This article originally appeared in the November 2005 Boost-A-Month Club Newsletter

Building Community in Bertie County

Brother Virgil Siefker cuts out the table top for the portable altar used for Mass in Bertie County, N.C.

Ask Father Mike Langell “What’s new in Bertie County?” and he’ll tell you about the new members of his congregation; about how Glenmary has now taken pastoral responsibility for adjoining Washington County; and about how potluck suppers have become a core activity for the newly formed Catholic Community of Bertie County.

Something that’s not new, but very crucial to the vitality of this community, is its continuing relationship with the Methodists in the county.

When Father Mike arrived in Bertie County in September 2004 with Brother Virgil Seifker to establish the first Catholic community in the county, he gratefully accepted the invitation of the Rev. Carol Noy to hold an organizational meeting at the Windsor United Methodist Church. The group that assembled determined that their first step should be to find a worship space. Father Mike approached Rev. Noy about using the Methodist church. She, and the congregation, welcomed the Catholics.

Brother Virgil, with his talent for carpentry, fashioned a portable altar, which can be easily moved into place in the Windsor United Methodist Church for an 8:30 Sunday Mass. After Mass, the Catholic congregation moves the altar aside and shares coffee and doughnuts with their Methodist friends before their service begins at 11 a.m.

Among the new faces in the Catholic community are those of nine Filipino teachers who have recently arrived to join another group of Filipino teachers hired by the local public school system a couple of years ago. Father Mike says the Filipinos add a cultural richness to the Catholic community, which now numbers about 32 families and includes Anglos, Hispanics and African Americans.

“The transition to life in Bertie County was difficult for some of the older Filipino teachers,” Father Mike says, “but now they’re beginning to talk about staying in the area and their spouses have moved here.”

He adds that “Bertie County is the only place I’ve ever been that always has a choir at liturgy! We American Catholics struggle with that, but the Filipino community is here every week and has formed into a great choir. They’re so good that the Methodists come to church early to hear the Catholic music!”

During the summer months, Father Mike set out to visit people in the county to “try and make ourselves better known,” he says. “Even though you think you’re known, you find out you’re not known. In that process we discovered lapsed Catholics and invited them to Mass. Now some of them have started to come to church.”

Recently, Father Mike hired José Mendoza as a fulltime multicultural worker. José also works fulltime at Pitt Community College in nearby Greenville, teaching psychology and English as a Second Language (ESL). His expertise in the classroom is valuable to the diverse Catholic community. He teaches English to Hispanics, Spanish to Anglos and has started to offer GED classes to workers at the local pig farms.

Glenmary also assumed responsibility for adjoining Washington County in July. There is an established parish, St. Joan of Arc in Plymouth, of which Father Mike is the pastor. But the daily pastoral and administrative care is the responsibility of pastoral associate Rebecca Boudreaux. “She’s from Cajun country,” Father Mike says. “Rebecca’s mother lost her house in Hurricane Katrina, so her mother is now living with her.” Mass is celebrated in Washington County each Sunday both in Spanish and in English.

In addition to its Sunday worship, the Catholic Community of Bertie County comes together on Wednesday evenings for a prayer service and dinner. “We have a potluck with a different host each week,” Father Mike says, adding that 25 to 30 people usually attend.

Father Mike is looking at other ways to reach out. He is working to refurbish some radio equipment in order to record radio programs for broadcast on local stations. He is learning which stations have the type of listeners that he is trying to reach. He has also been asked by the North Carolina Catholic, a monthly magazine published by the Diocese of Raleigh, to write an article titled: “How do you answer the question ‘Are you saved?’” —a question that Catholics in North Carolina frequently hear from Protestant friends.

Father Mike and Rev. Noy are currently collaborating on an ecumenical Thanksgiving service, which will be held on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. “And we’ll probably invite members of the Episcopalian and Baptist congregations, too,” Father Mike says.

The Thanksgiving service is a natural outcome of the collaboration that the two congregations have shared. Father Mike terms the relationship they have with the Windsor United Methodist as “ideal” and says the congregations will continue to share space for the foreseeable future. “We even have a sign out front that says ‘Catholic Mass,’ and includes the time,” Father Mike says.

When local people ask Father Mike if he has a physical church building, he says: “We are working on the people church right now. We have to build a community before we build a building.”

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