About

What a wonderful legacy of love and healing Jeri Ann has left with us. I was pastoring a non-denominational “gay” church in Wichita, KS when she came to us and held a series of services including a healing service. She was an extraordinary evangelist. She proved to us that we didn’t have to be an MCC affiliate for her to love and share God’s love and healing. She guided me to personal healing with relationships with my former denomination. I can only imagine her shouts of jubilation at her own personal healing in the presence of Jesus. May God continue to bless those to whom she ministered so faithfully for so many years.

THERE ARE NO WORDS THAT I CAN POSSIBLE PUT DOWN ON THIS BLOG THAT COULD DESCRIBE HOW REV. ELDER JERI ANN HARVEY TOUCHED MY LIFE, LET’S SAY THAT THIS BUTCH FROM BROOKLYN MET HER MATCH AND FOREVER WILL BE GRATEFUL. SITTING WITH MY PARTNER, WHO WAS FIGHTING A BATTLE AGAINST CANCER, WE EAGERLY AWAITED TO MEET THE PARTNER OF OUR BELOVED PASTOR, REV. ELDER GIL STORY, WE DID NOT KNOW WHAT AWAITED US… WELL WE HEARD RUMBLING AND LOUD VOICES FILLED WITH ANTICIPATION AND THE CALL TO WORSHIP BEGAN. LO AND BEHOLD GIL WALKED DOWN THE AISLE IN HER ROBES AND BEHIND HER WAS THE MOST GORGEOUS AND HANDSOME GAY WOMAN I HAD EVER LAID EYES ON. COULD THIS LARGE AND OUT THERE WOMAN BE THE REVEREND WE HAD ALL BEEN WAITING TO SEE, THE ONE WHO WON OUR PASTOR’S HEART? YES IT WAS HER. WE SETTLED IN OUR SEATS AND REVEREND GIL INTRODUCED HER AND WE ALL STOOD, APPLAUDED AND REJOICED IN THEIR HAPPINESS, LITTLE DID WE KNOW IT WOULD BE EARTHSHAKING. SHE STOOD UP THERE IN A HOT PINK/PURPLE BLAZER AND OPEN HER MOUTH AND SHE SAID ” I MAY APPEAR LARGE TO YOU PEOPLE, BUT FROM THIS MOMENT ON I WISH TO BE KNOWN AS “SUBSTANTIAL”. IN THE YEARS THAT FOLLOWED JERI ANN WAS THERE FOR ME AND MY PARTNER AS WE FOUGHT OUR BATTLE WITH CANCER, SHE AND GIL ADMINISTERED THE HEALING AND TO THIS DAY WE OWE HER HEALING TO JERI ANN, GIL AND OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. IN A WAY I IDOLIZED HER AND LOVED TO LISTEN TO HER STORIES ABOUT THE OLD DAYS AND THE FIGHT FOR OUR RIGHTS. OUR HEARTS WERE SADDENED WHEN SHE AND GIL LEFT FOR SPAIN BUT NEVER A DAY WENT BY THAT WE DID NOT THINK OF HER. GOODBYE DEAR SWEET JERI ANN, WE WILL NEVER FORGET YOU, JESUS HAS CALLED YOU HOME AND WE ARE REDEDICATING OURSELVES TO PREACHING THE WORD AND GIVING THE LOVE THAT YOU GAVE SO FREELY TO US. IN HONOR OF YOUR FAMOUS SERMON “SEND IN THE CLOWNS” I WILL BECOME A CLOWN FOR JESUS…. YOU ARE IN OUR HEARTS FOREVER.

SUBSTANTIAL (GLORIA) MCC RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

I am a little saddened but very elated that my friend and mentor, Rev. Elder Jeri Ann has now found her peace at home with the Christ.

When life seemed tough, she reminded me of God’s grace and plans while loaning her shoulder to cry on. When life seemed to fantastic she was there to remind me to be watching out for th spiritual warfare which would surely test me.

For years, Rev. Jeri Ann and Rev. Gill have been cornerstones of strength for me and models of admiration. As all of us don’t have the living Jesus standing here in front of us as models to follow, Jeri Ann was always a living, flesh, on earth model of Jesus and his teachings for me to follow.

Jeri Ann, I will miss you and know when it is my turn, yours is one of the faces I will be seeking when I come home.

Shalom,

Rev. Edwin Yates, Toledo, OH, USA, Region 5

I first met Rev. Jeri Ann Harvey when she visited Open Door MCC, Boyds Maryland, June 1996. While waiting for services to begin and for people to come in, I sat on the bench outside our church entrance. Next to me was Rev Jeri Ann—I had no idea who she was—wow was I surprised to learn that she was the one coming to Open Door! I will never forget this wonderful, amazing lady—it was a wonderful healing service, first one I had ever attended. Over the years, I didn’t know much about her travels to and fro BUT I never forgot her. Her memory still lingers in my heart and soul the day she arrived at Open Door MCC! Thank you, Lord, for sending Jeri Ann to us!

Jeri Ann Harvey was – literally and figureably – the first woman who ever knocked me off my feet! This was in 1999, the year I was introduced to MCC Richmond, and I attended my first-ever “healing prayer service”, of which I was pretty skeptical at that time. Although I had been impressed – and moved – by the love and true Christian spirit I had found at MCCR, I really didn’t think that the power of prayer and the “laying-on of hands” could have an impact on physical and emotional healing. Jeri Ann proved this idea wrong! As I sat through the service and listened to her preach, a strange sensation came over me that I could not explain or understand. Then Jeri Ann asked that those in need of prayer step forward. Some force I had never experienced led me to where she stood. She laid her hands upon my shoulders, and a bolt of electricity went through me; the next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor. I felt renewed, reborn. It was the beginning of my journey as a reborn Christian.

