Questions of faith: Wichitans respond to pandemic, often with deepening beliefs

For Kenzie Borland, who describes herself as a devout Catholic, church has always meant joy.

“It feels like a direct connection to God.”

Though she said the coronavirus outbreak is compelling her to pray more than ever, Borland said she also feels “a little bit as if the rug has kind of been pulled out . . . from underneath me.”

“I definitely did not expect to be making a sacrifice this big in Lent, and I’m kind of having a hard time with it.”

Borland and some friends only recently opened their Dead Center Vintage shop downtown before having to close due to the pandemic. It’s not the economic loss that Borland said is weighing on her, but something bigger.

“In the positive moments, it feels like an opportunity. But in the negative moments, it feels like radio silence from God. . . . It kind of feels like isolating, and you’ve kind of been abandoned.”

As Easter arrives, many people are searching — for God, for faith and for meaning.

“Lent is a time of self reflection,” said Ronda Kingwood, pastor of Heart of Christ UMC. “It’s kind of interesting that this is happening during this time. Maybe this is our time to sit back and really reflect (on) what is it that God is calling us to during this season.”

Daryl Jones, a member of Heart of Christ and a self-described preacher’s kid, thinks of the pandemic as a test.

“I believe this is a test of my faith — or of our faith,” he said. “At all costs, I will choose faith over fear.”

That’s even though a Chicago cousin of his died from the coronavirus, and his brother-in-law is in the hospital following a stroke.

Jones likens his faith in God to his belief as a child on Christmas. He never doubted that he would wake up to presents.

“Faith is just something we cannot see.”

A previous crisis drew Karen Robu to church.

For a couple of decades, the only time she was in a church was for weddings or funerals.

After 9/11, she said, “I felt like I need to be part of something bigger than myself.”

Robu swung so far the other way, she’s now associate minister of Plymouth Congregational Church.

“I tell people to be careful if they start attending church after they’ve been away awhile. You never know what will happen.”

Robu, who also is a popular performer with Music Theatre Wichita, said a sense of community is a key part of the Christian faith. It’s something she’s helping Plymouth members maintain with online coffees, youth nights and even Friday cocktail parties.

“I feel like this crisis has actually made people realize how important their church family and church community is to them.”

Islamic Society of Wichita spokesman Hussam Madi said the Muslim community has experienced the same thing.

There are almost 15,000 Muslims in Wichita, but generally there are only 30 people who attend morning prayers at the Islamic Society’s mosque near K-96 and Woodlawn and 150 to 200 people in the evenings.

With the stay-home order and the inability to pray together, Madi said that “people that don’t come we noticed have even objected to that. They felt sad.”

“Just from that, it’s an indication that maybe even people who are further away from their faith . . . are turning . . . back and getting closer to their faith, digging deeper in the knowledge of their faith.”

Plymouth’s online services have “gone up significantly every week,” Robu said.

“Now, maybe they’re just bored, and we have a captive audience.”

However, she said she thinks the real reason is “people are actually finding meaning there.”

‘The God part’

A sense of longing for community isn’t strictly for people of faith.

As a child of atheists, Alex Simmons became one herself even though she “loved the whole church experience” when she went with friends.

“I still couldn’t get past the God part.”

Simmons said she still can’t, even during a pandemic.

“I take comfort in people.”

For any tragedy, she said, “I just know I would have friends that would catch me.”

Leigh ZumMallen said that while she enjoys the community a church can provide, “for me, a religious experience takes place in more undisturbed areas,” such as nature.

“If anything,” she said, the coronavirus “maybe reinforced some thoughts I’ve had before.”

She said she takes “a sort of relief from the unknowing, and my belief is also wrapped up in science.”

“For me, it’s the moments of chaos that I kind of see God.”

For instance, ZumMallen is in awe that dinosaurs went extinct, and what followed were animals that adapted into what today is something common, like the grackles on her patio.

“This is just the way nature works, the universe works. It doesn’t feel like I’m the main character of the story of the earth. It just feels like there’s the story of the earth, and I get to be part of it. This isn’t the first plague the earth has ever had.”

