Church damaged by tornado holds first service after storms
SELMER, Tenn. — A tornado leaves one local community ripped apart, including their church. However, a natural disaster couldn’t keep them from holding services.
Falcon Road was hit by an EF-3 tornado Wednesday night, tearing through everything in its path. Ella Duncan has been living in the area for more than 40 years.
“This is the second tornado that has hit my house and I was in it the first time, and I stayed in it the second time,” Duncan said.
Duncan said her roof was ripped off her house, her windows shattered, and the house lifted and placed back down on its foundation; but she was still early to the church she has attended for four decades.
“That just shows how strong we are, shows our faith, shows the devil we are not gonna let him win. Because we are victorious God says we are,” she said.
Falcon Baptist Church was also damaged in the storms, and their sanctuary deemed unusable.
“It looks different today than it did Wednesday night and Thursday morning while we were here, things are picked up, things are looking a little better, of course there is still a lot of devastation out there,” Pastor Jay Houston said.
While the sanctuary is sitting empty Sunday morning, the pastor said that their church is still standing strong.
“This is just a building, the sanctuary over there that was torn up, that’s just a building. But these people that are around us, that’s the church,” Pastor Houston said.
“No matter what happens we always come back here and give God the praise that we are here and we are gonna stay. We’ll rebuild,” Duncan said confidently about her church family.
The pastor said he is unsure how long it will take to rebuild the church, but they will continue to work with the community to put it back together.
