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Tennessee: How firm a foundation

By: Ben Benton
(Contact)

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David Hoschar

KIMBALL, Tenn. — The last time the ground turned in connection with Kimball Baptist Church it was inside the vortex of a tornado.

On Sunday, the congregation will see shovels turning the soil at the site of a new building to replace the one destroyed by a tornado on Nov. 14, 2007, pastor David Hoschar said.

“Just seeing it finally get moving is a big plus. It’s exciting for us,” Mr. Hoschar said Wednesday.

Since the tornado, services have been held in a vacant furniture store across the street from the old church site that’s now up for sale, he said.

Contractor Lofty Construction Co. started site work during the week and could finish grading work and the concrete pad by mid-September, he said.

Mr. Hoschar said the church was working on plans for a new building when the tornado struck, but no one expected construction to start for several years.

“When the tornado came it sort of nudged us forward,” he said.

The twister plowed a 200-yard-wide path, hitting seven city-owned buildings and 35 private buildings and causing an estimated $2.5 million in damage.

The tornado hit on a Wednesday night when about 25 people were in the sanctuary and a dozen children were in the wing that sustained the most damage.

Judy Cartwright, chairwoman of the church’s building committee, was in the sanctuary when 130-mph winds blasted the church.

A fellow church member got a cell phone call and said a tornado had been spotted on the ground in Marion County, she said.

“It was just a very short time, just minutes afterward, that we lost power,” she said.

Mrs. Cartwright sent a text message to her 20-year-old daughter, who was with a youth group in the Sunday school wing. Then she and another member moved to the church’s front doors.

“The wind was just really, really strong,” she said. “I remember having a conversation with the other member that the wind looked so strong that it was swirling and at that capacity it could pick up the cars.

“The front doors began to rattle a little bit from all the wind,” she said.

“I actually got under the back pew of the church during the tornado,” she said. “The front doors of the church came open and debris was coming down the center aisle of the church. I could hear the noise and the cars crashing.

“It was just a few seconds and it was over,” she said.

Miraculously, there were no serious injuries even in the demolished wing where the children were, she said.

“We were very blessed and thankful that night,” Mrs. Cartwright said. “We were fine and that’s all that mattered.”

Now the congregation is looking ahead.

The more than $1.5 million church project is not fully funded, Mrs. Cartwright said. The former church site so far has drawn no buyers, she said.

“We were insured, but I will tell you that we are building this church on faith,” she said.

“We can use donations, we can use a buyer, we can use all the assistance we can get,” she said. “We’re not worried about funding it, because we feel like this is the direction that God wants us to go in.”

Mr. Hoschar said he hopes the first services will be held in November.

Nov. 14 has been a significant date for the church and its pastor.

“The very first service they had in the sanctuary was Nov. 14, 1949,” he said.

Mr. Hoschar was a student at Marshall University when a plane crash on Nov. 14, 1970, killed 75 people, including the school’s football team. The crash and the school’s reaction were the subject of the film, “We Are Marshall.”

The pastor hopes for a positive connection to the date in 2008.

“The way things are moving, we may be in the new building on Nov. 14, you never know,” Mr. Hoschar said.

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