Gonsalves: Walking through the fire on faith

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Being in a fire is not like it’s portrayed in the movies. In the movies, you can actually see what’s going on amid the roaring flames.

In real life, you generally can’t see a thing. You’re enveloped in sweltering, suffocating smoke — thick, billowy darkness in every direction.

Melissa Burns was sleeping in the Calvary Baptist Church basement with her fiance last Tuesday when a corroded extension cord in a room upstairs ignited bed linen. The bed linen belonged to two other informal “tenants” bunking in a back room upstairs, just off the sanctuary.

Burns was awakened by the screams of her church-housemates upstairs. “They were yelling: ‘Get up! Get up! The church is on fire!'” Burns told me Monday, standing outside the burned-out building.

“By the time I got to the stairs, smoke was everywhere. It was crazy. Dark. Black. Burned your eyes. Now I know why they say, ‘Stop, drop and roll!'” she said.

“I ran up the stairs,” Burns continued. “I thought my fiance was right behind me but he wasn’t. So now I’m panicking. I’m yelling for him: ‘Danny! Danny!’ Luckily I could hear him calling through the smoke. He literally had to jump through the fire to get out.”

They all made it out, virtually unharmed. Still, Burns and the hundreds of other hungry souls who rely on the Hyannis church knew a community crisis was smoldering in the embers, even if firefighters had doused the flames.

Since 2007, the tiny congregation at Calvary has been providing between 200 and 300 hot-cooked meals to the needy every day. The church also has served as a community freezer for area food pantries, working in conjunction with the Greater Boston Food Bank.

On Monday, in the fellowship hall of the Federated Church of Hyannis, Calvary Baptist Pastor Bruce Smith told a roomful of supporters — representing just about every faith community between Osterville and Brewster — that his immediate concern was feeding the people.

Unsure of what the future holds, Smith did know one thing: The Greater Boston Food Bank had arrived earlier that morning to deliver a truck full of groceries, but was having trouble getting the proper permit from the town’s health department.

Still, the can-do spirit that filled the room was beautifully palpable, even as participants tried to wrap their minds around the challenges that lie ahead — how to quantify the needs; how to inventory what various church groups and local social service agencies could do to stand in the gap.

Not much was decided, except that they needed to meet again to figure out how and where Calvary could continue its ministry. It was as if each person in the fellowship hall was inside Calvary, where Melissa Burns could see only darkness all around.

Meanwhile, across town, the Greater Boston Food Bank was able to get the health department’s permission to hold an open outdoor food pantry in the church’s dirt parking lot.

The spirit of compassion that presided over the meeting at the Federated Church seemed to have instantly transported itself to Calvary. Church members, ad hoc volunteers, and Greater Boston Food Bank staff set up tables stocked with everything from potatoes and onions to cereal, milk and juice. About a half-dozen Stop Shop employees (some of whom had come on their day off) were staffing the tables, filling up bags for the 50 or so people who had come through the line.

The variety of people who showed up ran the gamut — black, white, old, young. It was jarring to learn that most who’d come were not homeless, but in need of food nevertheless.

Each of the half-dozen or so people I spoke to were overcome with thankfulness.

“It’s beautiful, man — that they’re still helping us, even though the church burned down. It’s a godsend,” said a 21-year-old client named Rob, telling me he’s been coming to the church for food and fellowship since he was 17. “This church has kept me alive. Literally.”

Sue Patry also spoke of her love for the church as being more than simply gratitude for the food. “It’s the only church around that has a door open. I come in out of nowhere and just pray. And then I go down to the kitchen to ask if they need help,” she said, adding that when she first heard about the fire she thought the food pantry would be gone for good.

“I was impressed that the woman called to tell me if you still need food, we could come here today,” Patry said. “There are other places around, but it’s a little more personal here. A lot of people come to get food and while you’re here they ask you if you need help with something else. It’s not like, ‘Here’s your bag. See ya later.'”

Now it’s Calvary standing in the need of both prayer and resources, though the thought crosses my mind that this fire might turn out to be a blessing in disguise. And yet, I’m haunted by the question Melissa Burns asked as we chatted in the front of the church while she helped work the registration table.

The Red Cross provided her and her fiance with two nights at a local hotel. Then they went to the NOAH Shelter.

“But at NOAH, they separate couples,” Burns said. “But I can’t be away from my fiance right now because of my anxiety. So we’re sleeping in the car so we can be together. I still wake up every couple of hours in panics and sweats, ya know? I don’t know what we’re gonna do. I’m hoping with the weather getting warmer we can put up a tent somewhere. But someone told me we can’t do that either. But what do they expect us to do?”

That no one has a clear, practical answer to that question is precisely why confronting such difficult circumstances requires that we walk by faith.

Email Sean Gonsalves at sgonsalves@capecodonline.com.

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