A Power Greater Than Katrina—

Love Binds Together Three Churches And One Couple

By Shannon Hicks

Larry Coleman and Arlene Urbanski dated for 17½ years. They had been engaged for years, and while both were certainly in love and committed to each other, they knew that they would eventually get married.

One of their big dilemmas was where they would get married. Larry is a member of Trinity Episcopal Church in Newtown and Arlene attends St Thomas Episcopal Church in Bethel.

What to do?

In the end, the couple went with a destination wedding of sorts: On February 14 — seven years to the day of their engagement — Arlene and Larry were married in Gulfport, Miss., at St Peter’s by the Sea Episcopal Church. The Reverend David Pople from St Thomas was the celebrant and the Reverend Kathie Adams-Shepherd from Trinity was the assisting priest for the ceremony.

The wedding was just the second since the Gulfport church was hit by Hurricane Katrina.

The story of how the Colemans came to be married in Gulfport started more than three years ago. It began when Lucy Dixon, a member of St Peter’s, shared with her sister, Anna Saterstrom, a member of Trinity, stories about the extent of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina to the churches, infrastructure, cities, towns, and people along the Gulf Coast. Anna shared her concerns with the members of Trinity, who decided to do whatever they could to help St Peter’s and its family.

Parishioners of St Peter’s were heartbroken, the Reverend Edward F. O’Connor told members of Trinity when he visited Newtown in October 2005, when they discovered that Katrina had done considerable damage to their church building on August 29, 2005. Hymnals and bibles, even church records, robes, and stoles that had been within the building were found strewn outside, reduced to the status of rubble and debris.

The walls of the church’s lower half were completely ripped off by the force of the storm. Windows were blown out, pieces of the altar — the gates and rail, and even the lectern — either were heavily damaged or missing.

Inside, the baptismal font was knocked over either by winds and water or debris striking it. Even a substantial granite sign at the end of the church’s driveway was damaged. Donated to the church to honor a late family member, the large sign was toppled like dominoes and broken into three large pieces. The arrival of Hurricane Rita about three weeks later did not help.

The first mission trip of Trinity members traveled to Gulfport in March 2007.

“A year and a half had gone by since Katrina had done its damage and still the evidence of her passing was everywhere, including this church,” Larry said during his preamble on his wedding day. “We will never forget standing here breaking bread one afternoon with Pastor Kathie and the rest of the Trinity crew.

“There were no walls, no beautiful altar, I don’t even remember a cross; just broken siding, torn wires, no pews to sit on, pieces of stained glass on the floor, twisted wall studs, and a broken altar rail,” he continued. “But God’s love and His Spirit were here and we shared that together as we broke the bread and shared the wine.”

Between March 2007 and November 2008, Larry and Arlene — traveling with different members of their churches — made a total of five trips to Gulfport, each time putting in plenty of sweat equity to help rebuild the Coast. In April 2008, when they were attending the rededication ceremony for St Peter’s, Larry decided that was where he and Arlene would be married.

The afternoon of the rededication ceremony, Larry and Arlene were at the new parish house of St Peter’s, which overlooks the Gulf of Mexico. With the sun setting across the water and a gentle breeze blowing, Larry turned to Arlene and said, “Wouldn’t this be a great place to be married?”

Without hesitation she turned and said, “Yes, it would.”

“It was, believe me, very spur of the moment,” Arlene said recently. “But we feel very connected to St Peter’s. Larry talked to the bishop [the Right Reverend Duncan M. Gray III] that night and told him we wanted to get married there.

“It’s a beautiful church and the people here, you just connect with them,” she said.

The members of Trinity and St Thomas have worked with Camp Coast Care to coordinate their relief efforts. CCC is a Christian community just west of Gulfport in Long Beach, Miss., that provides volunteer support for the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort. Run by the Lutheran Episcopalian Services of Mississippi, its mission is the reconstruction of homes on the Gulf Coast, which Larry, Arlene, and their respective church families have fully embraced.

Both are retired, which allows them to visit the region every four to five months. During their trips to Gulfport, the two have done everything from sheetrocking the inside of a house and siding the exterior of the same house while on their first visit to Gulfport, to sheetrocking the inside of another house, putting down wood flooring, taping and mudding, laying down floor tile, and more while on subsequent visits.

“We’ve hung doors, trimmed windows, painted, and put cabinets in,” said Arlene. “My friends from St Thomas, we call ourselves The Mississippi Mudders.”

Last November Arlene and Larry’s timing worked out so that they were able to attend a house blessing while in Gulfport. It was also during that visit that many of the arrangements for their February wedding were made. They selected a marriage liturgy from a New Zealand Prayer Book, and members of St Peter’s did everything possible to help the couple celebrate their union.

About 45 people attended Arlene and Larry’s wedding, and two-thirds of those guests were from Connecticut.

“We used as many people as we could as part of the ceremony,” said Larry. “So many people came with us and that meant so much. We wanted them to be involved wherever possible.”

“They all stayed and worked the week after the wedding,” said Arlene. “That was part of the deal.”

“We told them, ‘If we’re working on our honeymoon, so can you,” added Larry.

(Don’t worry, the Colemans will eventually take a proper honeymoon. The couple has been given use of a beach house in Delaware for a week, which they will use for some rest and relaxation, said Arlene.)

Larry’s brother Robert Coleman walked Arlene down the aisle, and her sister Sallie Luciani was the matron of honor. Larry, his brother, and friend Matt Bodwell sang “The Rose” to Arlene as part of the ceremony, which also included the use of a chalice the couple had discovered back in March 2007 on their first visit to Gulfport.

Shortly after their initial arrival in Mississippi, the group from Trinity celebrated Communion on an architect’s table inside St Peter’s Church.

“We had Strawberry Hill wine and a bagel, with Pastor Kathie delivering the Communion, and that was when we found the chalice we used during the wedding,” said Arlene. “It means so much to us. They were going to put it in a box with all the other broken stuff, but we wrapped it up and brought it home.”

That chalice was brought out during the wedding ceremony in February, when Communion was celebrated.

The reception was in St Peter’s parish hall, without cost to the Colemans.

“They waived the cleanup fees, but everybody really pitched in and worked,” said Arlene. “It was like an old-fashioned wedding, where everybody helped.”

The church had items for a reception, including plenty of decorations.

“It was so easy for everybody because everyone with St Peter’s was so gracious,” said Arlene. “That was their way of thanking us for coming down to help other people.”

Karen Ferris, a member of St Thomas, baked the wedding cake. Because they arrived in Gulfport before the rest of their party, Larry and Arlene were given a list of ingredients Karen was going to need for her project. Karen flew in to Gulfport on February 13, the day before the wedding, and went straight to the kitchen at the church to start baking.

“We’re not sure how she pulled it off. All I know is we were told it went well past midnight,” said Larry.

James T. Anglin, the organist for St Peter’s, donated his time and talent for the wedding ceremony while his wife, a professional photographer, also donated her services for the couple.

The Colemans have already returned to Gulfport. They are back at Camp Coast Care for their seventh trip this week, celebrating their two-month anniversary by offering still more relief to the area still recovering from the double whammy of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita nearly 3½ years ago.

And if you haven’t already noticed, the couple was indeed married on St Valentine’s Day.

“He really can’t forget our anniversary,” Arlene said with a laugh, and a loving look at her husband.