a destroyed church after several tornados swept through Alabama

Got trouble? Have faith, say residents of America’s most religious state

COVID-19 may shutter their sanctuaries, and tornadoes may destroy their homes. But for many Alabamians, their faith remains a mighty fortress.

The Ragan Chapel Methodist Church was destroyed in a series of tornadoes that swept through Ohatchee, Alabama, and killed five people on March 25, 2021. “With all the stuff going with COVID-19 you can get down, and maybe this was sent to pick our faith back up: people from all over the state and other states, people don’t even speak English and they’re helping,” said the church’s pastor Danny Poss.
ByNia Hightower
Photographs byNatalie Keyssar
April 16, 2021
20 min read

Candice Clark-Eaton was ready for a vacation. After a year of keeping herself and her two sons safe from COVID-19, as well as checking in on her senior parents and juggling a hybrid schedule of in-person and remote work, she finally got a chance to slip away and meet her boyfriend in Charleston, South Carolina.

She knew bad weather was coming, so she quickly dropped off her sons at her parents’ home— less than two miles from her house in Wellington, Alabama—and managed to get on the road ahead of the storm. But only 90 minutes into her journey, she got a call from a friend back in Wellington.

people clean up debris after homes were destroyed by tornados in Alabama
Volunteers help clear debris caused by tornadoes in Ohatchee, Alabama, on March 27, 2021.
a boy helps clean debris from homes destroyed by tornados in Alabama
Ryder Pinson, 13, volunteered with his mom through Habitat for Humanity to help those impacted by the storm.
a woman stands in the remains of her home after it was destroyed by a tornado
Candice Eaton stands in her ruined kitchen on March 27. Although the house was empty when the tornado hit, Eaton was in a car accident while on her way home to survey the damage. This is the second home Eaton has been a victim of storms. “If I wasn’t religious… I don’t know where I’d be at right now,” she said.

A tornado had ripped through her neighborhood. “It looks pretty bad, Candice,” her friend said. “You’re going to need to come back.” She turned around and headed home.

That day—March 25, 2021—a swarm of deadly tornadoes swept through the South, killing five people in Calhoun County, where Clark-Eaton lives, and leaving a 100-mile path of destruction across north central Alabama.

Clark-Eaton’s family was safe, but as she drove home she couldn’t avoid flashbacks of April 27, 2011, when tornadoes claimed the lives of 13 people in her county. She lost everything that day and had to rebuild her life. Now she faced the possibility of having to start all over—again.

LIMITED TIME OFFER

Get a FREE tote featuring 1 of 7 ICONIC PLACES OF THE WORLD

Driving through heavy rain, wondering what trouble lay ahead, she prayed everything would be OK. Suddenly she was startled when a nearby car hydroplaned and hit her vehicle. A state trooper arrived, and she stood in the rain crying as they waited for her car to be towed. Then her tears turned to laughter.

“I laughed because I knew that God has a bigger purpose for me,” she explains. Later, when one of her friends asked how she could continue trusting God through all her misfortunes, she replied, “Because I make it through, you know, I make it through. If there wasn’t a God and he’s not listening, I don’t think I could.”

people attend a Catholic mass in Alabama
Members of St. Margaret of Scotland Catholic Church hold a candlelight vigil the night before Easter Sunday on April 3, 2021 in Foley, Alabama. Father Paul Zohgby has conducted bilingual Mass for the past eight years in order to reach the town’s growing Latino community. “We need a church with big fat open arms. Bilingual services brings everyone together,” he says.
two women attend a church service near a battleship in Alabama
Two women attend the 51st annual Sunrise Easter Service led by Pastor Charles Brown of the Government Street Baptist Church at the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park in Mobile, Alabama, on April 4. The event was cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic.
a woman and her daughter attend church in Alabama
The New Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church held its first in-person service since the beginning of the pandemic on Easter Sunday in Mobile, Alabama. Pastor Clinton L Johnson, Sr. began and ended service by encouraging his congregation to get vaccinated. “The virus will kill you, the vaccine won’t,” he preached.

When Clark-Eaton arrived at her house, the walls were still standing but the roof was gone. She unlocked the door and found the interior in ruins. Very few of her possessions were salvageable.