ZumMallen said she’s been buoyed by the acts of kindness and selflessness she’s seen during the pandemic, but she said she’s been horrified by others — such as people hoarding hydroxychloroquine, which she has to take regularly because of lupus, or by others she said are willing to sacrifice high-risk individuals such as herself in order to get the economy going again.

“But it doesn’t make me question God,” ZumMallen said. “My faith in humanity is struggling.”

A crisis of faith

Long before the coronavirus, some people went through personal crises of faith because of other circumstances.

“My brother died from cancer when I was 18 years old, and he was 15 at the time,” said Rodney Elliott.

“I would say that moment definitely shook me to my core,” he said of his faith. “I kind of walked away for a while. It got so dark in my life, I turned back toward the light, toward the good I’d grown up with.”

He said his faith strengthened because of the experience. Today, he is pastor of Pathway Church in Goddard.

Elliott said he knows right now there are “probably a lot of people that are questioning their faith.”

He said heard from someone last week who said, “You know, I’ve really never asked the question, ‘What role does God play in my life?’ . . . And I think I should figure that out.”

Elliott said just as people are “learning that our faith is not bound to our buildings,” so too are they experiencing a shift in their lives that’s forcing them to look both inward and to God.

“A lot of times when things are really going well in our lives, we’re distracted by a lot of things. But this moment has really made us slow down and take inventory.”

Elliott said people probably are also asking why God would allow a pandemic to happen.

“The honest answer is, ‘We don’t know.’ ”

Elliott believes, though, that “God doesn’t waste anything. He’s using this.”

Norm Duncan, pastor of True Life Church, said he’s been having a lot of conversations about how “our faith is not determined by our circumstances but . . . rather by the consistency of who God is outside of our circumstances.”

At his church and at his job as a Valley State Bank loan officer, Duncan said he has tried to be “a voice of calm and a voice of assurance,” but he said he’s wrestled with “coming up with answers that don’t sound like platitudes.”

He said he’s trying to avoid saying things such as “just trust the Lord.”

“It comes off flat.”

So Duncan puts it a little more plainly when reassuring people who have questions and doubts.

“It doesn’t knock God off his throne.”

A mother’s example

Goddard resident Melissa Silver credits her mother’s example for her own faith.

“I watched her entire world get rocked when my dad passed,” Silver said. “Her faith was strong. It didn’t waiver.”

Silver doesn’t have a church she regularly attends, but she said her spirituality is stronger than ever, and she finds herself talking to God multiple times daily.

In addition to praying for the health of loved ones, Silver said she prays for faith, but not her own.

“For the world, for the city, to give everybody the faith. The people that don’t have faith, please let them have faith.”

Latisha Linson, another member of Heart of Christ, is preaching faith to anyone who will listen, and she’s sharing a personal experience to explain her own faith.

From November through January, Linson’s daughter — a healthy athlete — was in the hospital for a total of more than two weeks as doctors struggled to figure out why she was ill. She needed three blood transfusions.

“That was just the hardest time ever where my faith was shaky to the extent that, ‘God I can’t believe this is happening.’ ”

Then Linson said she remembered that God’s “timing is perfect.”

“I had to shift my mind to, ‘Lord, if this is your will, this is your will.’ That is what got me through that situation, and that is what’s getting me through this situation.”

Robin Monroe, who many people know as a Doo-Dah Diner server, “reacquainted myself with my faith” when she joined a 12-step recovery program two and a half years ago.

She said the pandemic has “helped me to really make sure I spend time every day reading, meditating, journaling. It’s solidified my faith. It’s helped me really ground myself.”

In addition to providing comfort during the pandemic, Monroe said her faith has made her take stock of the good things in her life.

“I hope I’m as aware after this of how blessed I am as I am now.”

It’s a common refrain these days.

Robu, the associate minister at Plymouth, said she hopes this time will be viewed in history as one where people came together and shared.

“I don’t want to be known as the people that hoarded toilet paper.”

Kingwood, the Heart of Christ pastor, said that “what I have seen in the midst of this — that would not have happened without this — is the community of people. . . . The love that is shown for our neighbor.”

“Sometimes even in the midst of a bad situation, there is good that comes out of it, and so I am excited about the blessings. My hope is that it continues.”

This story was originally published April 12, 2020 at 4:01 AM with the headline "Questions of faith: Wichitans respond to pandemic, often with deepening beliefs."