The Sunday after a tornado devastated much of the historic city of Selma, church congregations raised up prayers of gratitude for lives spared and prayers of comfort for lives lost elsewhere to the storm that tore across the South
Kerry Fulford, right, embraces Shana Latham, offering words of comfort at Crosspoint Christian Church following a tornado several days earlier in Selma, Ala., Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023. Latham was one of the teachers who acted quickly to move children into safe interior rooms as the tornado caused heavy damage at the church's preschool building. SELMA, Ala. — — Leading Sunday services on the lawn outside his tornado-damaged Crosspoint Christian church, the Rev.
The storm system was blamed with killing nine people — two in Georgia and seven in Autauga County, Alabama where an estimated EF3 tornado, which is just two steps below the most powerful category of twister, tossed mobile homes into the air and ripped way roofs. The Selma twister cut a wide swath through the city, collapsing buildings and snapping trees in half. Alabama Gov.
“The walls started shaking and I told my class, ‘Lie down and close your eyes’ .... and I laid down on top of them until it was over," Stockman said.“I was praying and I kept telling them, ‘It’s OK. I got you. You’re OK. I love y’all,’ ” Shana Lathan told her class as they crowed inside the bathroom.
“There are so many people hurting here right now that there is sort of like a mutual misery, which requires a shared hope and a shared vision to help us to help each other through this,” the Rev. Leodis Strong said. “If anything, that ought to inspire and motivate us to practice our faith and our understanding of Dr King’s commitment. So we’ll make it through this. We’re going to make it,” Strong said.
Congregation member Lynn Reeves swayed to the modern gospel music beneath the church’s stained glass windows had a similar feeling of gratitude. With the destruction through the city, it’s amazing no one was killed, she said.
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