The nearby Church of the Highlands, a megachurch with more than 20 locations across Alabama, helped the single mother of two start rebuilding her life. There’s not much to see or do in her little town, she says, “but the people are amazing.”

Strength in sorrow

Over the past 13 months or so, Americans have had to deal with an array of crises—from a deadly pandemic and natural disasters, to political strife and social unrest. And like Clark-Eaton, many have turned to their faith for comfort and strength.

Nearly three in 10 Americans, or about 28 percent, report having a stronger personal faith as a result of the pandemic, according to a survey conducted earlier this year by the Pew Research Center. Some 77 percent of adults in Alabama say religion is “very important” in their lives, a higher percentage than in any other state.

a man prays while attending a church service in Alabama
Pastor Dewayne Rembert prays during a sermon delivered by the associate pastor Keelan Adams at the Flatline Church at Chisholm in Montgomery, Alabama, on March 28, 2021. It was the church’s first indoor service since the pandemic.
a group of people attends a church service on a beach in Alabama
People attend a Good Friday service at the Central Church of Flora-Bama, located on the border of Florida and Alabama, on April 2. The church offers non-denominational Christian services to both locals and tourists and preaches that “it’s ok to not be ok.”
men pray at a mosque in Alabama
Worshippers bow together in front of the Huntsville Islamic Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for Friday prayers on March 19. The mosque holds services indoors but there is limited space due to social distancing, so many who cannot fit or prefer to be outside pray outdoors where loudspeakers project the voice of the Imam.
a man sits in his car during the burning of the Chametz
Shmuel Sanders sits in his friend’s car after attending a ceremony to burn chametz, the leavened and non-kosher products Jews abstain from consuming during Passover, at the Temple Beth-El in Birmingham, Alabama on March 26.
sisters stand outside a cathedral after church in Alabama
Sisters Temple, Sophia, Isabella and Hallie Zimlich, three of whom are quintuplets, stand outside of the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception in Mobile, Alabama, on April 2. “I wasn’t sure if graduation and my plan to be a teacher weren’t in my timeline when things were disrupted, but we were able to say ‘ok God, in your time.’ I’m graduating in May. We trusted God, and he was faithful to his promises,” says Temple Zimlich.

Like Clark-Eaton, the Rev. Cecelia Walker suffered damage to her home when the tornadoes hit on March 25. But a far greater challenge has been her work at Brookwood Baptist Health System in Birmingham, where she serves as executive director of chaplaincy and clinical pastoral education.

Over the course of the pandemic—which has killed more than 10,000 Alabama residents—Walker and her staff have spent countless hours praying with patients fighting for their lives, coordinating family visits on Zoom or FaceTime, and providing pastoral care to the hospital staff when all the pain and suffering become too much to bear and compassion fatigue sets in.

It takes empathy to help people through times of illness and loss, says Walker, a former librarian who first felt a tug toward the chaplaincy when her father died in 1985. She and her mother didn’t get a call until it was too late, and her father passed away in a small hospital room, half naked and alone. The experience, she says, “haunted me for years.”

the face shield of a hospital chaplain sits in his office
Malcolm Marler, a chaplain at the University of Alabama Hospital in Birmingham, hangs his face shield in his office near a note sent to hospital workers from a child. He says the greatest challenge of the pandemic was being physically distanced from patients and their families.
a woman makes a flower arrangement over Zoom for Passover
The Sisterhood of Temple Emanu-El, a Jewish Synagogue in Birmingham, held a flower arrangement class via Zoom for its members to create floral pieces for their Seders on March 25, 2021. Sylvia Wright, the Sisterhood’s president, had planned to host the meeting but tornados knocked out her home internet service. After joining another member at her house, Wright created an arrangement despite the storm and the pandemic.
a woman stands in front of her home in Alabama
Dr. Cecelia Walker, the Executive Director of Chaplaincy and Clinical Pastoral Education at Princeton Baptist Medical Center stands among the debris from a tornado in her neighborhood in Birmingham, Alabama, on March 31, 2021. Over the past year of compounding crisis, Walker has guided her staff of chaplains and chaplaincy students to ease the spiritual burdens of patients and staff at the hospital.
a chaplain and a nurse pray over a baby in a hospital in Alabama
Demetrea Williams, right, a staff chaplain at Princeton Baptist Medical Center in Birmingham, prays with one of the nurses over Kodi Owens who was born the previous night. He was born small but healthy, and the two prayed for his health and wellbeing. "I want people to know that we aren't just here for deaths," Williams said.

