have worked to provide relief in the Huntsville area. The work load is overwhelming. Many people who are providing care have been so touched by this tragedy that they also need their own kind of care. These care givers will also have their own opportunity for grief support at 8 p.m.

The Vine is partnering with pastors from area congregations and counselors and therapists who will be available both to participate in leadership of the worship service and to facilitate the support sharing groups. Their goal is to seek and to experience God’s healing presence through worship and through Christian support. The Vine also hopes that this effort might spur ongoing support situations if the participating pastors or counselors feel led to meet with their group again within the context of their own church or practice. “We want to bear one another’s burdens and thus fulfill the laws of Christ,” concluded Ragland.

Child care will be available that evening. Those planning to attend and would like to make a reservation for child care, are asked to call (256) 428-9411 by Monday, October 3. However, no child or family will be turned away that evening if they do not have a reservation.

The Vine Worship Service Event Flyer (PDF)

Katrina evacuees awed by freshly renovated Ramada

First evacuated to a university campus and then to the New Orleans airport, Dorothy Romana eventually had to fend for herself in San Antonio. There, her purse was stolen in a shelter. She then was hospitalized with pneumonia, before finally joining her daughter in Huntsville.

Thursday marked a new, kinder reception for hurricane evacuees like Romana.

"I love it! I love it! I love it!" exclaimed Romana as she examined her new home on the first-floor of the old Ramada Inn on South Memorial Parkway.

Here, in a cluster of buildings abandoned five years ago, Huntsville has converted idle space into a warm, but temporary, haven.

Romana was among 76 evacuees scheduled to move in Thursday. While others may not have faced Romana's trials in fleeing Katrina, there was no mistaking a similar surprised gratitude among the new tenants when confronted with the unblemished corridors, the brand new comforters, the aseptic scent of new carpet.

"My interior decorator is awesome," said 22-year-old Damany Cormier, moments after wandering into Room 262. "I'm thinking to myself, 'These are VIP rooms.' They said to me, 'You are the VIP.'

"This is actually a blessing."

Scores of churches, led by The Rock Family Worship Center, pulled together with dozens of local businesses to patch windows, replace carpet and ceiling tiles, install fire alarm systems, erase the graffiti, repair the plumbing and restore a forgotten facility.

And once the major renovations ceased, local families adopted individual rooms, stocking them with everything from toiletries and bedding to TV sets and chocolate chip cookies. Some rooms had lollipops awaiting children, others welcomed with fresh bouquets. Most had plates, dishes and stacks of clean towels. Some had a chess board, a candy dish or a Bible set out.

One suite waited with four bunkbeds and a new stereo.

Cormier, who fled New Orleans with his cousin before Katrina hit, found everything from an umbrella in the closet caddy to playing cards on the dresser to shaving cream in the bathroom.

"If the room at the Country Inn was a 10. I give this a 50. This feels more like a home," Cormier said.

His room was furnished by Belinda Talley, her sister, Escoe Beatty, and Nancy Haley.

At the ribbon-cutting Thursday, Talley asked Cormier to pose for a photo with her family. "This is my new son. Come on over here," she said.

Pastor Scott Jones of The Rock said the Volunteer Center helped find folks like Cormier in temporary homes at La Quinta or the Holiday Inn, sleeping in churches or squeezing into the nearby homes of relatives in town.

For several weeks, Cormier and his cousin, Daniel Francis, also 22, had been staying at the Country Inn and Suites courtesy of the Red Cross. Now Francis is staying downstairs at the Ramada.

"Right now, this is a two months thing," said Francis of his new room, eager to see the rest of his family who evacuated to Baton Rouge. Cormier's family evacuated to Texas and tried to return to their home near New Orleans, but didn't find the basic services to survive.

On Thursday the cousins, both students at the University of New Orleans, were wondering about attending college here.

Outside, before cutting the ribbon on the first 40 rooms, Jones announced that work continues. This is just phase one. As dozens of other churches, such as First Baptist and Trinity United Methodist and Asbury United Methodist, complete the renovations on the other two buildings in the complex, then hundreds more will be able to move in.

Jones said the finished campus could hold 300 to 500 evacuees, depending on the size of each family.

"It's one of those projects where you wish you had more money to do more," said children's pastor David Smith of The Rock. "But we're blessed to do this much."

Marketplace Leadership Luncheon (Greater Huntsville)

A vision has been growing in the heart of a number of area businessmen and pastors regarding an Area-Wide Marketplace Leadership Luncheon (MLL) to empower the business community through a special time of encouragement and specific focus, including consideration of greater purpose and unique opportunity in the workplace. Please join us for this special time!

Area-Wide Marketplace Leadership Luncheon

• Luncheon will conclude promptly within an hour.
  
  
• Lunch will be served, cost may vary (sub $14), 100% covers meal cost
  
  
• Please RSVP here due to limited seating if you have not already confirmed your attendance!
  
  
• This will be a special luncheon occurring every Thursday through Thanksgiving as a gift to bless and encourage and inspire the Marketplace and Business community (no cost other than your lunch). The first several weeks will be at the Huntsville Country Club and the last several at the Heritage Club.

The annual city-wide revival sponsored by the Greater Huntsville Interdenominational Ministerial Fellowship (GHIMF) is the last week of October.

Greater Huntsville Interdenominational Ministerial Fellowship (GHIMF)
P.O. Box 296
Normal, AL 35762
Dr. Oscar Montgomery, President
www.GHIMF.org

The Ministry of Encouragement

Mini-Summits occur the 2nd Thursday of each month.

October Mini-Summit
Thursday October 13th

Valley Fellowship Church

We are an independent, charismatic, interdenominational fellowship, and our vision is to be a New Testament "lighthouse" that will herald the return of Christ. All of the ministries of our church emphasize praise and worship, prayer, teaching of the Word, fellowship and outreach.

Valley Fellowship was founded in 1980 as a vibrant, powerful Full Gospel church that exalts Jesus Christ and the integrity of His Word. From a small group of people meeting in various rented facilities, we have grown into a large church family with our own property on Holmes Avenue.

When the founding pastor left, Jerry Simon was called here from Louisiana in 1984 to assume the leadership of the church. He continued to pastor until 1993, when he was martyred for his strong righteous stand he had taken here in the Tennessee Valley.

Instead of quitting, the church has gone forward in power and anointing. As we look to the future with our co-pastors, Pastor Carol Simon and Greg Simon, we anticipate expanding onto our recently purchased land beside Butler High School.

If you would like to know more about, or become involved with, any of our ministries, activities, or departments, please feel free to call the church office at (256) 533-5117, e-mail us at valley@valleyfellowship.com.