Church Should Rethink Eviction

Seven years ago my young son suffered a massive head injury in a terrible accident. He came home, after months in the hospital, completely unresponsive and totally paralyzed. What followed was a journey of depression, despair and grief. We didn’t know how to help him or where to turn. After missteps, we were referred to the Intervention Center for Early Childhood. I still look at the months spent there as some of the most helpful and positive of all the interventions we have tried.

In the Aug. 12 article regarding the Mariners South Coast Church’s eviction of ICEC, Senior Associate Pastor Gary Edmonds said, “As a church, we believe that our primary purpose is to be a place that will provide for the needs of people worshiping God and growing in their relationship to God.”

Does that exclude desperately grieving parents dealing with the most catastrophic events of their lives? Does that exclude innocent babies who are sick and hurting? The work at ICEC is a ministry of helping those who need help the most. My son, although severely disabled, is still a child of God, and those that know him, work with him and help him are “growing in their relationship to God.”

ICEC is not an ordinary tenant, and Mariners South Coast Church is not an ordinary landlord. A church is a house of God. We know what to do in these situations. We are to help the sick, the hurt, the needy, the innocent children, the castoffs of society, the crippled, the sick at heart.

At the very least, I believe that the church has an obligation to help until a new landlord is found. Otherwise, what do they preach to their congregation?

JAYNE LITTLE

Laguna Hills