A few years later, in 1988, Walker’s husband died suddenly at age 28, but the experience was very different from her father’s death. “I was able to talk to him, say whatever I wanted, to spend that time. And the chaplain was present but not intrusive, and just helped me through that.”

Years later, death claimed both of Walker’s children—her daughter at 14, her son at 31. Their deaths sorely tested her faith, but beloved Bible passages such as Psalm 23 and Deuteronomy 31:6-8—“scriptures that remind me of his presence, of God’s faithfulness”—sustained her.

“God will never leave me nor forsake me,” Walker says. “But sometimes scripture is the last thing that a person wants when they feel like God has failed them.”

In those times, it’s the presence of faithful friends, family, and fellow believers that can make the difference between hope and despair. But maintaining those vital connections during the pandemic has been difficult to impossible for many religious communities.

Restoring lost connections

Attendance at Temple Beth-El in Birmingham was flagging when Rabbi Stephen Slater arrived two years ago. He got busy and after “a lot of hard work and careful planning and relationship building,” he says, the Shabbat morning service was back up to full capacity. “So we started serving a meal again, and people were here until like 2:30 p.m. on Saturday—like five hours here together.”

members of Temple Beth-El gather in a parking lot the day before Passover
Members of the Temple Beth-El, led by Rabbi Stephen Slater, gather for the ritual burning of chametz in the temple’s parking lot in Birmingham on March 26. Many observers had not seen in each other in months and the morning tradition was also a time to reconnect
a family taking part in Seder in Alabama
Susan Greene of the Birmingham Jewish Federation and her husband Steve hosted a Seder for four generations of their family on March 27. The large group hadn’t gathered indoors for a year, and they celebrated the festival of peace and freedom with extra relief now that all the adults present were vaccinated.
Photograph by Natalie Keyssar, National Geographic
a woman hosts a Passover seder on Zoom from her home
Margaret Norman, the engagement and collaboration coordinator for Temple Beth-El in Birmingham, hosts a Zoom second night Passover Seder from her home, complete with games and breakout rooms to engage the congregation’s members, on March 28.

Then came the pandemic and the year we all stayed home. “In Jewish tradition, you really can’t do even a prayer service alone,” Slater says. “It requires 10 people for a minyan”—the minimum number required for Jewish public worship.

A few weeks ago, just before Passover, Temple Beth-El began allowing its members to sign up for in-person services if they’ve received a second vaccine dose at least two weeks prior. But it will be quite some time before the synagogue is again full of people enjoying worship and long conversations over lunch.

New Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Mobile faces much the same challenge. The church reopened for the first time in nearly a year on Easter Sunday. On a normal Easter the sanctuary would be filled with more than 750 churchgoers. This Easter about 150 showed up and spaced themselves out appropriately in the sanctuary. The church’s pastor, Rev. Clinton Johnson, asked each member to stand and give themselves a hug, as if he were embracing them.

a church service in Alabama
The New Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Mobile, Alabama, held its first in-person service since the start of the pandemic on Easter Sunday April 4, led by Pastor Clinton L. Johnson, Sr. The service featured songs from the church’s praise team and masked, socially distanced worship meant to keep everyone safe since the church’s community was hard hit by the virus.
a church-goer eats a wafer at church in Alabama
A worshiper opens a prepackaged wafer and cup of grape juice to take as communion during Easter service at the New Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Mobile, Alabama.
a women in a pink hat after attending church services
Terrie Moffet, a member of the New Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Mobile, Alabama, dressed in pink to attend the church’s in-person Easter service.

For Johnson, the inability to personally comfort and console the members of his flock has been one of the hardest parts of the pandemic. “Normally, a pastor is there when someone is in need,” Johnson says. “You can either go to their home, the hospital, or nursing home, and you sit with them, and you can hold their hands and you can pray. This virus just doesn’t allow for this.”

