Kamryn's Hope Story

January 21, 2017

Four years ago, we got word that overnight an underage driver had crashed into our church accidentally. The car blew up and everything caught on fire. Thankfully, the driver was okay. However, the whole back of our church and everything in it was ruined. It was such a shock. The fire was absolute devastation, and while so much was lost in the ashes, H O P E remained.

Hope can look very different. Sometimes it looks like bringing a bunch of chairs into the parking lot for service when it's your only option for Wednesday night worship, and sometimes it looks like community outreaches that never may have happened if we would have had a functional building. After a few years of repairing what was broken, our little church of 80 members had new buildings that were taking the place of what was ruined, and we were finally back to normal. However, this isn't the end of the story.

In August of last year, we celebrated our church finally being finished with a "stock the kitchen " party and dinner on the grounds. We were so thankful to have our church back. One week later, we heard that there was a possibility of a flood in our area. Little did we know, most of the state of Louisiana would be under water within a few days. Everyone was trying to prepare for the flood by getting sand bags and putting everything as high up as possible. Fast forward a day or two and everyone was either housing neighbors who had lost everything,

out in their boats trying to rescue people from their houses, or on their way to a shelter or any place of safety because they had nowhere else to go. So many structures went under water, including our church. The current of the water rushing through the hallway of our church was so strong that random things from the river and houses nearby were floating past the men of the church as they waded waste deep trying to save anything they could.

Though almost everything was ruined in the water, H O P E remained. Someone from out of town that we had never even met was generous enough to leave everything behind and move into our church. Still today our church is being fixed as good as new by someone we didn't even know. Churches from all around sent money and volunteered to help in any way needed. A local church lets us use their building every Sunday right after they have their service. In what seemed hopeless, hope was always there. Hope not in the fact that we were able to restore what was broken, but that we were able to witness the Body of Christ come together and help one another in time of need.

I have seen the difference of perspective of losing everything between Followers and the rest of the world. The Followers have a totally different outlook because

He is the one thing they can't lose when they run to the end of themselves.

H O P E.

In the flood or the fire.