Some of y’all may have heard about the recent flood in Vermont.  I did, but only because my friends Carol and Al live there.  In Texas, Vermont is considered a foreign country and a not very friendly one at that.

So, Carol sent me a story in her local newspaper about some folks who learned something from Governor Rick Perry about being a Christian so they made themselves up some shirts and decided the best thing they could do for the folks neck deep in water and mud in Vermont would be to knock on their doors and pray for them.

It was not as well-received as you would suspect.

In June, we brought you the story of Roz Payne, who sought assistance from 2-1-1 for her flooded North Hero camp and instead was met with a Southern Baptist prayer circle. The “help” came in the form of a minister and his wife, members of the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief of New England, who, rather than helping salvage Payne’s belongings that were worth saving, suggested they pray.

As Payne told reporter Andy Bromage, “I do not think holding hands in a circle in the name of Jesus helped to save the contents of my house.”

So, Ms. Payne, who is 70 years old and really could have used some help, registered complaints with the proper authorities that when she calls 2-1-1 for help, she doesn’t mean prayer partners.  The prayin’ part she can handle on her own.  It’s the lifting and toting she needs help with.

So, the latest flooding brought back the Southern Baptist to Vermont.

Rev. Emily C. Heath, pastor of Wilmington and West Dover Congregational churches, has a master’s degree in divinity and is working on her doctoral degree in ministry.  She says she noticed something strange.

Last week, as Heath helped organize relief efforts in Wilmington, one of the towns hardest hit by flooding, she noticed people wandering around town wearing T-shirts that said “Chaplain.” Some of them were wearing badges from the International Fellowship of Chaplains, which has ties to the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination, and has been accused of fundamentalist extremism and anti-gay rhetoric.

Uh oh.  Here comes my favorite part.

Heath, who describes herself as a “big butch lesbian,” approached the so-called chaplains to introduce herself as the pastor of the local congregational church. They told her they were there to “counsel people,” but something seemed off, Heath says.

Wouldn’t you have paid cash American money to see their faces?

After seeing these folks do little except hand out some water, Rev. Heath told the newspaper….

“I think it’s unethical,” she says. “It’s one thing to provide people with hope and carry out the Gospel to help them. It’s another thing to use a disaster area to prey on people at their most vulnerable.”

I think the Steeple People have met their match.  Thank you, Sweet Jesus, for the likes of Rev. Emily C. Heath.

Thanks to Carol for the heads-up.