As More Alabama Churches Get Burned Out, Many Believers Reach Out
by Allie Martin and Jenni Parker
February 8, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Investigators continue searching for suspects and a motive in four suspicious fires that broke out at black churches in rural Alabama early Tuesday. These blazes, added to the five that occurred in Alabama last Friday, bring the count in this string of suspected arson attacks against rural churches to nine so far. Yellow crime scene tape surrounded the front parking lot and entryway into Dancy First Baptist Church outside Aliceville, Alabama, as agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and other state and local agencies collected evidence from the burned out church. While the exterior was not heavily damaged, flames, smoke and water have virtually gutted the building's interior.
Pastor Walter Hawkins, who has served as the pastor of Dancy First Baptist Church for ten years, says other area congregations have reached out to his in the midst of this crisis. "We've been offered, by other churches, [an invitation] to come and worship with them," he notes, "so we're thinking in terms of maybe worshipping with other services this coming week. We just thank God for the support from other churches and from the community."
The Alabama minister says he harbors no ill will toward the person or persons who set the fire. "We still love 'em," he asserts. "No hard feelings. God is about love, and we just pray that they will come forward and confess -- we have no hard feelings for them."
Still, Dancy First Baptist members are by no means untouched by the loss. Congregant Alice Woods rushed to the church after the burglar alarm was tripped and recalls, "When they opened the door, when all the police and the fire [department] got here ... I saw the flames at the pulpit."
In that moment, Woods points out, what she saw being destroyed was more than church property. She and other congregants have built many memories at their church over the past 30 years, she notes. "All three of my girls got baptized -- and my oldest daughter was supposed to be getting married here [later this month]," the Alabama woman adds, "so we've got to make other plans for that."
But Woods is confident God will provide. "He's got a ram in the bush all the time," she says. Already, she emphasizes, believers in the surrounding community are coming together to help, many offering the use of their facilities and other assistance.
Locals See Clues Suggesting Criminal Intent
Dancy First Baptist's Pastor Hawkins agrees and says God is already bringing good out of the tragedy. Nevertheless, he advises all rural church members across the state to remain vigilant while the unknown enemy or enemies remain at large.
The vigilance of some local residents has already yielded a few clues. According to an Associated Press report, a member of Morning Star Baptist Church in Boligee said when he arrived on the scene of his church's conflagration Tuesday morning, smoke was pouring from the windows and flames were visible near the pulpit.
The church member, Johnny Archibald, recalled seeing indications that a side door had been forcibly opened, and he noted that the fire looked to have been deliberately set near the altar. Also, he said an area resident told him a sport-utility vehicle had been seen speeding through an intersection near the church without stopping around the time when the Baptist sanctuary in Boligee was ablaze.
The FBI says its investigators are treating all nine church fires as though they are connected. But despite the apparent intentions of the person or persons responsible for the fires, several members of the burned out churches aver that the loss of the building will not keep them from doing the Lord's work; nor has it stopped other Christians from reaching out to help.
