Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 4, 1994 TAG: 9404040115
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN SEWELL ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: PIEDMONT, ALA. LENGTH: Medium
"I just wanted to be here," he said softly.
His father, Buddy, and 9-year-old sister, Amy, were among 20 people killed when a tornado leveled the Goshen United Methodist Church during Palm Sunday services last week.
Marcus, who tried to pull his sister out of the rubble that covered her, suffered a badly bruised right knee. His mother is still hospitalized in intensive care with a crushed pelvis and broken legs.
As much as a celebration of Jesus Christ's resurrection, Sunday's half-hour service was an emotional reunion of tears and long hugs.
About 200 people attended, sitting on folding chairs in the parking lot of the flattened church.
The Rev. Kelly Clem greeted parishioners, some for the first time since the tornado. Clem's dress was dark red, her lace collar white, and her forehead and eyes purple and crimson.
Battered by whirling bricks, the 34-year-old pastor lost her 4-year-old daughter, Hannah, one of six children killed while waiting to participate in an Easter program.
Friends and relatives took turns hugging her and her 2-year-old girl, Sarah. "There's no place I'd rather be today," Clem said.
"We kind of need each other," added her husband, the Rev. Dale Clem.
Kelly Clem read from the New Testament Book of Romans and chatted over a microphone with small children. She presented the children with wrapped Easter baskets, among the many donations of money, supplies and children's gifts that have streamed in from around the country.
"Do you know how many people love you?" she asked.
"A lot?" suggested one child.
"That's an understatement."
The wooden cross behind Clem's pulpit was made last week by a friend she hadn't seen in years, and four new stained glass windows that made a backdrop were sent by a Catholic church. A painting of Jesus, flowers and stacks of cards and letters also have arrived.
"I feel like we're like a symbol of hope right now," Clem said afterward. She pledged to rebuild the northeastern Alabama church, the hardest-hit site in the tornadoes and storms that killed at least 44 people across the Southeast.
The service was a confrontation with traumatic memories.
"We had a moment when we got out in the parking lot and looked at the church. I guess we had a special cry," said Craig Rhinehart, 22. His fiancee, Denise Parker, was on crutches because of a pelvis fracture. Two of Rhinehart's uncles and two cousins were killed by the tornado.
"We are the Easter people," the Rev. Robert Fannin, bishop of the North Alabama Methodist Conference, told worshipers. "We believe that life has conquered death."
Carol Scroggin, the choir director who had just led a hymn when the tornado hit, said the Easter service selections were chosen carefully from members' requests.
"Because He lives, I can face tomorrow," was one refrain.
A soloist sang: "We are standing on holy ground. And I know that there are angels all around."
And all sang: "Bind us together, Lord. . . . Bind us together with love."
by CNB