Small UM congregation brings worship, food, hope to Berclair


By Rachel L. Toalson
Staff Writer
Mary McCormick saw her miracle in the string of poor choices that pitted one woman against her in a court.
The people of Fannin UMC—in a small community on U.S. 59 between Goliad and Victoria—saw a miracle in their ability to feed 75 people from a Thanksgiving meal prepared for 50.
And though Berclair, a tiny community on U.S. 59 west of Goliad, had no idea what to look for, it found its miracle in Fannin UMC’s conviction to be the hands and feet of Christ.
All these stories of sacrificial love and irrepressible hope are connected. The tale begins more than a decade ago in a courtroom, where McCormick met Norma.
An assistant district attorney for Victoria County and a member of Fannin UMC, McCormick had brought Norma, a resident of a trailer home in Berclair, to court to enforce her child support responsibility. Norma hadn’t been paying.
That meeting was the first of many. Then McCormick met Norma’s daughter, Marsha, who had followed in her mother’s footsteps.
In and out of jail, Marsha took no responsibility for rearing her four children until her husband was put into prison for drug trafficking. The kids, three girls and one boy, were placed in Marsha’s custody.
“She was ill-prepared to take care of those children,” McCormick said. “She had very limited mothering skills—still does. She wasn’t parented well.
“I went in and did what I could do legally with my job. Then (the church) took them on with our project.”
Berclair is full of forgotten people who have little access to transportation, jobs, shopping and medical care and too much access to drugs, McCormick said.
It has no church.
Fannin UMC, which averages 20 to 30 in Sunday worship, had for years provided gifts baskets for needy families. McCormick said her job always ensured that the congregation could find a family needing a basket.
But instead of distributing food generally to the people of Berclair, McCormick said she felt the Holy Spirit
leading her to focus first on Marsha and her family.
People warned her that it was a dangerous place to start a mission, McCormick said. But she brushed their warnings aside.
“I’ve been going out there for 10 years, and I’ve never felt threatened,” she said. “And I put them in jail.”
Over the years, McCormick said, she and others involved noted that the trailer park where Marsha and her family lived swarmed with children who needed more than their parents could give—a hope for their future.
About three years ago, a handful of members from Fannin UMC facilitated Berclair’s first worship service in years.
Worshipers gathered between Marsha’s trailer and what residents used as a dump. McCormick remembered the flies were horrible.
A well with an old piece of plywood blocking the opening sat just feet from the worshipers.
Parents kept warning their children to stay away from the deep well.
McCormick remembered thinking, “This is the way they live every day.”
About 30 people had joined the worshiping group by the end of the music—when they began serving food, McCormick said. Fannin UMC members then realized other families needed their help.
“It’s like God said we should be there,” said Pat Wright, a nurse who’s involved with the Berclair project.
Today, members do a monthly project in Berclair. They offer a worship service and provide a meal for residents. United Methodists bring clothes, clean sheets and extra food when they can, McCormick said.
They have church wherever they can get a 100-by-100-foot spot, Wright said.
“The word ‘church’ is a group of people,” Wright said. “You don’t necessarily have to have a building.”
Every Christmas, Fannin members have a holiday party in Berclair. Each child gets a toy, and families are given other items.
Last year, McCormick said, church members provided food baskets for 10 families and had about 35 children at their party.
“It’s probably the best Christmas gift I get every year,” Wright said.
Church members have begun buying food from Angel Food Ministries to get items in bulk for the Berclair families, McCormick said. Someone in the church always comes through with the money.
Sometimes church members bring the children back to church with them, but the Berclair families have problems with transportation. Members are hoping to secure a church van sometime in the future—because the children want to come, McCormick said.
Sometimes, McCormick said, Berclair adults find their way to Fannin—usually just after they have a baby and are in need of supplies or at the end of the month, when their food stamps have run out.
And sometimes, all members see of their Berclair mission is a piece of paper bearing the traced feet of a child who needs shoes.
“Some people say they’re only coming because they need something,” McCormick said. “But that’s OK. I say, ‘When do we usually pray to God?’ God didn’t say anything about only helping the people who deserved it.
“The children love to come, and the adults, I think, are genuine. We just do the right thing.”
Wright said, “We go to different countries and do mission trips, when the country that we’re in has places like Berclair that could use the help. Their living conditions are appalling, and it’s just like they’ve given up. People say we live in the United States and we have opportunities, but these folks don’t know the opportunities are there.
“This is a society that’s just lost. If we don’t take care of them, they’ll always be lost.”
Fannin members planned to start a monthly Bible school in Berclair July 28. They were to bring the children to the church for games and Bible teaching, McCormick said.
Those involved call the Berclair mission “uplifting.”
“It’s really given us back way more than we could ever have imagined,” McCormick said.
She said she fondly remembers the Christmas party last year. Her husband, formerly a college dean, is struggling through Alzheimer’s. But he loves children. When the children were pairing up with adults, one little girl, Sabrina, said, “I’m going to be Mr. John’s partner.”
“They just are so sweet and loving, and they really love to come,” McCormick said.
Members witnessed God’s miraculous provision during the Thanksgiving of 2005, McCormick said. They had set up a Thanksgiving dinner on a vacant lot next to Norma’s mother’s trailer. They had prepared enough food for 50.
The people kept coming, asking if they could take plates to shut-ins and other family members. They ended up serving 75 that day, Wright said.
Every time they prepare food now, she added, and someone wonders out loud if they will have enough, they “have a good laugh.”
The Berclair community still has many needs.
Transportation is one of the biggest concerns, Wright said, and would open up possibilities for the residents there.
Fannin members have been trying to help one woman get her General Educational Development certificate. But it’s a Catch 22 situation, Wright said. She lives in a town that is 30 miles from everywhere, and she has no car. She cannot find a job to buy a car because no jobs exist in Berclair, and she has no transportation out of town.
Some still make bad decisions.
A 14-year-old girl wrapped herself in a sheer curtain and set the curtain on fire. Members are still looking for a plastic surgeon who will voluntarily fix her scarred forehead and arms.
But Fannin United Methodists have seen glimmers of hope in children like Izette. When Izette was 2, she saw her daddy in a courtroom and made an obscene hand sign.
Though today she “still has some behaviors we’d prefer she didn’t have,” she is the “most loving little girl,” McCormick said.
“All these children have problems,” McCormick said. “They get kicked off of school buses. But our hope is that maybe one of these children someday will have a good moral base. If nothing else, they can see there is a soft place to land.
We love them no matter what they do or how they are.
“And if they need something, we’ll do our best to help them.”
For more information about the Fannin UMC ministry to Berclair, call Wright at (361) 645-1612 or (361) 220-0209.