[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 45 (Wednesday, March 15, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1820-S1821]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Tribute to Pastor Evelyn Erbele

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, every week for the past few months, I 
have been coming down to the Senate floor to recognize a special 
Alaskan, someone who makes my State--what we believe is the most 
beautiful and unique State in our country--a better place for all of 
us. I call this person our Alaskan of the Week.
  Last week, I had the opportunity to recognize Glen Hanson, who 
volunteers his time by flying in what we refer to as the Iditarod Air 
Force--members of the Alaska volunteer community pilots who fly 
supplies in for the Last Great Race.
  I know the pages are really interested in the Last Great Race. So, 
just as a quick update, we had a winner. It is still going on, but one 
musher, Mitch Seavey, crossed the finish line in Nome, AK, in record 
time. I congratulate Mitch and all of the members of the Iditarod Air 
Force who are still out there, flying, when it is 30, 40, below zero. 
It is a tough race, a real tough race. Iowans, I am sure, could do well 
in it but not a lot of other Americans.
  Today, I want to take my colleagues and viewers to a very different 
place in Alaska--about 1,300 miles southeast of Nome, where all the 
Iditarod action is going on, really almost a world away--to a beautiful 
city called Ketchikan, AK.
  Ketchikan is the first port city that people will visit when they 
take the Alaska Marine Highway's Inside Passage up to Alaska. It is a 
trip that I encourage everybody to take. It is beautiful. Flanked by 
the towering Tongass National Forest, it is a place full of life and 
spirit, mountains, forests, lots of rain, lots of salmon, and lots of 
jaw-dropping scenery.
  Yet, like most places across our country, it has its challenges, and 
it has a challenge with homelessness, like many communities in America 
and Alaska. Luckily, for all of us, Ketchikan is also home to a very 
caring community that has set its sights on helping its fellow 
Alaskans. One of these people is Pastor Evelyn Erbele, our Alaskan of 
the Week, who has dedicated her life to helping others.

  Evelyn is the copastor with her husband Terry of the First United 
Methodist Church of Ketchikan. There is a day shelter in the church's 
social hall, which provides a hot meal, shower, clean clothes, and a 
place for the community's homeless to go every day of the week.
  Oftentimes when we think of homelessness, we think of people not 
having a place to sleep, but it is also important to remember that 
being homeless means having no place to go during the day. First City 
Homeless Services--Day Shelter gives people a place to go during the 
day. Pastor Evelyn oversees that day shelter. According to the manager 
of the shelter, Chris Alvarado, who himself has been homeless, she does 
so with commitment and with kindness and with compassion.
  ``She has a heart of gold and gives 100 percent,'' said one resident 
of Ketchikan about Evelyn.
  Evelyn met her husband Terry in Seward, AK, where she was a nurse in 
1976. From Seward, they set out on a journey to help people around the 
world--Nigeria, Lithuania, Russia.
  In 2009, Evelyn--now with a Ph.D. in theology and ordained by the 
Methodist Church--went up the Alaskan

[[Page S1821]]

Highway from Bellingham to Ketchikan with her husband. She didn't know 
when she accepted the job at the Methodist Church in Ketchikan as 
copastor that she would be overseeing the day shelter. At first, 
according to her, the work was a bit unsettling. ``I never 
intentionally walked side by side with people who are homeless,'' she 
said. She continued: ``Initially, I may have been biased. I was using 
the word `them' when I would describe the people I was working with. 
One day, the Lord said to me, Evelyn, you are them. You are my child no 
less or no more than they are.'' She said that after hearing that 
voice, she realized she wasn't working with ``them'' anymore. ``I was 
working with men and women who were in a place that I easily could have 
been.''
  In her years working to help the homeless in her community in 
Ketchikan, she realized that not everybody who is homeless fits neatly 
into ``one basket.'' There are lots of reasons for homelessness, she 
said, and the homeless may have many, many faces: men, women, children, 
families, the old, and the young.
  As the Presiding Officer knows, homelessness is a big challenge 
across our Nation. On any given day, tens of thousands of Americans--
hundreds of thousands--don't have a permanent place to call home. Of 
course, the best way to address this is to have a strong economy and 
job opportunities, and that is what we need to be focusing on here in 
the Senate. But we also need people like Pastor Evelyn not only in 
Alaska but across the country, who are tireless advocates for helping 
the homeless. I thank all of them. I especially thank her, and I thank 
her for being our Alaskan of the Week.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.