The Church That Became Home After the Storm

When Hurricane Helene tore through Asheville, North Carolina in September 2024, Marcus Jennings lost nearly everything — his car submerged, his apartment gutted by floodwater. For three days he slept in his truck on a ridge above the Swannanoa River, rationing granola bars and wondering if anyone knew he was alive.

On the fourth morning, a neighbor knocked on his window and said five words: "Come on. Church is open."

Marcus hadn't attended services in years. But he followed the neighbor down muddy roads to a small Baptist church on higher ground. Inside, he found hot coffee, dry clothes, and sixty strangers who treated him like family. Volunteers had driven from Tennessee with generators. A retired nurse was checking blood pressures in the fellowship hall. Children were coloring at folding tables while their parents wept with relief.

"I walked through those doors and something broke open in me," Marcus told a reporter weeks later. "Not because the building was special. Because the people were there. Together. I didn't know I'd been so alone until I wasn't anymore."

The psalmist David understood that feeling. "I rejoiced with those who said to me, 'Let us go to the house of the Lord.'" Psalm 122 isn't mainly about architecture or ritual — it's about the deep human joy of arriving among God's people, of belonging somewhere that prays for your peace. The pilgrim's gladness was never about the destination alone. It was about who was already there, waiting.