"The Light of the Village"
In Alabama, a married couple has founded their own church as a non-profit.
What to do if you are not quite happy with the churches in your area? You simply found your own! At least when you live in the USA. Dolores and John Eads did just that - and now offer social work for children and adults in a slum at the Gulf Coast.
Prichard, a suburb of Mobile, in the south of the US state of Alabama. Here, in the “Deep South”, John and Dolores Eads have founded a small church congregation. And because the district is called “Alabama Village”, they have christened it The Light of the Village. Jesus Christ is actually The Light of the Village. That's according to a sign hanging on the wall of one of the white bungalow-shaped houses I'm standing in front of. A red wooden cross is rammed into the ground next to it. The railing to the front door and the wooden beams around the windows are also painted red.
“We call us a non-denominational Christian church. It is not affiliated to a big church like Baptist”, explains John Eads. They are probably closest to the Evangelicals, he replies when I ask. He and his wife definitely see themselves as missionaries. But this word has a bad connotation, he adds. “Some of them shove it down your throat. That is not how we do it. We teach them about the Bibel and Jesus. But we don’t say: before you get to eat, you must listen to this”.
Eads, 58, short reddish-blonde hair, metal-rimmed glasses, invites me to join him as he picks up a dozen first and second graders from school in a white minibus. On the way, he warns me that the neighborhood is the “bottom” of the social “bottom” in the city. I see dilapidated wooden houses and those that are still inhabited, with garbage piled up in front of them. Young men are standing on a corner negotiating a drug deal. Eads greets them loudly. And they greet him back. Five years ago, he wouldn't have been able to drive through the neighborhood so easily, he says. But now they all know him - and the ministry. Nevertheless, he still wouldn't walk through the neighborhood. It's risky enough by car. And not just at night. “Almost everyone we know of has been hit during the day. I don't know why,” says Eads. It doesn't take much, such as an argument, for shots to be fired. And if you're unlucky, you weren't the target at all, but you get a fatal bullet in the head. Or in the heart. Like the pastor's wife at the little church we're driving past: She was standing there behind the door when a stray bullet smashed through the wood of the door.
We stop in front of the school. Eads opens the sliding door - and then it gets loud inside the car, because the kids have a lot to talk about. I'm sitting in the back seat next to a girl who is laughing her head off at the cartoon characters Tom and Jerry that she downloaded from YouTube using my smartphone. I also laughed at the adventures of the cat and the mouse as a child. The characters were invented in 1940, more than 80 years ago. And here is this girl from a slum in Alabama still having fun with them! Once we arrive at the ministry, the kids run off to play hide-and-seek on the lawn, followed by lots of screaming on the big yellow slide. Meanwhile, some of the older boys are playing football.
All the kids are wearing school uniforms: black trousers and red polo shirts. A bunch of children has gathered around a member of staff, who is holding a young puppy that she found on the street. Everyone wants to pet the little dog and hold it in their arms.
Then it’s time for Dolores Eads to give a Bible lesson for the kids. All of them are sitting cross-legged on the floor, with Eads herself sometimes standing and sometimes kneeling. The gentle-looking woman can be very determined when she sees fit. If the children get restless, she reminds them to sit still. In this way, she wants to help make it easier for children to concentrate on learning at school. Dolores Eads holds a Bible in her hands. This time it's about the difference between “good” and “excellent”. She reads from the Bible how Jesus heals a sick person. A boy slumbers blissfully. When I ask Dolores about this later, she laughs. Sure, she had seen that too. But: “This hour might be the one of the only quiet times during the day for this boy and the other children.”
The couple knows that they cannot work miracles. After the three hours in the “light of the village”, the children return to their families - and to violence, lack of money and drug abuse. Dolores shows me the so-called mourning mural in the recreation room with photos of the dead. Cory, for example, nicknamed “Big Man”, was shot dead in his car just around the corner. Now his photo hangs here with 66 others. John Eads is convinced that stricter gun control alone can do nothing to stop the violence. Skin color doesn't matter either, nor does poverty, he says. “It's the culture in the area. Many adults simply raise their children that way.” In addition, many are upgrading from pistols to rifles, and more and more women are getting involved. “Sometimes they shoot at each other from their cars - with their babies in the back seat.”
One young man who could make it is Ulysses Lang. He turned 21 the day before. And he is about to become a father. He plays the tuba and drums and wants to become a music teacher. Until then, he is helping out in the “Light of the Village”. While many of the young people in the neighborhood see their only way out of their misery in violence and drugs. However, here in the ministry, Ulysses says, they show the children that there is another way out. “You can follow God and still be happy.”
When Dolores and John Eads converted a run-down crack house twenty years ago, nobody in the black neighborhood would have bet that the two whites would stay. They first had to earn the respect of the people - and their trust, says John Eads. “By now they know how we treat the people and the children. I believe that’s why we are still here. Four other ministries and churches were burnt down in that time.” For their safety, however, the Eads and their team carry Walkie-Talkies with them at all times.
“They came with an open heart and cared. They share their love and compassion.” That's how Betty Catlin describes it. The plump woman with golden crowns and honey-colored dreadlocks has been involved with the ministry since its beginning. She is currently preparing snacks for the children in the kitchen. Many of the people who were helped by the Eads and who subsequently moved away from the neighborhood keep coming back to the church community to show their appreciation, she says.
Dolores Eads nods. Especially the parents who grew up in the ministry and still come to church or to “Ladies' Night” try to lead their children into a better life. Betty Catlin, who has raised six children on her own, can confirm this from her own experience. Some children even come to the ministry whose one parent has killed a parent in the other family - and yet both children spend time here together. “We are just trying to keep them from hating each other. If we don’t break the cycle it is going to repeat itself.”
This text was first published in German on my website and as a shorter radio report.
Last but not least: Do NOT miss to read the in-depth essay by Malcolm Garcia about the ministry. The award-winning journalist and writer volunteered for a couple of weeks there and describes his experiences in his literary style in: Alabama Village.