This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

tracts and accommodate grades kindergarten through twelve, the school has added temporary buildings and adapted every square foot of space. An old carriage house is a science classroom and laboratory operating without hot water and a fraction of its pre-storm supplies and equipment. The kindergarten meets in a former storage house.
Christ Episcopal School seems to have a special mission to the church itself. Already some students have brought their parents out of dormancy into active church membership. To insure growth of the church as well as the student body, Christ Episcopal School cannot operate under makeshift circumstances for too long. The board of trustees is seeking the “where” and “wherewithal” to expand facilities and re-equip the school.
Yet Christ Church is in more than the school business; it needs a sanctuary large enough for members to worship as a single family rather than in two or three services each Sunday. The two Sunday morning services are packed and desks in the crowded schoolroom-chapel make kneeling almost impossible.
Christ Church members also want a kitchen and parish house large
enough to accommodate a variety of parish and community activities.
“We must have a parish house where we can carry on our functions without having to rent other places,” Mr. Fcnney says, referring to the old parish house which was not large enough to accommodate even the entire church school.
“We need facilities for hosting things like young people’s district meetings,” explained Mrs. Shadoin, formerly the youth director of the Diocesan Board of Episcopal Church Women, who feels it is important to make young people feel wanted.
A young people’s group for seventh through twelfth graders has doubled its size and activity since Camille.
“Now we kind of look for things to do—ways to help—and we don’t have to look very far!” explains 16-year-old Betty Johnson, one of two young people on the Christ Church building committee.
“If we had a big parish house, it would be great. We could get together more and do a lot more things,” she continued.
Hurricane Camille, by destroying the beloved, 80-year-old inadequate building, set the church free to plan new facilities in one place. The Church has ow'ncd land to do that
Left: The Rev. M. I. Agnew, new curate at Christ, jokes with students outside the main school building which doubles as distribution center for appliances Meridian citizens sent to help needy in Ray St. Louis. Second from left: Vonn^ building committee member, Miss Betty Johnson, age 16. Tliird from left: The Rer. Charles R. Johnson, rector of Christ and school headmaster, teaches a religion class.
Christ School chemistry class holds lab in a converted carriage house.
for fourteen years and as the Richard Shadoins explain, “The hurricane finally made up our mind!”
A poll of every family and each young person showed, even among the younger generation, that the people want a traditional sanctuary similar to the old building but twice as large. Plans were drawn up to these specifications.
With some $180,000 on hand from building fund contributions, insurance settlement, and a Small Business Administration loan, construction is underway and should be completed by Christmas.
Christ Episcopal Church has discovered that a fellowship of people who love their Lord and want to serve each other and their community can withstand a vicious, killer storm even when a historic and beloved building cannot.	M
16
The Episcopalian