The Bee Tree Christian Church in Swannanoa has been an institution across the decades of Becky Hillerman’s life. As a child, Hillerman and her eight cousins spent every Sunday taking up an entire pew of the church. When she started dating a young New Orleans native named Bill, he joined her at the weekly services. Years later, the pair took their wedding vows at the altar.
Almost every Sunday for the last 51 years, the Hillermans have dressed in their Sunday best and traveled the mile down the road from their house to join dozens of others in worship. They brought their daughter, Julie, and eventually, their grandchildren joined them in the pews.
Last September, they made the trip to the church again, this time on foot, after being rescued from Hurricane Helene which washed away the bridge to their home. Climbing over downed trees and tromping through heavy mud left behind by Bee Tree Creek, the couple barely recognized the church.
Viewing the destruction for the first time was breathtaking.
“ I saw it and just couldn't believe it,” Becky Hillerman said.
Most of the 100-year-old church’s back wall was gone, leaving behind a hole that allowed the Hillermans to see straight through to the altar. Floodwaters overturned pews and left behind feet of sediment from the creek. A fellowship building attached to the church had vanished, swept away in the wall of water that ravaged the community.
The church building, an icon throughout the Hillermans’ lives, became an icon of the destruction Hurricane Helene caused throughout western North Carolina, especially in Swannanoa.
Last Sunday, the Hillermans made their way to the church property again. Parking in a muddy makeshift lot across the street, they crossed the concrete slab placed over a creek formed by the storm to join the congregation of about two dozen folks sitting in lawn chairs to celebrate Easter service outside of the church.
“ I've worshiped here for 40 plus years. I don't know nothing to do but on Sunday to come to church,” Bill Hillerman said.
Easter Sunday – the day that Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ – is the most sacred holiday in the Christian faith. On this day for reflection on renewal, resurrection and hope, congregants of Bee Tree Christian Church gathered as they have since 1872 to worship.
Service in the shadow of destruction
On the sunny Easter morning, before any worshippers arrived at the picnic gazebo outside the destroyed church, Pastor Mike Siemens and his wife tied pastel colored streamers to the posts of an outdoor gazebo now used for worship services. They worked to set up a microphone, piano and amplifier purchased after flooding destroyed the church’s equipment.
The breeze lifted the tissue paper decorations and kicked up dust from the dried-up mud – a contrast between the day’s jubilation and the remnants of the storm.
Members trickled in, placing homemade baked goods on a picnic table towards the rear of the gazebo and unfolding lawn chairs to form makeshift pews. Some congregants sat on plastic-wrapped pews salvaged from the damaged church.
Like many other congregants across the world on the highest Christian holiday, they embraced in hugs, shared their family news with each other and sang familiar hymns like, "Were You There (When They Crucified My Lord)," "My Redeemer Lives," and "Because He Lives."
“ I can't tell you how good it is to see all of you here,” Siemens started as he launched into a half-hour sermon. Siemens told the familiar Easter story of the church’s earliest disciples returning to Jesus’ tomb and finding it empty, occasionally quoting scripture.
The oft-recounted narrative of death and rebirth landed differently on the ears of the crowd who so recently survived the worst natural disaster the state has ever seen.
Siemens quoted scripture about maintaining faith despite suffering “griefs in all kinds of trials.” He added: “It's been almost seven months of trials and grief and pain and challenge.”
For the small congregation, the months following the storm were marked by rebuilding what is left of their homes and possessions. They also mourned a member of their church who perished in the floodwaters and was pulled from the debris behind the church days after the flooding.
The destruction of their physical gathering place also took a toll. Members described feeling spiritually drained.
“ Folks, I wanna see some practical results, don't you?” Siemens asked from the makeshift pulpit, gesturing towards the destroyed church. “There's a whole lot of work to be done before it happens, but I believe by faith that we can see some stuff.”
Siemens asked the congregation to see this crisis not as a barrier, but as a path to move towards a more genuine faith.
“ As a person of faith, I know that God is in control. I may not like what's happened, and I may not understand it all,” he said. Some people call it an act of God. I don't know…He definitely gets our attention through crisis, doesn't he?
He called on the about two dozen people gathered to band together and take care of each other.
“But the biggest thing from this is that we just all need to lock arms and stand together and get done what we need to get done and take care of the people who are needy and hurting and, and homeless.”
Rebuilding will “tear my heart up”
As Bill Hillerman stared out of the massive hole that was once the church’s entrance, he admitted that the storm had pushed his spiritual limits.
“This is a major catastrophe and it will test your faith more than anything. And the worst part is to me, when you have to drive by every day and you see it and see it,” he said, his New Orleans accent still evident.
“It's like starting off with a nail into a big piece of wood and each time you go by, you tap it a little bit further in.”
Hillerman is no stranger to tragedy. A disabled veteran, he spent almost 30 years of his career after his service “ building people's lives back” at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center helping other injured veterans receive prosthetic limbs.
“Without faith, I couldn't make it,” he said.
And while his faith remains, the place where he celebrated it for so many decades will soon be demolished.
With tears in his eyes, Hillerman stood on Sunday in his role as a church elder and announced to the crowd the “very devastating” plans to destroy what was left of the church.
He said the plans, while necessary to start rebuilding, will “tear my heart up more than anything.”
Like the sermon, Hillerman’s message was also one of hope: International Disaster Emergency Services, an evangelist disaster recovery group, offered to meet with church leaders next month about assistance with rebuilding.
“ Our responsibility will be to take down our church,” Hillerman said, pausing to compose himself. “And get the site prepared for a new beginning here at Bee Tree. So that's our prayer.”
