NEW YORK — Mennonites living in the U.S. epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic are distributing food to those in need, working as nurses and first responders, mourning friends who have died and praying for a city in crisis.
“We are a praying people,” said Moises Angustia, a pastor at United Revival Mennonite Church. They pray for the sick and for members and neighbors who are nurses, taxi drivers and other workers on the front lines of combatting the pandemic.
A woman from King of Glory Tabernacle died from coronavirus April 3. Several others from the church are sick, said Addie Banks, a former member, on April 13.
Banks’ ex-husband, bishop emeritus Michael E. Banks, died April 3. He had suffered from cancer for nearly a year, and a few days before he died at age 66 he tested positive for COVID-19.
Banks had been a Lancaster Mennonite Conference bishop in New York and had served King of Glory Tabernacle with Addie. Their daughter, Hyacinth Stevens, is the pastor there now, as well as New York program coordinator for Mennonite Central Committee East Coast.
Pastor Mark Perri of Immanuel Community Church and his family are involved in helping people affected by coronavirus. His wife, Annabelle, is a visiting nurse, going into homes of COVID-19 patients. Some fear going to the hospital due to their immigration status or lack of income.
“Yesterday was a hard day,” Annabelle Perri said April 8.
The Perris’ oldest son, Daniel, directs the Murray Hill Flushing Neighborhood Association’s programs for children. He’s trying to find ways for volunteers to connect virtually with children as tutors and mentors during a time of social distancing.
The Perris’ second son, Mark, is a firefighter. He and his team tried to resuscitate two COVID-19 victims without success.
Pastor Mark Perri knew six Hispanic pastors from other denominations who had died from COVID-19. He said the culture in Hispanic churches includes a lot of hand-shaking, and the churches were likely too late in following social-distancing mandates.
Immanuel’s immediate need is for food to distribute in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens, where it is located, as well as nearby in Elmhurst’s largely immigrant community in the hardest-hit part of the city.
Perri said Immanuel had to close the food pantry it ran with the neighborhood after-school program when the program closed. Church volunteers partnered with other food ministries as they delivered the remaining food to homeless people and undocumented immigrants.
The partnering churches are seeking food donations from organizations like MCC.
Perri got in touch with Stephen Bowman from Believers in Jesus Church and was coordinating with him to pick up boxes April 16 at a drop-off site in Queens. Bowman is with a new network called Anabaptist COVID Response Network.
Delivering food
Believers in Jesus Church in the East Bronx and Followers of Jesus in Brooklyn — both part of the Biblical Mennonite Alliance — do outreach that includes delivering food boxes packed by Blessings of Hope, an Amish/ Conservative Mennonite organization based in Leola, Pa., and boxes of nonperishable food packed by Christian Aid Ministries in Ephrata, Pa.
“They’re very motivated to help,” said Richard Swartz, a bivocational pastor. “I almost need to slow them down.”
Believers in Jesus shared food boxes with Light of Truth Church and gave some boxes to friends and neighbors, after removing the ham from boxes given to Muslim neighbors. On April 8, volunteers delivered 960 meals to emergency medical service workers and nurses.
The small congregation received more than $2,500 from donors from as far away as Chile. They used the money to buy sandwiches for EMS and emergency room workers at a hospital near them and for food for medical workers in South Brooklyn.
Xiomara DeLeon of Mennonite Evangelistic Tabernacle said Pastor Nestalis DeLeon delivered gloves and masks and “tries to find whatever they [congregation members and first responders] need.”
People at Manhattan Mennonite Fellowship have helped others shop for groceries and made masks to share.
Praying and fasting
About 90 percent of members of United Revival Mennonite Church are both fasting and praying. They are completing a 40-day fast, which runs from 10 p.m to noon the next day.
Tim Kreider, pastor at Light of Truth Mennonite Church in South Bronx, said the congregation of around 70 people has a sister church in Long Island with Indian families who include medical professionals they are praying for, as well as elderly and otherwise vulnerable people and their caregivers. The congregation supports a chaplaincy telephone line that city hospital personnel may access.
Ebenezer Evangelical Church pastor Julio Damaso said the congregation has prayer meetings every night from 9 to 10 p.m. Xiomara DeLeon of Mennonite Evangelistic Tabernacle said the congregation has prayer and worship services every night and a group chat line.
Annabelle Perri said Immanuel Community Church is praying every day at 7:45 a.m. and 10 p.m.
Deaths and sickness
A Quaker peacemaker, Arthur Berk, 93, died of COVID-19 on April 7. He did peacemaking work with members of Manhattan Mennonite Fellowship and was instrumental in renting the 15th Street Quaker Meetinghouse to the Mennonite fellowship for its Sunday evening worship services.
Nearly everyone knows someone who has or has had COVID-19. Three King of Glory Tabernacle members had confirmed cases.
Moises Angustia of United Revival reported that four pastors of churches in other denominations in his ministerial group died from the virus.
“It hit us like a wave,” he said. “We can’t [even] get together to mourn.”
Ruth Wenger, pastor of North Bronx Mennonite Church, which meets in her home, said she had all the symptoms of COVID-19 and pneumonia in early March and was able to recover at home. The church did not meet in her home the two weeks she was ill and has not met in person since.
Cheering every day
Sugar Hill Mennonite Mission — a Church of God in Christ, Mennonite ministry — houses voluntary service workers, their leaders, a missionary couple and a chapel in a four-story brownstone house in Harlem. Anne Boehs and her husband, Tim, began serving as houseparents to four young men in January.
The men, who volunteer for six months, normally fill tract racks, work with Habitat for Humanity, visit to encourage and comfort patients at Lincoln Hospital and work two days a week at Common Pantry.
Now Tim Boehs and the three remaining young volunteers are working every day preparing and packaging meals at the Bowery Mission. The meals are given outside the doors primarily to homeless people.
Boehs gets inspiration from the 7 p.m. clapping, cheering and banging of pots and pans that people in many neighborhoods are participating in to honor first responders, hospital workers and more. People go on their balconies or open their windows to wave at neighbors.
“It’s a feeling of pulling together as a neighborhood,” she said.
Monroe Yoder, retired bishop of Infinity Mennonite Church, said: “I miss going out. I like to be in contact with my neighbors, and I miss that.”
Virtual worship
Congregations are using Zoom to connect for worship. In some cases — such as at Manhattan Mennonite Fellowship, North Bronx Mennonite Church and the Light of Truth and its satellite church on Long Island — the online services have more members and guests attending than normal, since travel to the meeting place is not an issue.
Julio Damaso of Ebenezer Evangelical Church has another Ebenezer church in the Bronx listening in to its online service, as does North Bronx.
North Bronx has a “noise offering” in which households with children are encouraged to throw coins in cans while their audio is on. The church was also considering how it might have a virtual potluck after the worship service.
Infinity Mennonite Church livestreams worship services, and its small groups meet together on Zoom.
Manhattan Mennonite Fellowship added a contemplative service every Thursday, and Pastor Jason Storbakken led a theological study online.
A number of Manhattan Mennonite Fellowship members moved to other areas to have a better chance for social distancing or to live with family members during the crisis.
Work on church plants is postponed as members show God’s love by volunteering in hospitals that are short of staff — as research doctor Maria Morban of Manhattan Mennonite Fellowship is doing — working in other essential jobs or by staying home to slow the spread of infections.
“We have to be strong in the Lord,” said Celso Jaime of Evangelical Garifuna Church.
Moises Angustia said: “This is changing our lives forever, for the good. The church will come out bigger and stronger.”
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