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By Paul Rioux
St. Tammany bureau
After floodwater rose up the walls of its church along Bayou Liberty,
a congregation drifts outdoors and stands firm each week under a
300-year-old live oak
"Bug spray? The gnats are eating people alive," she warned.
"Welcome to the great outdoors."
"In a sense, we've come all the way back to our beginnings," said
Haggerty, the Slidell police chaplain. "It's going to take a lot of hard
work, but I think everyone is committed to rebuilding the church
bigger and better."
"Each time I tried to call, I got a recording that said, 'You are calling
a disaster area,' " he said.
Lungay said the first news he received was when his brother-in-law
found a report on the Internet that a church steeple had fallen on
Bayou Liberty Road.
"He asked me if I knew where that was, and I said, 'That's us! That's
our church!' " he said. "I was so excited to hear something that I
didn't even think about the damage."
Church submerged
The church was filled with 18 inches of muck, but not one of the
dozens of stained glass windows lining three walls was broken.
Beneath a sign that reads, "Open wide the doors to Christ," a set of
double doors were swung wide open Sunday to air out the musty
church.
All three buildings have been gutted by volunteers from the church,
the military and various youth and church groups from as far away as
North Carolina, Haggerty said.
Church member Lee Miltenberger, 69, said the generosity has spilled
over into the collection basket.
"It's been great," Nora Begue said. "In fact, maybe we ought to
make it a tradition to have Mass outside whenever the weather is
pretty."
Lungay said it doesn't really matter where the service is held as long
as the congregation stays together.
"This is what church is all about -- not the building, but the people,"
he said as he spread his arms wide as if to embrace the entire
congregation. "We are the church."
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