I will always remember that moment, and I will always hold the Rev. Jeri Ann and her partner, the Rev. Gill Storey, close in my heart. Both are shining examples of everything that is good and glorious in humanity and in spirit. I will forever be grateful to the two of them for opening God’s grace to me, and to so many others.

Jeri Ann, you are a clown of the Lord, and we are all blessed that God decided to send you as “our” clown. I know that Heaven is a better place today because God has called you home.

Gill, my prayers are with you and with everyone whose life Jeri Ann touched – there are legions of us in the world.

John Poarch

Jeri Ann was such a special lady to me. I will never forget that day in Richmond at the Willow Lawn Shopping Center back in 1999 when she had prayer with my best friend, Kathy Beasley, and myself. Kathy was struggling with the later stages of breast cancer and she had in fact just come from the doctor’s office with a bad prognosis. God put Jeri Ann in that place at that time for both of us. She had never met Kathy before that day and during her prayer with us she kept calling Kathy by my name. I leaned over and whispered the correct name in Jeri Ann’s ear and she just smiled and said, “Lord, you know how much of an idiot I can be sometimes”. We all had a good laugh that was truly needed at that moment. That encounter and moment of prayer with her meant more than anyone will ever know to myself and my best friend of thirty years whom I lost to cancer in February 2000. Jeri Ann was truly a special soul who touched the hearts of many. I am glad to have known her and I feel truly blessed to have heard her “preach the Word”. I know in my heart of hearts that she is up in Heaven right now laughing with Jesus.

Yesterday, at church, we found out that Jeri (JA) had gone home. We have been telling each other JA stories ever since. We first met JA on June 21, 1979 and fell instantly in love. The date is easy to remember because it is the birthday of our oldest grandaughter.
Jeri Ann became our friend, our sister and aunt to our family. We have 3 daughters, 2 were young teens when we met JA. Typically, as teens, it was easier for them to discuss things with Aunt Jeri than with their parents. She always kept their trust and they loved and respected her for that.
When JA was tired or hurting, especially in those dark days of the early 80’s when there were so many funerals, she would come home to Alaska for healing. It wasn’t just the chicken soup and love that healed, It was Alaska. More than once, we talked about how you can feel God in the land. We sat on the bank of the Susitna River one time , there were no fish, we were just sitting. After about 40 minutes of silence, JA said, “this place is an old spiritual place”. Alaska was a spiritually healing place for her.
We also had fun! Ther are so many stories we could write a book to tell them all, but here is just one. One night we were in a bar in Anchorage, shooting pool, (or in Gloria’s case tearing up felt), when a young man came over to Barbara and said “I hear your ‘wife’ lost her job”. Now Gloria is only slightly less butch than JA. JA started to laugh, sat on the floor and roared (along with Gloria) – pretty soon there wasn’t a person in that bar who wasn’t crying with laughter although none of them knew why.
Such was the power of JA, her laughter was infectious, her singing was infectious, her sermons were infectious, her Hallelujahs were infectious. She was one giant infection for Christ and we pray we caught some of it! Jeri Ann was ill for a long time but thanks to her loving Gill, was well cared for. God be with you Gill.
Jeri Ann Harvey touched the hearts, minds and spirits of everyone who met her. She will always be with us in our hearts and memories.
Has anyone ever noticed the last 3 letters of Hallelujah?

Now that was one tough broad! And yes, I’ve said that right to Jeri Ann in the later years when her health was taking much of her vigor but never her spark. She could look right into your eyes so deeply you wondered if she was seeing something clear through to the back of your head!
In the early years when I first attended MCC I questioned the authenticity of my participation in choir and services while not considering myself a Christian. I found a book called The Christian Agnostic and told Gill and Jeri Ann I thought “maybe that’s what I am, only I don’t think I’m really questioning or searching for an answer.”
Jeri Ann said, in that slow and deliberate way that was both spontaneous and thoughtful, “My dear, you may not be too sure about God but God is absolutely sure about you! You are exactly how you are because it’s the way God intended you should be.”
I don’t know who made her the boss of my spiritual confirmation, but I certainly took it as “gospel” and have never felt out of place or compelled to change. That was a gift to me and restored my comfort with the way I participate in the MCC community.
If she hadn’t gone directly to heaven I imagine Jeri Ann could have made a cameo appearance in the lesbian version of the country tune “Prop me up beside the jukebox when I die.” In her best butch boots, bolo tie, and characteristic shock of white hair , she’d plunk her last quarter in for a final sing-along of her favorite hit by Patsy Cline.
Truly, and sadly, they broke the mold………..

I first met Rev. Jerri Ann at the LA church and fell in love with her preaching. I just had to introduce myself to her because I loved to hear her speak. We became friends as the time passed. I enjoyed listening to her tell jokes and above all I loved that soulful laugh.When she left the church on Hill St. I soon left to, my partner stayed on until the church finally ended up on Santa Monica Blvd. But for me MCC just was never the same without Rev. Jerri Ann Harvey. I remember the day that she performed my Holy Union at another couples house in Mt. Washiington. We had so much fun that day and she laughed, and laughed.

Jerri Ann I love you much, but you knew that…..