Through the kindness of strangers, a church rises again

c. 1996 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Last Easter Sunday morning, the 54-member congregation of St. Paul Primitive Baptist Church in Lauderdale, Miss., gathered for Sunday school and headed home, planning to return for an afternoon program. But by the time they came back, a fire of unknown origin burned their church to the ground. In […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Last Easter Sunday morning, the 54-member congregation of St. Paul Primitive Baptist Church in Lauderdale, Miss., gathered for Sunday school and headed home, planning to return for an afternoon program. But by the time they came back, a fire of unknown origin burned their church to the ground.

In July, when the National Council of Churches (NCC) made its first round of grants to predominantly black churches that had burned, the Mississippi church was chosen to receive a $90,000 grant.


The cause of the fire has been in dispute. Authorities determined the fire was caused by a cigarette discarded by a church deacon. But church members and independent investigators believe it was suspicious and racially motivated.

Obie Clark, the local president of the NAACP, is acting as the liaison between the NCC and the church, whose pastor, the Rev. Johnny McDonald, works full time at a bakery.

The NCC’s grant saved the church from having to take a $75,000 bank loan _ the church carried no insurance _ to rebuild.”It’s just all the difference in the world,”Clark said of the grant.”We’re talking about low-income, fixed-income and no-income people.” A portion of the grant money already received by the church _ about $40,000 _ has paid for bulldozing, plumbing, and laying the new building’s foundation. Clark outlined the expenses to be covered by another portion of the grant that is still being processed: carpeting and tiles for the sanctuary, electrical work, and the laying of 21,000 bricks that will complete the church.

Volunteers from the Midwest and New York have helped in the reconstruction. A church undergoing renovation in Illinois is donating its old pews for the new building. As volunteers worked with plasterboard and paint this week, McDonald’s mother brought home-cooked meals for lunch so they wouldn’t have to travel the eight miles to the Navy base that is providing housing accommodations.

By Thanksgiving, Clark hopes the congregation will be able to leave its temporary meeting place at a church down the road and once again have its own worship space. He plans to invite every volunteer to the first service in the new church. If they can’t make it, he hopes to send a memento, perhaps a photograph of the finished church.”You can’t put no money value on it … these relationships that have been established between the volunteers and the community,”said Clark of the group that crossed racial and denominational lines.”It’s just a great experience.” Although the Mississippi church is almost finished, there are many other congregations trying to resurrect their buildings from ashes.

Sara Coppler, a Habitat for Humanity representative who is working with the NCC on coordinating volunteers, predicts that next spring there will be as many as 30 sites being rebuilt at a given time.”It is a large operation … to be able to manage this,”she said.

MJP END BANKS

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