United Methodists Provide Food For Tornado Victims, Repair Churches

United Methodist churches are dealing with death and property devastation caused by the tornadoes that clobbered Kentucky, Tennessee and other states overnight on Dec. 10, United Methodist News reported.

Photo Insert: One of the United Methodist Churches ravaged by the tornado

Conferences and the United Methodist Committee on Relief are gearing up for relief work. Some United Methodist churches in hard-hit areas carried on with Advent worship services.

United Methodists in Kentucky, Tennessee, and neighboring states are coming to terms with the devastation of a string of tornadoes Dec. 10-11, while also mobilizing quickly to provide food, emergency shelter, and other relief.

The storm system that struck on Friday evening into Saturday morning — including one tornado that caused destruction across some 240 miles — is blamed for nearly 90 deaths.

Two of those killed were Marsha Hall and Carole Grisham, sisters and members of Dawson Springs United Methodist Church in Kentucky. They were found among the rubble several houses from the one they shared in Dawson Springs, a TV station reported.

Twisters sheared roofs and shattered windows at some United Methodist churches and parsonages, as well as badly damaging congregation members’ homes and local businesses.

“We will be dealing with the aftermath long after the media and social media reports have ceased,” Kentucky Conference Bishop Fairley said in a statement.

Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference Bishop William McAlilly was a district superintendent in the Mississippi Conference during Hurricane Katrina recovery, and on Dec. 12, he toured some of the hard-hit parts of Kentucky and Tennessee, with visits to three United Methodist churches and their communities.

“I’d say this is on a par with Katrina, in terms of damage done,” McAlilly said by phone.

WEEKLY FEATURE : MVP Group Keeps Lights On During Pandemic