{"id":1848855,"date":"2023-02-16T06:49:48","date_gmt":"2023-02-16T11:49:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1848855"},"modified":"2023-02-16T06:50:38","modified_gmt":"2023-02-16T11:50:38","slug":"how-churches-mobilized-to-rescue-selma-after-a-tornado-devastated-the-historic-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-churches-mobilized-to-rescue-selma-after-a-tornado-devastated-the-historic-city\/","title":{"rendered":"How Churches Mobilized To Rescue Selma After A Tornado Devastated The Historic City"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhow-churches-mobilized-to-rescue-selma-after-a-tornado-devastated-the-historic-city%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1848855&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47-->\n<p>Warren William \u201cBilly\u201d Young was just 2 years old when a violent tornado tore through his family\u2019s home church, the historic First Baptist Church in Selma, Alabama, causing devastating damage.<\/p>\n<p>It was Monday, May 1, 1978 at 7 a.m. when the tornado plowed through the sanctuary. It destroyed its huge brick walls and ripped out its stained glass windows. The tornado also decapitated the church spire, which was the tallest in the entire city at that time.<\/p>\n<p>This church, one of only a handful of structures to be damaged, looked completely destroyed. However, the First Baptist faith family held firm to their beliefs. Young\u2019s parents \u2014 his father Woodrow, a deacon and trustee, his mother Alice, president of the mission society \u2014 and other members rallied together to rebuild the city\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/02\/26\/selma-alabamas-first-black-church-is-still-going-strong-take-a-look-at-its-amazing-legacy\/\">Oldest<\/a> Black Baptist Church <\/p>\n<p>They set out to restore the Gothic Revival to its original beauty, as designed by David West Benjamin (1894), an African American architect. Members gathered up bricks the tornado pitched all over the city, signed pledges, took out loans, and slowly put the church back together, using a member\u2019s wedding photograph to reassemble the sanctuary.<\/p>\n<p>They remained together in borrowed sanctuaries throughout their long recovery. \u201cMy father often said the tornado could not stop God\u2019s work,\u201d Young said.<\/p>\n<p> Nightmares Repeated <\/p>\n<p>That strong faith and determination honed in his family church helped to drive Young\u2019s vigorous relief efforts following the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsfa.com\/2023\/01\/12\/significant-tornado-causes-destruction-selma\/\">tornado<\/a> On Jan. 12, the tornado that decimated one-third of Selma was his hometown.\u00a0High-powered tornado winds of up to 157 mph ripped through Selma. It destroyed homes, businesses and churches along with more than 1,000 trees. Miraculously, nobody was killed.<\/p>\n<p>Young drove straight to his church in the hardest-hit neighborhood after the tornado hit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs soon as I could see our church building standing tall, I knew it had been spared to serve. I knew that First Baptist had a chance to really show God\u2019s love to people who were hurting, and that\u2019s exactly what we\u2019ve been doing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Young brought people together to feed 800 people each day through his church. They handed out supplies \u2014 from tarps, shovels, and rakes to flashlights, food boxes, and diapers \u2014 and offered prayers and encouragement to his battered community. Young led recovery efforts not only as a church\u00a0deacon but also as Selma City Council <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/10\/28\/how-canvassing-for-a-local-candidate-filled-me-with-hope-during-a-divisive-national-election\/\">President<\/a>It shows how Christians serve others.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy faith completely took over my actions \u2014 all those years in prayer meetings, Bible study, worship \u2014 directed me to show God\u2019s compassion to others,\u201d He said.<\/p>\n<p>First Baptist joined churches from all over the city in opening their doors to help the community. They also met immediate needs for shelter, food, clothing, or shelter. Churches with mainline Protestant denominations \u2014 Southern Baptist, Methodist, Church of Christ, Lutheran, and African Methodist Episcopal \u2014 became compassionate, caring centers for the relief efforts needed to respond to the citywide devastation. There are many sister churches all over the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First Baptist Church was joined by congregations all over the city in a volunteer effort to serve the shocked community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":1848858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[14610,11263,5269,9511,18785,12701,18784,16030],"class_list":["post-1848855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-devastated","tag-churches","tag-city","tag-historic","tag-mobilized","tag-rescue","tag-selma","tag-tornado"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1848855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1848855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1848855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1848858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1848855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1848855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1848855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}