BRENTWOOD, Tenn. (ABP) — Tennessee Baptists are rallying to respond to victims of a series of severe storms that tore through west Tennessee April 2 and 3.
As of April 5, police had confirmed the storms killed 28 people in west Tennessee.
After the storms, the Tennessee Baptist Convention and Dyer Baptist Association responded to help the victims.
Joe Wright, director of missions at the Dyer Association, said he had two assessment teams looking for damage and four chain saw teams out in the field before daylight on the morning of April 3.
”We have a pretty significant disaster area, which stretches several miles long and around a half a mile wide,” Wright said. “We will need more recovery teams in west Tennessee.”
Wright also said churches in the association have worked together to meet the spiritual needs of the affected communities.
“It is more important to meet the spiritual needs at the same time [that] the teams are focusing on disaster relief, he said. “Our highest priority remains spiritual needs of the people in the county.”
None of the association's churches have reported damage, Wright added.
Charles Pratt, pastor of First Baptist Church, Kenton, said the storms caused a pause during the church's evening worship service. He led a prayer that the storm would “pass over” the church, which was fitting, since the emphasis that night was Passover.
“It's by the grace of God that we are here,” Pratt said, referring to the church and congregation.
Pratt and many others ended up at the Rutherford Fire Department, which had electricity via generators and was a gathering spot for many emergency personnel. Pratt spent several hours at the department, after the fire department chief asked him to counsel people who had lost family members in the storms. Three residents of the Rutherford community were killed.
National Weather Service information preliminary reports indicated tornados touched down in Dyer, Carroll, Haywood, Gibson, and Fayette counties.
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