Beauty from ashes

By Jeff Becraft

Last weekend, I had the privilege of speaking at a weekend retreat for Black Mountain Home for Children. That is why there was no Friday email last week. This retreat is held out in boogah chetah, just north of Marshall, North Carolina, in the western mountains of NC.

Every year, a group of people from Marshall Pres, a little small country church, where most of the members are elderly, really take care of us. They provide breakfast Saturday and Sunday mornings and they do this big barbecue dinner spread for Saturday night. Then we would go be part of their church service on Sunday morning, and then after that, there’d be another big barbecue spread for lunch before we would head out.

It’s just an amazing group of people with a lot of love and they have poured that love out on us.

We were not there on Sunday morning last year because two years ago, the French Broad River rose 28 feet because of Helene. I can’t even really wrap my head around that. Twenty-eight feet. And Marshall, North Carolina, which is right on the French Broad River, was devastated. Even the facility for this small congregation of people, Marshall Pres, was up on a hill and their main sanctuary is then up all these steps… but that didn’t matter. The water came in there also, and their building was devastated. You can go on YouTube and find videos of what it looked like after Helene came through. It is just unbelievable.

So here you have this small congregation of people who are 90% very elderly, and they just got wiped out. Remarkably, this past Sunday, all of our group from Black Mountain Home for Children were sitting in that sanctuary of Marshall Press… just two years later. I couldn’t believe it. All kinds of people came back for this past Sunday – the volunteers who had helped out, local people, people from other churches. It was the most people I had ever seen in that building. It brought tears to my eyes to see the recovery that had happened there. I am going to let them describe in their own words what they experienced that was printed in their program:

“In the early morning hours of September 27, 2024 the French Broad River rose 28 feet and flooded the town of Marshall, North Carolina. Our building was broken and full of debris-laden mud. The pews were soaked. Everything was a pile of rubble…inside the building. We barely knew where or how to begin. Just to look at our church was overwhelming and heartbreaking. Part of our town was gone and the rest of it was under inches of mud. Toxic debris was piled everywhere. We were exhausted…

“Then people we didn’t even know began to arrive…perfect strangers. They came from towns we’d never heard of and churches miles away. They came in trucks. They came with their backhoes and tractors. They brought tools. They brought us hymn books and gave us a place to worship. They gave us chairs. They fed us while we pushed shovels of mud from our church. They brought water to drink and water to clean with. They sent us money. They prayed for us and wrote messages on the plywood floors.

“And through it all we remained steadfast in worship, praise, and service to the Lord during this time and are now rejoicing at returning to the restored building. Thank you for being with us today as we re-dedicate this place to God.”

It just goes to show that we should never give up. Through the grace of God, maintaining hope, and the help and encouragement from others, this small group of people experienced beauty rising from ashes.

Jeff Becraft is the Director of Our Place of Hope(opens in new tab) located in Columbia, South Carolina, where people find encouragement to regain meaning, purpose, and hope for their lives. Jeff has dedicated much of his life to helping shift the vision of people’s lives. If you would like Jeff to speak to your group or event, you can connect with him at  [email protected](opens in new tab).