Above the exiting door frame of Pleasant Home Baptist Church is a sign that reads, “Now you are entering the mission field.”
Despite significant damage to the church’s building structures delivered by Sunday’s Easter tornado – a devastating 68-mile track through Jefferson Davis, Covington, Jones, Jasper, and Lauderdale counties – the congregation is living out those words.
“That sign was put up ten or so years ago by a pastor that is now over at Hebron,” said the current pastor of Pleasant Home Baptist Church, Caleb Rawls. “They started to develop a real desire to be the hands and feet of Jesus [as a church]. It’s a big reminder now. We’re not worried about what our buildings look like now. We want to get our community back on its feet.”
On Easter Sunday, within a matter of just a few hours, the most celebrated day of the year turned into an evening of mayhem and sadness.
“We recorded a sermon on Thursday and premiered it on Sunday morning at 11 o’clock,” said Rawls. “We’re a little old-fashioned and a church that loves to be together, so to not have the ability to meet kills us [inside]; but we were trying to comply with the government and health officials.
“The shift from our celebration [of Easter] to the grief side of things [from the tornado] was difficult.”
Rawls, 25, who lives near Ellisville, was south of the tornado’s path when he began to receive calls and texts.
“About half of our members live right around the church,” Rawls explained. “So when bad weather hits, I check in on our elderly and shut-ins. Normally when it’s bad weather, I get a lot of ‘I’m fine’ or ‘no worries.’ But Sunday I got several texts saying it was bad.”
When Rawls reached Matthews Road, he received word that several members were trapped under the rubble where their house once stood. Getting there to assist in the rescue took some time.
“We had to cut our way down Matthews Road,” said Rawls. “Deputies were starting to pull out the granddad and granddaughter when we got there. They were banged up pretty bad.”
Remaining under the rubble was the family’s grandmother and mother.
“Two of them were still inside, and they couldn’t move,” recalled Rawls. “One was unconscious but still breathing. So we worked with paramedics, cutting them out [of the rubble] and putting them on boards to haul them up the road to Highway 15 so they could get them in the ambulance.”
On the way down Matthews Road, Rawls caught a quick glimpse of the church he pastors. The damage was significant. Some buildings were reduced to rubble, while others, though still standing, were a complete loss.
“I took a quick look,” said Rawls, “and my first thought was our church is gone, but I have to get to my people first.”
Days later, inside of the damaged sanctuary, with its shattered stainless windows, is a bountiful supply of clothes, water, tarps, and other essentials to help the suffering community around it.
Rawls says the needs of the community come first, genuinely embodying the identity of a real Christ-centered church — meeting the needs of others before self, much like what Christ did as an example for ‘the church.’
“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” - Philippians 2:5-8
“Monday we started the rebuilding process [of the community],” said Rawls. “It has taken on different stages to bring us to where we are today. [As a church] we’re more focused on the people in our community and how we can help them.”
To help Pleasant Home Baptist Church, its congregation, and the community, Rawls can be contacted at 601-344-8657 or caleb.phbc@gmail.com.