The following is a text with pictures presentation of Elma Tidwill talking about her new church
Hello,
My name is Elma Tidwell and I’ve been asked to tell you about my church.
I’ve gone to the same church since I was a little girl and Mom and Dad were married
in this church. Me and Bill was married here too but he’s gone now. I’ve got
twin boys and both of them were baptized here and have gone on to be upstanding Christian
men on their own. They live so far away though I hardly ever see them anymore and my
health doesn’t let me go to visit very often.
My grandfather helped build the old church here and my Dad was the Sunday School Superintendent for about 40 years. We used to have a big Sunday School with lots of children but we haven’t done so well in the last few years - So many have moved away. We did have a new family join last week and their three daughters were baptized. Its good to see the church grow again.
I’m on the grounds of the beautiful Sunlight Methodist Church in
outside South Dempsy. Its
summer here and really nice this time of year. The church is so nice and pretty. I
believe its even nicer than the old one. You see, the old church, the one that we all grew
up in was destroyed by a fire two years ago last February. They say that the fire was
started on purpose but they haven’t found out who did it yet.
I just can’t believe that people could care so little about
God’s house. Why would anybody want to do such a mean thing as burn down a church.
We’ve been praying for whoever did this and hoping that they find their way to Jesus
for forgiveness We can’t hate this person for what they did, we have to feel sorry
for them.
The new church is growing now but when it was burned there were only a few little old ladies like me left. We had some money and wanted to rebuild the church. The United Methodist Church and some others gave us some money to help out and then the most beautiful thing happened.
Church people from all over came to help build the church. A lot of them were
called Volunteers in Mission and were just regular people like us. Some came to help build
others came to cook and clean and I think God even sent some just to talk with us so we
wouldn’t feel so alone and sad about what happened.
We couldn’t have gotten started back without the volunteers and we love them. There are other churches that have been burned and a lot of work to do. Our preacher, the Reverend Mr. Right, has a plan for a bunch of us to go on a mission trip and help out at one of the other churches that has been burned. I don’t know what they would want with an old lady like me but they say that there’s something for us all to do no matter how young or old or whatever. We just need to have a heart to help Jesus with his church.
Thanks to everybody who helped us get back on our feet. Hate burned our old building but not our church. Love built our church and rebuilt a building for us to worship in.
