Clergy 'cry out for the children of this town' amid opioid crisis
The Rev. Stanley E. White of the Preston City Congregational Church gave the eulogy earlier this month for 17-year-old Olivia Roark, who died over Memorial Day Weekend of an apparent heroin overdose.
The teen's death bothered White terribly.
He had married Olivia's parents, baptized her and watched her grow up in the church's Sunday school.
He thought he might some day baptize her children.
Addressing the hundreds who gathered for her memorial service, he quoted a few lines from Bob Dylan's protest anthem, "Blowin' in the Wind."
"Yes, how many deaths will it take till he knows"That too many people have died?"The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind"The answer is blowin' in the wind."
Like other members of the clergy, White finds himself on the front lines of the opioid epidemic sweeping the state and nation.
Churches minister directly to the addicted through meal programs, Bible-based recovery meetings and Christian rehabilitation centers, and some clergy end up performing funeral services for one young person after another.
During the eulogy, White cited the number of drug overdose deaths in Connecticut last year — 723 — and spoke of things Roark had liked to do — shopping, vacations, spending time with friends and cousins, and summer camp.
"After I listed all of these things, I said, 'But heroin doesn't care about this stuff,'" White said during a recent phone interview. "It doesn't care that you go to church, come from a good family. I used the phrase over and over again. It just doesn't care."
After the service, White said, another pastor approached him.
He said he was there for Olivia, but also because he felt he would have to do a service for a young person like her one day and wanted to know how to do it, White said.
Accepting and forgiving those in the throes of addiction who commit crimes and harm others is a challenge for clergy just as it is for the community at large.
White paused when asked what he would do if Ramon Gomez, the 40-year-old man charged with putting Olivia Roark to work as a prostitute at a Groton motel and supplying the heroin that caused her death, was a member of his church.
"I would be very, very angry at him," White said. "I would go to see him in prison and talk with him and try to deal with him as best I could. I think scripture tells us when we harm children, that is the greatest sin of all. Better if you had a millstone around your neck."
We are all God's children, White said, and people deserve to be forgiven.
"Sometimes that takes weeks, months or years," he said. "Sometimes it never happens."
A spiritual dynamic
On June 9, the night after the memorial service for Olivia Roark, eight clergy members, including White, stood together in the gazebo at Veterans Memorial Park in Jewett City during a candlelight vigil for those suffering as a result of the opiate crisis.
One by one, the men and women of the cloth stepped forward, quoted from scripture and called upon God for help.
More than 200 people stood shoulder to shoulder around the gazebo, holding candles and bowing their heads.
The vigil had been organized by the community group Griswold PRIDE — Partnership to Reduce the Influence of Drugs for Everyone.
The executive committee met a few days after Roark died and talked about what they could do without singling out the teen's family, according to PRIDE coordinator Miranda Nagle.
Member Joshua George, pastor of Quinebaug River Church, a startup Christian church in Griswold, recruited pastoral friends from several denominations, gave them a format and asked them to keep it short.
"Your people, your community, with the clergy, are crying out publicly to help us," George prayed at the vigil. "Father, we cry out for the children of this town, we cry out for the children of eastern Connecticut. Bring your healing and your hope."
During a follow-up phone interview, George said he believes that if laws and educational policies could fix addictive behaviors, they already would have been fixed.
"As important as good laws and enforcement and DARE programs are, there has to be a spiritual dynamic," he said.
The churches have helped PRIDE financially as well, according to Nagle.
She said her own pastor, the Rev. Ted Tumicki of St. Mary, Our Lady of Rosary Parish in Jewett City has helped raised money for PRIDE projects from all three of the local Catholic churches he serves.
"And he actually speaks about the drug epidemic in his sermons," Nagle said.
Pastor Dominic Mohan from the New Life Assembly Church prefaced his vigil prayer by telling the gathering he was getting support from them as well as supporting them.
He confided that he shares in their loss.
"I lost my son here in Jewett City somewhere to addiction," he said.
Brandon Lee Vavra died on June 23, 2011, almost five years to the day of the vigil, and is, Mohan said, "Forever 28."
Afterward, a few people approached him to say they were sorry for his loss and to tell of people in their own immediate circle who are dealing with addiction.
"I can't imagine, personally, how I would handle the loss without the relationship I have with God," Mohan said in a phone interview. "There's a statement that God whispers in our success and shouts in our sufferings, and I can attest to that. There is healing in our relationship with God."
Mohan and his wife, Doreen, set up an outreach branch of their church on Main Street in Jewett City, in part because of the addiction problem in the borough.
They run a Bible-based 12-step meeting there on Friday evenings.
Associate Pator Mike Deckman of the Voluntown Baptist Church said it was unusual to read scripture and pray in a community setting.
"I think essentially what we did at the prayer vigil is a foundational beginning, going back to the Bible, back to prayer and petitioning God's help to bring healing to our communities, and also to share Gods' love," he said in a phone interview.
"There is a higher hope for us," he said. "I think we've lost that in our community."
Spreading the message
Twenty-five miles to the south, in New London, clergy from various congregations are ministering to the addicted and working to educate family members.
The Rev. James Levesque of Engaging Heaven Church refers to himself as a "pastor with a past" because he started using heroin at age 14 and didn't stop until he found religion.
His growing congregation purchased the imposing granite church at Union and State streets, formerly occupied by First Congregational Church, and has taken over the community breakfast program that serves a free hot meal to 80 to 100 people five days a week.
Some are homeless. Some are addicts. All are offered a hug and a smile, he said.
The church hosts two Narcotics Anonymous and two Alcoholics Anonymous groups and conducts outreach events in the community, providing back-to-school supplies and pastoral care to those in need.
In fact, some of Engaging Heaven's most successful members are recovering addicts, Levesque said.
"I can't tell you the amount of stories of people struggling with drugs that come to our altars and never go back," he said. "And some are still struggling."
Levesque said the overdose deaths that peaked in the region this winter seem to have slowed down, but the issue still is here.
"We need to help people with spiritual guidance, and we owe it to the community to be hands-on," he said.
Daniel Martino, pastor of Church of the City in New London, said his church has a partnership with Teen Challenge, a Christian rehabilitation program with a satellite office at Church of the City's State Street location.
Four years ago, an expert provided church members with training to understand addiction.
"The workshops were to understand how, as a church, we can be more compassionate and understand this population of people," he said. "The problem we have, not just as a church but as a society, is that we don't understand the real issues."
"It's not just one thing. It's many things that push you to get addicted," he said. "Regardless of your flaws and bad habits, we're here to help you. We're here to lift people up."
Two weeks ago, on the night leading into the holiday Shavu'ot, five Jewish congregations came together for a communal study and discussion, Rabbi Rachel Safman of Congregation Beth El said.
The centerpiece of the evening was a session run by Jeffrey Montague from the Southeastern Mental Health Authority on opioid abuse in the area.
"He spoke about what it looks like in the region, who it is affecting and what it looks like if it's in your household," Safman said. "We are trying to spread the message that this is an issue that is right here in our backyards and in our homes, that we need to walk into it with our eyes open."
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