March 12, 2009
By Pat McCaughan

DALLAS – Money has been turning up unexpectedly since January at the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in Dallas, Texas and Tuesday, March 10 was no exception.

"Today we received a $500 check from a man in Frisco [Texas] whose heart was touched by our story," the Rev. Canon Victoria Heard said in a telephone interview. "God is doing things at Resurrection. We're just scratching our heads and wondering what's going to happen next."

Parishioners were mystified in January when a repentant stranger left a cashier's check for $3,255 along with $13 in cash and an itemized list of his past misdeeds in a back pew.

An attached note signed by "Michael" explained: "I paid every single debt I had in life but could not find or locate 14 of them or I wasn't sure." A list of 14 crimes, ranging from stealing candy to CDs and a car followed, each with an estimated dollar value, totaling $3,268—the amount of the donated check and cash.

The list included: a $100 robbery at White Rock; $300 for a set of knives taken from another soldier in Iraq; and "a lot of CDs in a Velcro pouch from an ex-friend in Tyler, Texas, when I was a kid, $300."

A week later, cash began showing up at the financially strapped church.

An anonymous donor shoved $300 in twenty dollar bills through a space between the doors of the church's vestibule. When part-time parish secretary Joanne Stephens discovered it, "I counted it three times, to make sure," she recalled in a telephone interview from the church office. "I thought it was manna from heaven," she said, adding: "And I said anytime the Lord wants to put that manna down again, I'll take it."

More cash turned up a week later. This time, the generous but secretive donor left $100 in smaller bills scattered in the vestibule and triggered an alarm in the process, according to the Rev. Alfredo Williams, Resurrection's vicar.

He investigated, but found no one inside the church. "It's very, very strange, all these things happening. We don't have words to explain but we do need the money," he said.

None of the parishioners can figure out the identity of the repentant Michael, whose last name was illegible on a note left with the cashier's check. They suspect he may also be responsible for the anonymous cash donations. "We are all assuming it may be a person in a 12-step program but we don't know it for a fact," said Hatzenbuehler, a member of Resurrection since 1981. "But it seems consistent with what I understand their program involves" with atoning for one's past indiscretions.

However, Hatzenbuehler said Michael's penitential fervor has had quite the opposite effect on the congregation, despite the Lenten season's invitation to atonement. "We don't know who this person is, whether he had any connection to our church or why he picked our church. But even in Lent we're still in a very thankful, bordering dangerously on a celebratory mood. The church is a joy to me, with everything that's going on."

And that, says Heard, is the rest of the story.

Since Church of the Resurrection was built in the 1970s the congregation has survived a disastrous 2001 fire and a 2007 split because of "the current unpleasantness in the Episcopal Church," Heard said, referring to discord over the 2003 consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

When she arrived in Dallas from Virginia in 2006, Heard initially served as priest-in-charge of the remaining congregation, which numbered about 20 continuing Episcopalians. A church planter, she set about doing just that.

Now, she describes the church as "a house of prayer for all nations" with two Spanish language Sunday services and one in English and Swahili.

"That's because we have members who come from the East African nation of Burundi and Swahili is their second language," she said.

Additionally, the church shares space with: St. Peter's Anglican Church, a Nigerian congregation; St. Paul's, an Indian Orthodox congregation; and Cornerstone Gospel Tabernacle Church, an African-American congregation, all of whom meet at various times at Resurrection on Sundays.

"On any given Sunday, you can hear at least five or six languages being spoken at the church in praise and worship," added Hatzenbuehler.

"Those of us who stuck around, have been attempting to build a new congregation recognizing that the demographics of the neighborhood we are in have changed and that it will be a predominantly Hispanic congregation," he said.

"We have been working to take in not only Episcopalians who are maybe not like we were, but also to accommodate the needs of other Christian churches that can make use of what we have," he said. "I've gotten a lot of joy and peace out of this whole situation. The place is something of a joy to me."

The worship styles vary, but the community has grown together. The other faith communities "are some of the best people I have known. Amazing and surprising things are happening. We're looking hopefully forward to what's going to happen next."

Heard said the growth has been a process. At Resurrection's last annual meeting, one half of the vestry members elected were Spanish-speaking, a "change that needed to happen," she said.

"We have enormously faithful committed Christians who believe God has stuff to do with that place. They've rolled with the changes, the different use of space, the lack of common language, lots of things. We've all had to work hard at being Christian community together."

She said the recent attention and news stories about Resurrection's secretive donor "have been a huge lift ... a public acknowledgement that God is continuing to act at Resurrection. This community lives by faith."

Donated money went into the general fund and was spent on helping families. "It paid the rent for a Burundi family" when the primary wage earner was laid off and for clothing for the children of two other families who were burned out of their apartments.

"And it went for our expenses," she added. "Our fuel bills are highest in January. It went to pay our lights and things like that. It also went to the Angel Food Ministries, and to helping our parishioners who have been laid off. The Burundians have been hard-hit by these economic times in the manufacturing industry. You know, last hired, first fired."

She estimated that about 40 percent of the congregation's $150,000 yearly budget is subsidized by the diocese.

Heard, who is celebrating 25 years of ordained ministry this month, said she is thankful, both "for the money and for the changed life" of the congregation's mystery donor. It is "very moving that somebody experienced the power of God and the grace of God so powerfully in their lives they would write a letter and place a check in the church," she said.

"This man tried to do something; he tried to give back, to make a difference. That's the Gospel at work."

Episcopal News Service
The Rev. Pat McCaughan is Episcopal Life Media correspondent for Provinces VII and VIII and the House of Bishops. She is based in Los Angeles.