Amid Tornado’s Rubble, Easter Message Is Embraced

The pulpit of the Open Door Baptist Church lay shattered amid rubble during the Easter sunrise service Sunday, destroyed along with the rest of the building by a monster tornado.

But hundreds of worshipers who gathered in the church parking lot four days after the deadly storm still heard a message of rebirth, love and healing.

“There’s a time to cry,” said Pastor Rick Cooper, standing on the remains of a concrete wall and before a wooden cross hung from an exposed steel girder. “But let me tell you: Life is important.”

Sixty-nine people huddled inside a central hallway as the Open Door church was demolished Wednesday night by a tornado with winds exceeding 260 mph. All survived.

Forty people, 33 in Alabama, died when tornadoes swept across the South.

Funerals that began Saturday continued on Easter. One followed the worship service at nearby Rock Creek Church of God, which lost six members.

Rock Creek has its own miracle story: 20 children and four adults walked out unharmed after the tornado destroyed the church’s adjacent gymnasium.

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Elsewhere, President Clinton spent a quiet holiday weekend at Camp David, Md., attending Easter Sunday church services with his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and receiving thanks from world leaders for his role in helping to broker a Northern Ireland peace agreement.

The president and first lady strolled around the camp’s grounds and attended a baptism for the baby of a Marine stationed there, according to White House spokesman Joe Lockhart.

Lockhart said the president also took telephone calls from British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.