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| Updated: 10/22/2012 8:29 am |
Published: 10/21/2012 4:40 pm |
Sunday, members of Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church in North Little Rock celebrated service in their new sanctuary. A tornado destroyed their original sanctuary, built a century ago, in April of last year.
A good morning after a year and a half without a permanent place to worship.
"The tornado, it came through. I think they said it came down this hill some kind of way. And, it just destroyed the church trying to get to the river over here," says church member Darice Hayes.
Leaving members of Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church without a spiritual home.
"We had volunteers to come up and help us clean up and, you know, tear down trees and stuff like that and had people volunteer to pour concrete, so everyone just came together," adds Hayes.
"We struggled for over a year to get this done, and now we're back home," says Pastor James Hayes.
The church has a rich history in the North Little Rock, Mayflower and Maumelle communities, and now, it will continue to provide a place for families to come together and practice their faith.
"It's been here over a hundred years. My mom told me a story that they used to come up here and they would just have a bonfire and they would have service at night. All night they would ride in the buggies and come up here like on Sundays and they would stay all day long," says Carmelita McClure.
"It makes my people and myself realize that God is capable of taking a bad situation and turning it into good," adds the pastor.
The church held a fundraiser in June to help raise money to make Sunday's celebration possible.
