The congregation of First Baptist Church, Wetumpka, will resume a normal schedule this weekend after spending the week recovering from an EF-2 tornado destroyed its multipurpose building Jan. 19.
“All services Sunday (Jan. 27) will resume, and ministry will be going on,” said FBC Wetumpka pastor James Troglen.
The church gathered at the Wetumpka Civic Center on Jan. 20, the day after the tornado hit downtown Wetumpka. About 500 members and friends joined together to worship, grateful that the storm spared lives and resulted in only a handful of injuries.
The damage in the town was significant, however.
Across the street from FBC Wetumpka, First Presbyterian Church was demolished by the fierce winds.
FBC Wetumpka’s sanctuary and Child Development Center were spared. However, the church’s Impact Center, a two-story multipurpose building that housed much of the church’s student ministry activities, was damaged beyond repair.
“We got the official word from the insurance company and we expect that building will be torn down next week,” Troglen said.
The roof of the church’s historic chapel was ripped off, but Troglen said structural engineers who inspected the building seem to think it can be saved. The storm damage revealed beams of the building, which was constructed in 1852, and Troglen said it was interesting to see the growth rings in the wood used to build the chapel.
“On one board I counted 132 growth rings before I got tired of counting,” he said, estimating that the tree used to make the board was growing long before the founding of the United States.
Troglen said that classes for the preschool students who attend the church’s Child Development Center will resume on Jan. 28 as will all weekday church ministry activities.
On Jan. 23, Rick Lance, executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM), and SBOM associate executive director Bobby DuBois delivered a check from Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief (ABDR) to Troglen and the church. Lance noted that the funds were provided by Alabama Baptists through the Cooperative Program and the Myers Mallory State Missions Offering.
ABDR teams from Autauga, Elmore, Chilton and Montgomery Baptist associations worked throughout the day Jan. 20 helping with cleanup and chainsaw work. All ABDR teams were dismissed Sunday evening except Chilton and Elmore, who returned the morning of Jan. 21 to complete a couple of remaining assignments, according to Mel Johnson, lead mission strategist for Autauga Baptist Association, who said the teams “simply ran out of daylight” on Sunday.
“We had a tremendous response from our River Region associations on Sunday to the point that there was no need to continue to staff a full operation,” Johnson said.
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