Slidell church needs funds

The edifice and congregation may be small, but members of the Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church on Fourth Street in Slidell are determined to see their place of worship rebuilt after it was heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Wednesday morning, the wrecking ball came and demolished the tattered building that had withstood countless other storms since 1916. While the church’s pastor Norman Farve, and members of his flock watched, a bit of Slidell history was wiped away.

But the congregation is hoping that the Slidell community will help them to rebuild the historical building.

The history of the church goes back 106 years when it was built and first named the Little Starlight Number 2 Baptist Church in 1902. In 1915, a hurricane destroyed the original church, which was rebuilt in 1916 and renamed the Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church.

Since then, the church has served as a school, a storm shelter and a food distribution site for the poor of the city.

“It has been a key cornerstone to this community,” said Gwen Doyle, who has been a church member all her life.

Another church member, Phyllis Mills agreed, and said Farve has been their rock in their time of troubles.

“Under him, we have become a close-knit family,” Mills said.

Back in 1936, a fire destroyed the St. Tammany Parish Training School for Negroes, which was where St. Tammany Junior High is now located. The church opened its doors to the students, and for two years they attended classes there until the school was rebuilt.

Arden Wilson attended school in the church for the second grade. She said that partitions were set up in the church to form classrooms, and then taken down on Sundays for services. The church also served as the auditorium for all of the school’s graduations until 1948. Wilson said that before Katrina, the church was also the site of many school reunions.

During Katrina, 47 families from the neighborhood took shelter in the church. As the floodwaters started to rise, the refugees had to move up to the elevated choir area to stay safe. The church ended up with six feet of water.

After the hurricane, the families continued to live in the church for several months, until the city of Slidell declared the building uninhabitable. The city condemned it in 2007.

For the first two years, the small congregation of 60 met in several other churches in the area that had offered space. Then in 2007, Minister Ella Doyle and her husband Freddie, who own Doyle’s Funeral Home, which is right across the street from the ruined church, offered the funeral home’s chapel to the church at no cost. The congregation has been holding Sunday services in the chapel ever since.

Despite the charity and good will from the area, the congregation wants their church back. First, they had to demolish the ruined building, but it was a costly process and there was no money in the church’s coffers. That is when Slidell Councilman Lionel Hicks came into the picture. He went to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and asked them to demolish the building.

“At first they said yes, then they said no because of its historical value,” Hicks said.

So the congregation tried to register the church with the National Registry of Historical Buildings. The Registry said they could only put the church on their list if it was restored to its original condition. But without the money, the congregation could not renovate the church.

Hicks finally found some good neighbors who agreed to help out. Kelley Barber of KBR Enterprises agreed to demolish the church for free. Coastal Waste rented out Dumpsters for the demolition at a very low price, and Dammon Engineering agreed to draw up preliminary plans for a new church at no cost to the congregation.

“Mr. Hicks has done his job and worked miracles,” Doyle said.

The church had been holding services without a pastor for two years. Last February, Pastor Norman Farve took over and he has been working hard to try and raise the funds to rebuild the church.

The bricks on the exterior walls, the church bell, cross and stained glass windows were taken down and stored, and will be used on the new church. Offers of help have come in from Aldersgate Church and Northshore Disaster Recovery Incorporated. Farve said the NDRI is going out-of-state to try and drum up donations and help. Hicks said the city is also willing to do something.

“We’re not sure what we can do, but we will do everything we can to help,” Hicks said.

Favre has also set up a rebuilding fund at Chase Bank. Anybody can go to a branch of Chase Bank and donate to the Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church Rebuilding Fund.

“All donations are tax deductible,” Farve said.

The pastor appreciates all the help, but he admits they have a long way to go.

“We’re probably the only church in the city that is still closed after the storm,” Farve said.

He is not looking to building anything big and fancy.

“It’s just a small community church,” Farve said. But he adds getting the church rebuilt is part of upgrading the entire neighborhood. “We want to be movers and shakers in the process.”

Farve has big plans for his congregation. Right now they have started a youth program that meets in Ella Doyle’s house. He also sees building a child-care center on the church property.

“But that is all way down the line,” Farve said. “Right now our number one priority is to rebuild the church.”

For more information, or to help the Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church, call Pastor Norman Farve at 639-9228, or 285-1323.