Staying grounded through faith

When Rizwan Syed contracted the virus last October, an ambulance rushed him to the hospital in Huntsville, where he was diagnosed with pneumonia. The experience was traumatic as he kept thinking of what would become of his wife and children should something happen to him. But expressions of concern and support from fellow members of the Huntsville Islamic Center, the mosque he and his family attend, helped keep him grounded through the ordeal.

men pray at the Huntsville Islamic
Worshippers gathered at the Huntsville Islamic Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for Friday Prayers led by Imam Ragab Abdelmoneim on March 19. The Islamic Center provides a variety of services to the community including an Islamic school, a free Sunday medical, and event spaces for local organizations.
a man poses for a portrait outside the Huntsville Islamic Center in Alabama
Idris Leslie stands in front of the Huntsville Islamic Center in Huntsville, Alabama, after Friday's midday prayer on March 19. He converted to Islam 1996 and believes that gathering at the mosque, or Masjid in Arabic, is central to the religion. "The Masjid is a big part of Muslim life. You can go to YouTube or read books but you learn Islam, you live Islam, at the Masjid," he says.
a woman poses for a portrait outside her home
Mussarat Qureshi stands outside her home in Athens, Alabama, on March 20. She became the principal of the Islamic school at the Huntsville Islamic Center last year and has continued in-person learning for students with strict masking and social distancing policies to keep teachers and students safe.
a family exits a mobile health clinic in Alabama
The Huntsville Islamic Center offers free medical care to anyone on Sundays regardless of their religion or whether they’re insured. Doctor Iqbal Saeed volunteers his time seeing patients, and Pre-Med student Simra Syed, 19, does basic patient intake. Abdu Hbaze brought his wife, pictured, to the clinic to check on her chronic headaches.

“When I was in the hospital,” he says, “close community, whoever had my number, called or texted me. They were sending me prayers.”

The mosque has remained open during the pandemic and implemented all the prescribed precautions—masks, hand sanitizer stations, and social distancing. Medical professionals who attend the center are providing a free clinic for community members each Sunday, even offering COVID-19 vaccinations at no charge.

Like the Islamic Center, many churches have stepped up their efforts to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, and help the hurting. First Missionary Baptist Church in Huntsville held a series of food drives last year, and it has partnered with the state agriculture department to continue providing food to families in need.

Carolyn Landry, an associate minister at the church, began helping with its counseling services in response to a 300 percent spike in demand. “We are going through a health crisis, economic crisis, and a crisis of racial justice,” she says. “You have people dealing with feelings of isolation, dealing with grief from the loss of loved ones, parents of children who are having a hard time adjusting to all the changes.”

people attend church services in Alabama
Worshippers in the balcony of the Iron City Church in Birmingham, Alabama, extended their hands in prayer during a song on March 21, 2021. The church focuses on unity and diversity and held a moment of silence for the victims of the Atlanta shootings that happened on March 16, 2021.
a pastor sits in his church in Alabama
Pastor Demetrius Hicks sits among the pews at the Iron City Church in Birmingham. Hicks lost his mother to COVID-19 in January and in the past year lost a brother, was in a car accident, and had several other personal tragedies. He believes these experiences tested but ultimately strengthened his faith.
a woman prays during a church service in Alabama
Melodie Lewis prays during an afternoon Sunday service at the Iron City Church in Birmingham on March 21, 2021. "Faith 1000 percent helped me get through pandemic. The suffering was a reminder that God can help redeem everything that is broken. God takes broken things and heals. Like Japanese vases put back together with gold," she says.

The crisis of racial justice has been a top concern for Rev. Demetrius Hicks, a pastor at Iron City Church in Birmingham. Hicks has spent a good amount of time talking to his young congregation—mostly students from the nearby University of Alabama at Birmingham—about the killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and, more recently, six women of Asian descent in Atlanta.

Living in the birthplace of the civil rights movement, Hicks harkens back to the days when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. marched the streets of Birmingham and Montgomery.

“One of the things I love about Dr. King is he saw beyond the day that they were living in,” Hicks says. “He saw the end, and I think that’s what kept him fighting and doing the things that he was called to do. And I live in that legacy of fighters and survivors.”

This work was supported by the National Geographic Society's COVID-19 Emergency Fund for Journalists.



Go Further