Graduates of the 2022 All Saints Cathedral School, who survived two hurricanes, social unrest, mass shootings, have seen more than their share of trauma, says interim dean Sandye Wilson. Photo: Sandye Wilson

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For nearly half of Trevor Bridgewater’s life, St. Mary’s Church in Virgin Gorda, in the Episcopal Diocese of the Virgin Islands, had been without a priest.

Then the Rev. Ellis Clifton arrived last November, as part of an initiative of The Episcopal Church’s Office of African Descent Ministries programs, and “Father Fireball” as he is affectionately known, has inspired visions of planting new congregations, and serving as a community hub. Attendance has tripled, and the church has added a second Sunday morning service, said Bridgewater, 30, the senior warden.

“We were without a resident priest for 13-and-a-half years,” Bridgewater said. “So, for 13-and-a-half years, St. Mary’s was trying just to stay above water.”
“It’s a great journey. They are beautiful islands down there and nobody pays attention to them, at least that’s the way they feel,” Byrd said. “My mission is to bring them into fuller participation in The Episcopal Church.”

 

The Rev.Canon Sandye Wilson, left, interim dean at Cathedral of All Saints in St.Thomas in the Episcopal Diocese of the Virgin Islands, collaborates with Provisional Bishop Scott Benhase, retired bishop of Georgia, to create new hope and ministries for congregations that have been without clergy for years. Photo: All Saints Cathedral

 

Visiting clergy already have made a visible impact.

Now, “we’ve seen incredible turnaround,” Bridgewater said. “Fr. Clifton brings new, fresh energy. Now we are in the process of finishing the construction of a barbecue pit in a park we own. The park had been dormant and inactive. Members of the church cleaned it up and we are opening it to the community to bring their children for family-oriented activities.”

Similarly, the 173-year-old Cathedral of All Saints on a neighboring island, St. Thomas, had been without a consistent dean for more than a decade, and the spiritual toll was apparent, among the congregation and students of the century-old pre-k through 12th-grade school it operates, when the Very Rev. Sandye Wilson began serving as interim dean in December 2020.

The school’s student body is about 200, a decline from previous years, “due to the reality of hurricanes over time, and families leaving the island or sending their kids away,” Wilson said.

“The students are resilient but, talk about generational trauma. This year’s class had two hurricanes that came within two weeks of each other. Then there was the George Floyd murder and then the pandemic, and mass shootings.”

Like Clifton, Wilson had responded to a call from Byrd, to “become hope peddlers in what sometimes feels like a hopeless world,” she said, by serving in a diocese, where at least half its 14 churches were without clergy.

“Ron Byrd is an innovative, entrepreneurial leader, who looks at the fact that often we have been passive about responding to the needs of congregations and clergy,” Wilson said. “He has lit a fire under many of us. He’s very clear about the fact that clergy can come for a couple of weeks and bring a spirit of respect as well as excitement about the living God, to share with others.”

Byrd created the initiative in response to a request for assistance from former Bishop Ambrose Gumbs and it is funded through his office.

“Bishop Gumbs came to me in 2018 and said we really need help in the Virgin Islands,” Byrd recalled. “‘We are worth saving’, Gumbs said. It was really a call for help, and this is just one of many programs and activities we have launched in the Virgin Islands as they are on their way to recovery.”

At the time, it was still early in the diocese’s recovery from two devastating category-5 hurricanes—Irma tore through the islands on Sept. 6, 2017, followed by Maria 10 days later. Irma, considered the strongest Atlantic Ocean hurricane ever measured, killed four people and damaged or destroyed 85% of the housing stock on Tortola Island. On Sept. 16, Maria struck St. Croix, damaging, or destroying 70% of buildings, including schools and the island’s only hospital, and knocking out the power grid and communications systems.

Byrd had initially lined up at least six visiting supply clergy, ready to go for short-term stays. Then, COVID-19 happened, Gumbs retired on May 31, 2021 and Byrd decided to expand the program to add a longer-term initiative.

 

The 173-year-old All Saints Cathedral on St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands is enjoying a revival and will be hosting one for the entire community later in the year featuring the Rev. Lester Mackenzie, chaplain to the House of Deputies. Photo: Sandye Wilson

“The people here are amazing folks. Most either work in education or the tourism industry. They are proud, with a wonderful sense of humor, deeply committed to the church and doing lots of ministry in their neighborhoods and immediate communities.”

When Clifton arrived he was newly retired, recently widowed and ready for a change. “When Covid travel restrictions lifted, I jumped at the chance, and I have not regretted it one day. I live in the church rectory and it’s the finest place I’ve lived since I’ve been ordained. There is a breathtaking ocean view from the back porch, and I wake up each morning in time to see the sunrise.”

Clifton sees a renewed energy as well. Sunday school young adult programs and Bible study groups have revived, and “I’ve been blown away by the number of people who will stop in the church just to pray,” he said.

Interest in engaging the wider church has rekindled, he added. “People are hungry and thirsty for spiritual fulfillment and fellowship with the wider church.

St. Mary’s has hosted community gatherings and offered worship opportunities to grieve the hurricanes. “People died because of the hurricanes. There were problems rebuilding because the church was under-insured. So, insurance continues to be a problem.”

The Hon. Vincent Wheatley, a member who serves in local government, said St. Mary’s is resuming its former role “as the beacon on the hill.”

A September revival is planned for the entire community, featuring the Rev. Lester Mackenzie, chaplain to the House of Deputies and rector of St. Mary’s Church in Laguna Beach, in the Diocese of Los Angeles.

For Sandye Wilson, who June 24, celebrated the 42nd anniversary of her ordination to the priesthood, serving in the Virgin Islands feels like a homecoming.

“When I go places, and into stores, people are like, ‘I know who you are, I listen to you every Sunday night on the radio.’ Radio is a form of evangelism for us that works really well,” she said. “It is very important to people here. We have services on Facebook Live every Sunday morning.”

She recalled that “53 years ago, I was here, representing the Diocese of Maryland as part of a team of young people who worked on St. Croix and St. Thomas. We were working with young people whose parents worked in the sugar cane fields. We learned how to serve on the altar, and then we went back home to a Baltimore [Maryland] church where the priest told us he would rather drop dead before he’d see a girl serve on the altar.

“My call to ministry was manifested in my time in St. Croix and St. Thomas. I knew I wanted to be a priest then,” she said. “This was the place where all of that possibility got started. Life comes full circle.”

The diocese encompasses 14 churches on three islands in both the American and the British Virgin Islands and is one of two predominantly Black dioceses in The Episcopal Church, the other being the Diocese of Haiti.