A United Methodist deaconess working with issues of environmental justice and rural homelessness claims it was her Appalachian roots that inspired her ministry of caring for the earth and its people. "I grew up in a small town called Clifton Forge, in the mountains of Virginia, and I once fished on the Jackson River which flows into the James River and out into Chesapeake Bay. I could catch fish all day but I could never eat one because the river was so polluted. In fact, it was so polluted that you couldn't even swim in it," recalls Debra Sue Chenault, a newly- commissioned deaconess and church and community worker of the General Board of Global Ministries.

Ms. Chenault also remembers how she and her grandmother took walks over the hills and through the hollers near Clifton Forge, instilling in her a deep appreciation for the earth and its creation. "Each spring I looked forward to finding the lady slippers in bloom down in the holler where we walked, or I would want to get in the creek and look for craw dads, and she'd let me do that. But she was always very careful and would tell me to wash my hands because the water wasn't clean.

"As I grew older, I began to have some consciousness-raising experiences about the injustices that are done to the earth, and that consciousness really became fully developed probably in seminary at St. Paul School of Theology where I graduated in May of '99."

In October 1997, Ms. Chenault attended a discernment retreat for people exploring the deaconess relationship through the Deaconess Program Office of the General Board of Global Ministries. As a result, she decided to become a deaconess, following in the footsteps of those women who, at the turn of the twentieth century, went where the church "wouldn't go, couldn't go, and didn't think it needed to go," as goes a popular saying among deaconesses.

In July 1999, Ms. Chenault began her ministry with Transylvania County Making the Connections, a project of the Asheville District in North Carolina. The most pressing environmental issue confronting her there was the proliferation of chip mills in the southeastern region of the United States.

Chip mills are described by The Dogwood Alliance, a group with which Ms. Chenault networks, as highly mechanized facilities that grind whole logs into woodchips for paper, particle board, and other products. The group claims that the recent proliferation of chip mills in southeastern United States is causing unprecedented forest destruction, degrading not only water quality, wildlife, threatened and endangered species, and forest health, but also local economies.

According to The Dogwood Alliance, an estimated 1.2 million acres of forest are cleared each year to feed the 140 chip mills currently operating in the region. The alliance also revealed that because the removal of softwoods in the south has already exceeded growth by 12-14%, the industry is now using more hardwoods to make paper.

Ms. Chenault says that after large timber companies shifted out of the Pacific Northwest, partly from pressure exerted by environmental activists there, they targeted the South, building mills in areas with low voter turnout and high illiteracy rates, where there would be little resistance to their presence. "I'm hoping to be the link in raising consciousness at the local level, the district level, the annual conference level, the national and even global level in getting the word out there about what's happening," says Ms. Chenault, "and also about how we can network with each other, including the secular organizations, to resist injustice and be better stewards of the earth."

Another dimension of Ms. Chenault's ministry with the Transylvania County Making the Connections program is rural homelessness. Currently she is involved in documenting the levels of homelessness within the areas served by the program, as well as the services that are provided and made available to homeless people.

Ms. Chenault's ministry (Advance Special No. 982908-8) is jointly supported by the offices for Church and Community Workers and the Deaconess Program of the General Board of Global Ministries, in cooperation with the Asheville District of the Western North Carolina Annual Conference. She is actively seeking to be in dialogue with people who may be interested or who wish to inquire about her ministry. Ms. Chenault may be reached by e-mail: dschenault@citcom.net

February 7, 2000

| Top | Global Connections: USA | GBGM News | GBGM |