On Thursday evening, July 10th, Choir members arrived at the Aubrey United Methodist Church for a specially called Choir Practice.  When the Director, Colleen Darraugh, arrived and entered the church, she found it filled with a grey smoke. Thinking someone had set off some bug bombs to treat the building, we decided to move choir practice to another location. Before leaving, we chose to go back in and grab a few hymnals.  Another Choir Member (and Chair of the Administrative Council), Kelby Trusty, did not think it smelled like smoke.  Together we decided to take a big breath and enter the church in search of either bug bombs or a source of fire.  Kelby found the altar on fire.

What appears to have happened is that the altar's candles were not completely extinguished.  Between the heat of the burning candles and the air conditioning turned off in the building, the candlesticks may have leaned over and fallen onto the altar bible.  We do not know this for sure but that is the theory.  The altar bible burned completely.  The heat gathered in the center of the bible and smoldered for days.  Eventually it burned through the Bible and completely through the altar table until it fell to the floor below.  Miraculously the carpet burned only where the ash fell.  The wood floor below the carpet is scorched.  The entire top of the altar table is burned.  The plastic top that protected the altar looks like it melted first and then burned.  There is a small piece of the altar cloth from one corner that is left.  The rest is ashes.  The candle sticks, baptism bowl and cross are all burned from the heat and marked with black smoke.  The offering plates are warped from the heat and one is burned into the table.  The church was filled with smoke including the fellowship Hall.  It is truly a miracle that the church did not burn down! As the insurance representative said, in all of his years as an adjustor he had never seen anything like this. He was amazed that an altar table, surrounded by a beautiful wood altar area, was the only wood that burned in the fire.

Truly we were saved by the Word of God! Because paper often burns slowly, the Bible itself was our salvation as it smoldered for five days.  As is the case in worship, Choirs support the message of the Bible and once again the Bible was backed-up by the Choir!   If we hadn’t had choir practice, the fire would have kept smoldering and who knows, we might have lost the whole church!  Our Pastor, Lyle Benson, thought it best to collect the ashes of the Bible that had saved the church and use these miracle ashes at our Ash Wednesday service next year.

This fire also brought us some wonderful press coverage. During the following week, the Church fire made the front page of our local news and was mentioned in four other spots in the paper! It helped us get the word out about our Choir and our new Pastor!

May God use this incident to reach into the hearts and lives of the people of Aubrey.

Join us in saying a prayer of thankfulness! 

Submitted by Colleen Darraugh, Communications Manager, Aubrey UMC