‘We didn’t know what was coming, but God did’

Covenant Presbyterian Church in Springfield, Ohio ministers to its community, including its Haitian siblings

by Mike Ferguson | Presbyterian News Service

A Haitian family is present for a baptism at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Springfield, Ohio (Contributed photo)

LOUISVILLE — The eyes of the world have been on Springfield, Ohio, following untrue allegations that members of the city’s Haitian community had been capturing and eating other people’s pets. At least 33 bomb threats have been made in recent days, all of them hoaxes, and schools and universities have been using online education to keep students, educators and staff safe.

“We didn’t know what was coming, but God did,” said the Rev. Jody Noble, pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Springfield, who has taken on, among other important tasks over the past few days, organizing and offering a press conference featuring her colleagues in ministry.

To date, a three-page list of people and groups — including the Rev. Margaret Towner, the first Presbyterian woman to be ordained as a minister; the Iona Community; First Presbyterian Church of Dallas, Texas; and the Presbytery of New York City — have contacted Covenant with offers to help. “It is crazy cool how God is connecting us all,” Noble said. “We are reaching across lines to say that this is not who we are as a community.”

In his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris last week, former President Donald Trump made false claims about people eating pets. Along with many others, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, has denounced Trump’s claim, and on Monday DeWine ordered dozens of members of Ohio State Highway Patrol to be stationed at Springfield schools after a series of threats across the city. The city’s two-day CultureFest, which was to have begun on Sept. 27, had to be called off.

A church of 261 members, Covenant Presbyterian Church has four Haitian families who have found a home there. Of Springfield’s nearly 58,000 residents, up to about 15,000 are Haitian migrants, Noble said, attracted to the southwestern Ohio community by its relatively low cost of living and ample employment opportunities.

After two years of serving at Covenant, Noble has baptized children of the Haitian families attending the church, who are present for worship nearly every Sunday. “If they’re not here, I get a text to say they are working,” Noble said. “They are beautiful people.”

Worship has been enhanced by the addition of the four families, and the children are loud enough to remind the whole church they’re there. Like the other children, they are dismissed from worship after the children’s message. For Covenant members mildly grumpy over the extra noise level, Noble tells them to hang in there “through the front half, and the back half will be quiet.”

The Rev. Jody Noble

“We are learning how to be church together,” she said. “We are finding our way, and everyone is holding space. It’s the same thing we are trying to mirror in the community.”

Noble praised DeWine’s efforts to date, including a Tuesday visit to Springfield City Hall to discuss state support for the city’s medical infrastructure. “He has done a very good job representing what is the truth about us,” Noble said of the governor.

Pastors, including at least 15 pastors from Haiti, “are working very hard to meet the needs,” she said. “People are showing up for us in the most beautiful and unexpected ways.” A woman who’d been a social worker all her adult life and who is a member of the mission committee at a PC(USA) church in Cincinnati called Wednesday to offer a significant donation from the church. The woman told Noble, “We have a fledgling Haitian community here, and so we are going to split our donation.” The Springfield portion will go to a food pantry that’s run by a couple at Covenant and staffed by many community volunteers, including Noble. “People are calling and saying, ‘What can I do to help?’ like Margaret Towner did,” Noble said.

On the flip side, the Ku Klux Klan was in town last weekend, distributing flyers in the southern part of the community, where many Haitian families live. The flyers “threaten mass deportations” and are designed “to create and to stoke fear,” Noble said, but “we have a Haitian radio station pushing back on that and encouraging people not to leave.”

“We have been a welcoming community, for the large part,” she said. Still, “it will take the government doing all they can do and everything that we [as churches] can do” because “it’s God’s abundance that we believe in. We have the capacity for everyone’s basic needs to be met.”

To a person, employers will tell you that Haitian migrants “are fabulous to employ. They show up on time with good attitudes,” employers have told Noble and others. On Tuesday, Clark County Commissioners released a five-page frequently asked questions on the Haitian community’s employment rates, crime rates and other concerns.

A church doing its part, and then some

When “our brothers and sisters” from Haiti began coming to church at Covenant, deacons would drive them to church every Sunday, Noble said, because “they didn’t have cars at the time.” Since then, two families have purchased cars and learned to drive, and two are yet to. One family that drives often provides rides to another that doesn’t. The church also provided the families with everything from car seats to bedding and food, as well as other household needs.

Members and friends of Covenant Presbyterian Church have welcomed and ministered to their Haitian siblings. (Contributed photo)

With the influx of so many people over the past three years or so, rents in Springfield are up significantly, and some families have been displaced. Covenant has helped displaced individuals find affordable housing and has aided by paying an occasional bill.

“We are welcoming Haitian neighbors and supporting Springfield neighbors who have been here for a long time. We are standing with them,” Noble said. “Those are the ways the church has been able to help.”

Noble called the past week or so “exhausting,” but “one would expect [the turmoil] will eventually stop. The message for other communities who find themselves in similar circumstances is, “This is how we responded, and this is how you can be ready for psychological terrorism if it comes to your community.”

Noble recently heard a presentation on what Springfield was like during the 19^th century. “We had a major east-west road in the wagon era. Seventy-five stagecoaches and 1,200 wagons came through every day,” she said. “We have been a community where people from all different places came to here and through here.”

“I know God is using us as a real example, that if we can do it, other places can, too,” she said. “We are receiving an opportunity to tell stories.”

“I will never pass up the opportunity to talk,” she said with a laugh, “but I have to get the [worship] bulletin done.”

On Sunday, Covenant Presbyterian Church will hold its annual church on the road service at a nearby farm. It’s no small amount of work to get the needed equipment loaded up and transported to the site and to prepare enough food for everyone. But it’s also “an opportunity to catch our breath out there and remind ourselves that we can do this,” Noble said.

View livestreamed services at Covenant Presbyterian Church here.