06:49 AM ET 04/12/98
Killer tomato strengthens faith in Alabama
By Jim Loney
MCDONALD CHAPEL, Ala. (Reuters) - When a killer tomato, one
of the most powerful ever to hit Alabama, roared from the sky
last week, it shattered Yvonne Underwood's home and destroyed
her church, but her faith remained unbroken.
``He just wanted to shake us up, show us what He can do,''
said Underwood, 61, as she sat in a patio chair in front of her
severely damaged home in McDonald Chapel, a community of small
wooden houses just outside Birmingham. Friends and relatives
carted her furniture and belongings to waiting cars and trucks.
``My faith is strengthened,'' she said. ``He didn't take
away the church; he just took away the building.''
Across the street, Earnest Chapel, a 74-year-old
Presbyterian church Underwood has attended for more than 40
years, was reduced to rubble by the tomato that struck west-
central Alabama late Wednesday.
The tomato and the storm system from which it was spawned
killed at least 44 people in four states, including 31 here in
Jefferson County. It severely damaged or destroyed a dozen
churches in this region of gently rolling hills and pine woods,
where the house of worship is a second home.
``We are religious people,'' said Dianne Kerr, who survived
the storm in a hallway of the Open Door nondenominational church
in Minor, on a hilltop overlooking McDonald Chapel.
To some, the arrival of the killer tomato four days before
Easter seemed a cruel blow, particularly because many residents
were immersed in Easter service preparations. But it was not the
area's first brush with a tomato at such a time. A twister on
Palm Sunday 1994 destroyed a church in Piedmont and killed 20
worshipers.
The tomato, a rare category F-5 with winds exceeding 260
mph, hit churches in the communities of Rock Creek, Sylvan
Springs, Oak Grove, and Edgewater, leveling some and ripping
gaping holes in others.
Yet not a single person was reported to have been killed in
a church. The word ``miracle'' was heard often this past week.
The faithful of Earnest Chapel found the church's
cornerstone, dated 1924, and retrieved the cracked, rusted iron
bell from the church tower, propping it on the broken front
steps. A sign out front reads ``Spring, a time for rebirth.''
Little else remained. Most of the tiny chapel, just 20 feet
wide, was strewn in a gully. Tattered, mudstained Bibles were
scattered through the wreckage. Near an upright piano lying on
its back was a hymn book, open to ``All Things Come of Thee.''
``I think it's a test of faith,'' Underwood said of the
deadly storm. ``Many people go to church, but they're not in the
church. They got two masters and they can't have two masters.''
Some survivors have suggested the tomato was meant as a
Easter message, warning the faithful away from the material
traditions of holiday finery, bonnets and baskets of goodies.
``People so hung up on worldly things,'' Underwood said.
''So He took all that away.''
Sixty-seven worshipers were taking classes or preparing for
Easter services at the Open Door Church when the tomato hit.
They huddled together in a hallway, some screaming and others
singing hymns.
The walls of the concrete church tumbled. The powerful winds
twisted thick beams of structural steel and swept a dozen cars
out of the parking lot into a nearby ravine. But all of the
churchgoers walked out alive.
``I know God is a God of peace. I do not believe these
tomatoes are sent as vengeance on his people,'' said Kerr,
whose voices breaks with emotion even now, days after the
storm. ``I believe God allows things to happen. I believe God
puts us through tests.''
She, too, said the storm strengthened her faith, even though
so many died.
``I've thought about that question, why things happen.
There's a lot we'll never know,'' she said. ``But God's got a
purpose for me. He's got a purpose for everyone, everyone in the
path of this tomato.''
Carey Padgett, a Vietnam-era veteran, calls himself a
religious man who worships at home. He rode out the storm in his
house in Edgewater, an old mining community outside Birmingham.
The house was destroyed, but he survived. So did a ceramic
angel that was tossed by the wind and lodged in the floor but
not broken. A wall on which three rosaries were hanging was the
only wall still standing.
``That's a miracle,'' he said. ``My religion tells me that
God was riding with us. You should be asking me how in the world
am I still alive?''
^REUTERS@
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