THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 22, 1996 TAG: 9601220037
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KATRICE FRANKLIN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Long : 117 lines
The Rev. Mary Foreman prowls through Portsmouth, looking for places to preach her sermons.
Her favorite spots are public housing developments, store parking lots - anywhere as long as it's in the heart of this city that claimed so much of her own.
Last May, Foreman endured the loss of her only son on these streets. Twice. In the same day.
It was a nightmare that could have crippled her. Instead, it gave her a mission. She broke the lease on her Norfolk church and devoted her ministry to improving her own town, Portsmouth.
``I didn't want anyone else's family to go through what I went through,'' Foreman said. ``I wanted people to see that we have to look out for one another.''
Foreman had a premonition the day she lost her son, James Dilby Jr.
The strange feeling seemed to come true when her oldest daughter and mother in law rang her doorbell about 1 a.m.
Someone had just called them to say that Foreman's son had been killed, shot in the head, at the Ida Barbour public housing complex.
The family jumped into a car and sped to Ida Barbour. They searched frantically. No one seemed to know anything about it. Everyone kept saying no one had been shot there that night.
``Then I heard a fire truck and an ambulance,'' Foreman recalled. ``My heart almost dropped.''
But it was only a fire call. Her 19-year-old wasn't dead. He was visiting a friend in another part of the city.
Around 2 a.m., Foreman found Dilby. They talked, and he assured his mother that he was fine. It was the last time she would see him alive.
At 10:45 p.m., Foreman's sister called, again the news was horrible.
``Somebody just killed your baby,'' her sister told Foreman.
This time, there was no mistake.
Dilby was dead, shot in the back while sitting in front of a store near Washington Park.
``To lose my son twice could have destroyed me,'' Foreman said. ``There were witnesses who said they knew who'd killed my son, but were too afraid to testify. I wasn't angry or bitter. I just tried to understand. I realized that as a minister, I had to accept God's word for me and my family.
``In my family, there are about 20 teenage boys. I didn't want a small war. I knew that how I responded would determine how my family would react. I wanted them to know that picking up a gun was not the answer.''
Foreman moved her ministry to Portsmouth. She didn't have a building, so she took her messages to the streets.
Appalled at the residents who turned their backs on what they were witnessing out of fear, she preached sermons that revolved around citizen responsibility.
In June, she celebrated what would have been her son's birthday by organizing a two-day religious revival in six public housing complexes in South Hampton Roads. She and seven other local ministers preached the same theme, ``Yes, You Are Your Brother's Keeper.''
``I wanted people in the community to see that we should respect and look out for one another,'' Foreman said. ``I decided to go to the housing complexes because my son was killed across from one, and because there's a lot of violence in the housing complex. I wanted to go in there and preach a message of hope.
``I wanted them to see that it takes the police, churches and the community working together to make a difference. We need each other.''
One night, shortly after the revival, she was preaching in the parking lot of a downtown store and four young men devoted their lives to Christ. It was through them that Foreman realized the target for her ministry.
``Even though my son was dead and gone, I wanted something positive to come out of his death,'' Foreman said. ``I wanted to reach out to the young men in the city and instill in them what it takes to be a man.''
So Foreman passed out fliers to the young men on the streets and started a church program in her brother's home called ``Living Water Ministry Men's Fellowship.'' The program teaches young men to be responsible citizens. They're encouraged to get their education, and they learn about God. The deacons in Foreman's church serve as mentors.
Joseph Randolph, one of the program's teachers, said they try to instill hope and self-respect in the participants lives.
``Many of them don't have anybody in their homes to teach them about spiritual values,'' Randolph said. ``They have a lot of peer pressure, and it's sad that they don't understand that by hanging out on the corner and doing what the guy down the street doing, they're putting their lives in jeopardy.
``We teach them to look out for one another and to be true brothers in the word of God. Some of them don't know where they came from, so we teach them about the beginning and about Adam and Eve.''
They talk to them about drugs, and their appearances. They also talk to them about prayer.
Eddie Savage, one of the program's members, said his life now has new meaning.
A year ago, he was hanging out on the streets and living with his girlfriend. Now, the 20-year-old is married and working for the city of Portsmouth.
``I'm learning how to be a soldier for the Lord,'' Savage said. ``It's hard sometimes, but Pastor Foreman keeps me going. She teaches us that we can always come to the Lord. She really cares.''
Today, nearly seven months after her son's death, Foreman says most of her nephews and their friends have devoted their lives to Christ. She's found a new church home in Portsmouth, at 1625 Elm Ave. And her church membership is growing.
She still wakes up at night and cries for her son, and the police still have no leads on his killer.
But Foreman says she's given her son's death to the Lord and her religious convictions have become stronger.
``I may never know who killed my son,'' Foreman said. ``But if I can just stop one person from using a gun, and if every neighbor would go out and tell what they see, the jails will become even more overcrowded. Then I'll know that all of my work will have paid off.'' ILLUSTRATION: The Rev. Mary Foreman had a premonition the day her son was
slain, shot in the back while sitting in front of a store.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE INTERVIEW by CNB