Pastoral care after the flood: "It's not just about cleaning up the houses"

Melanie Hinze cares about people in difficult life situations.

Especially when they have lost a loved one and are in mourning.

For many years, the trained grief counselor at the Johannitern Rhein-Main has been leading the Lacrima project, which gives grieving children and young people with their families a space to share their experiences and feelings with others.

It was the first time that Hinze was involved in a disaster.

In Dernau in the Ahr Valley, she helped the people affected by the flood.

Ina Lockhart

Editor on duty at FAZ.NET.

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Ms. Hinze, you were in Dernau for a week.

Relatively shortly after your arrival, you provided bright spots.

How did you do that?

We hung up our colorful dream catchers all over the place.

In the cemetery, in the streets and in front of the half-washed houses.

People were really happy about that.

A man cried.

It was important to me that the residents see splashes of color in their lives again.

In this chaos, have you already been able to help the people who had to watch relatives or friends disappear in the floods with pastoral care?

It is far too early for pastoral care in the usual sense.

There was and still is far too much to be done.

But people have the feeling that they want and have to talk slowly.

When I was there, I had conversations between the door and the hinge: with people who were queuing in front of the Johanniter emergency bus or who were picking up their food in the courtyard of the elementary school, which served as an aid and donation center.

It is good and important that these discussions take place now.

I met a family who had to watch for hours as a friend with her child clung to a tree in the water.

They just couldn't do anything.

Both were lucky and survived.

How are the children?

Actually, I came there as the contact person for the children.

But holiday games were spontaneously organized for them.

For one day, for example, a farmer made his pony farm available to the children.

Then there was play supervision organized by the Koblenz child and youth welfare organization.

The older children and teenagers also eagerly helped with the clean-up work, scurrying through the area in their donated work trousers and knocking plaster off the walls.

So the children didn't have that much need to talk?

It was more about the fact that we paid attention to what the children were saying and how they were doing in the play supervision. At the same time, I talked a lot with parents who came up to me when I was there. They needed my advice on how to deal with their children in this crisis situation. In order to prepare for what is still to come and to recognize certain signals in good time. For example, when a child regresses - that is, falls back into old behavior patterns from earlier childhood years. They also asked me how they could deal with their own fear of loss, but also with those of their children. The helpers also had a great need to speak. Often only late in the evening after their use, when you sat together exhausted and tired.

From the Johannitern you were on site with a team of 25 colleagues. There is still a lot to be done, you say. Where did people start cleaning up, what was important to them?

It's not just about tidying up the houses. For the people here, for example, it was very important that a bell builder came in the first week after the flood to repair the bells in their church. When the bells rang, it was a feeling of home for the people here, some of whom have lost everything. The cemetery has also been cleared of the mud that had dried up on the graves, hard as concrete. Farmers from the region had come there to clean up the mud with excavators and shovels. Finally, every single tombstone was wiped away. There are now candles on them that are lit every evening. For everyone: for those who have already died and for the flood victims. On one day, with the help of the local fire brigade and farmers who had been on site for three weeks, wea large pool of water was set up in the cemetery. We lit beautiful colorful floating candles and put them in the water to commemorate the dead. A pastor from the emergency pastoral care gave a prayer.