One Friday morning at the end of June, Rob woke up at 4:30 to use the bathroom and got a text from his mom when he was getting back into bed. She couldn't sleep and was up watching TV. She told him to turn on the TV because she thought our church building was on fire. WHAT???
So he did. And we stood there in the dark, half asleep, watching our church burn on live TV.
What a weird feeling. I had to be up in a half hour anyway to go to work, but I felt creepy leaving for work that morning. I felt like I should be doing something! Rob, too. But there was nothing for us to do. We just kept checking the news/internet for updates and tried to wrap our heads around it. It's just a building, but it was kind of a second home. We spent every Sunday and at least one evening a week there for the last 11 years. Our babies were blessed in that chapel. We had parties and activities and spiritual experiences there and made friends there. It was hard to see it go.
The first thing you wonder about a church fire is whether it was done on purpose. I didn't know this, but every time a place of worship burns, the ATF has to investigate it as arson. That's too bad. After a week, the investigators announced that it had been ruled an arson. So then we knew, but what do we do with that knowledge? The outcome is the same, regardless of the cause, and as Christian people, we can't hold a grudge against the person who did it. So that's that. We try to be OK with it and move on.
It's neat that a couple of schools in Tolleson called and offered up their facilities for us to use on Sundays. There were three different congregations meeting in our building, so other LDS church buildings found room to work us in to their Sunday and weeknight schedules. Some congregations had to change their meeting times to accommodate us, and they did it without batting an eye. So we're meeting in another building for a year or so until we can rebuild and everything is fine. We do miss our old building!
(image from Google maps)
1 comments:
So sad!!!!
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