Today being Christmas eve, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year. In addition to being a time of celebration, for many of us this is also a time for reflection on the past.
It was 4 years ago yesterday that the sanctuary at Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church was completely destroyed by fire.
I suspect that nobody who was present the morning of December 23, 2007 will ever forget that day. It was like a bad dream waking up on Sunday morning 2 days before Christmas, learning that your church had been reduced to ruins in an overnight fire.
After a lot of work, study and planning, a new sanctuary was built to replace that which burned and it opened on the 2nd anniversary of the fire, December 23, 2009.
Yesterday, two years after the first service in the new sanctuary, a sculpture was dedicated to mark the place in history where the congregation moved beyond the tragedy of the fire to continue forward. The sculpture was created by Jim Smith from a twisted, melted steel beam that was part of the roof support structure in the original sanctuary. You can clearly see in the 2nd image above the steel beams melted and sagging from the intense heat of the fire.
Below are a few more images of the new church.
The 60 rank pipe organ was built and installed by A.E. Schulter Pipe Organ Company of Lithonia, Georgia. I created this image using a fisheye lens from behind the antiphonal organ.
It was 4 years ago yesterday that the sanctuary at Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church was completely destroyed by fire.
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| #N_16855 - Before the fire |
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| #N_35818 |
I suspect that nobody who was present the morning of December 23, 2007 will ever forget that day. It was like a bad dream waking up on Sunday morning 2 days before Christmas, learning that your church had been reduced to ruins in an overnight fire.
After a lot of work, study and planning, a new sanctuary was built to replace that which burned and it opened on the 2nd anniversary of the fire, December 23, 2009.
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| #N_78383 |
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| #N_111631 - The "Rising" by artist Jim Smith |
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| #N_78409 - Outside at night |
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| #N_78851B - Inside Stained Glass |
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| #N_78158 - Antiphonal Organ (fisheye view) |
It's been unfortunate and a blessing to learn of the events noted here. The fisheye lens gives an interesting perspective of the pipe organ with the image above it presenting the more realistic view. An audible file would be very well suited to this page when possible.
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