Prayers were louder
than the tornado, says St. Joseph Parish secretary
By Carol
Zimmermann
Catholic
News Service
WASHINGTON
(CNS) -- When Helen Rule saw the remains of her home after it was torn apart by
the May 4 tornado that whipped through
“I
don’t know how I lived through it,” she told Catholic News Service May 11 from
her cell phone outside a Wal-Mart in a neighboring town.
Other
than two walls, nothing is standing in Rule’s house. Rafters fell into the
middle of the living room, which now also contains a large barrel and some
neighbors’ mailboxes.
On
the night of the tornado, the 70-year-old secretary at St. Joseph Parish in
But she got the sense this warning might be a serious one
when a television report showed the tornado’s path heading toward southwest
She
has heard reports the tornado touched down for seven minutes, but at the time
she said it “seemed like forever.” News reports said the twister was more than
a mile wide with winds exceeding 200 mph. About 95 percent of the town was
destroyed, including
During
the storm she crouched down and closed her eyes. She could hear things batting
against the house and before long she could feel pieces of her home’s new
insulation in her hair. Because of the wind she could hardly keep holding the
blanket she had grabbed and she held on desperately to her oxygen tank,
thinking that if she went, it was going with her.
“I
didn’t know what was louder, the tornado or me praying,” she said, pointing out
that she prayed whatever came to mind and certainly said a few Hail Marys “over and over” to make sure God heard her.
“He
must have, because I’m here,” she was quick to add.
Without
any hesitation, she said her faith was strengthened by the tornado because she
is convinced she would not have survived without praying.
When
the storm let up, she wondered why she was getting wet inside her house, but
looked up and saw the roof was gone leaving her no shelter from the pounding
rain.
Rule
stood up but could not move initially because there was so much debris. She
finally worked her way around the now unfamiliar territory of what had been her
home for 14 years. She got outside and “hollered” for help, she said, knowing
she better get some soon because, along with everything else, her oxygen tank
was not working.
She
was driven to what had been the town hospital and then to a nearby shelter. By
the next morning, her son, who lives in
Meanwhile,
her friend, Ellen Peters, also a
She
spent the better part of the next two days calling in prescription orders for
men and women who were displaced by the storm and without necessary paperwork
or identification to get the medicines they needed.
Peters
was not alone in dropping everything to pitch in. She told CNS the assistance
was overwhelming. “I can’t say enough about people learning Gospel living when
the chips are down,” she added.
One
difficult aspect of volunteering, though, was hearing so many stories of loss.
“So
many people lost everything,” she said, noting that after the tornado it rained
for three days, further ruining people’s belongings. But even amid this loss,
she heard countless stories of people picking through the rubble and finding
items of personal value.
She
also said the people she talked to showed amazing resiliency and faith. They
frequently spoke of the storm as an “act of nature, not an act of God” and were
convinced God would give them the strength they needed to move on.
“There
was none of this, ‘Why did this happen to me?’” she said. Instead, the
Rule,
the mother of four and grandmother of 12, counts herself among those who won’t
give up. She returned to
She
does not seem overwhelmed by not knowing where she will live or work.
Instead,
she simply said, “I have no plans, and I’m not making any yet.”