HORSESHOE BEACH, Fla. – Devastation as far as the eye can see. Piles of debris lining the roads. Remnants of life as it used to be.
Known for its laid-back, friendly fishing village vibe, the quaint community of Horseshoe Beach found itself directly in the recent path of Hurricane Helene’s 140 mph winds and 20-foot storm surge. Today, the community is in pieces once again.
Horseshoe Beach, like other communities in Florida’s Big Bend region, has experienced three hurricanes in just 13 months – Hurricane Idalia in August 2023, Hurricane Debby in August 2024 and now Hurricane Helene.
‘Lean on His promises’
“Satan is breathing down our necks, and the challenge we again face for the third time in less than 13 months is overwhelming to our minds,” said Donnie Ownby, pastor of First Baptist Church in Horseshoe Beach.
The church, in the pastor’s eyes, may be overwhelmed, but it is not defeated.
“Still at the break of dawn, here in our refuge, we simply lean on His promises!”
Ownby has learned what it means to lead his congregation to weather the storm and trust God.
He and his wife first arrived to serve the small church in September 2023, just days after Hurricane Idalia unleashed 125 mph winds and a 10-foot storm surge in the region, causing extensive damage throughout the community and not sparing the church facility.
At that time, the congregation lost its piano, pews and sound system, and many Bibles and hymnals were left floating away in Idalia’s aftermath. The parsonage was a drenched mess, with appliances and personal items soaked.
The congregation had gone for more than a year without a pastor, and that was not how church members wanted to welcome the new pastor.
As Ownby and his wife arrived and began investing their lives in the community, a year-long floor-to-ceiling renovation of both the sanctuary and parsonage – including new drywall, flooring and kitchen cabinets – began.
And then, just as renovations were being completed and celebrated, Hurricane Helene threatened the community.
During the past 13 months, the former Tennessee pastor has learned a thing or two about hurricane preparation. Before Hurricane Helene’s landfall, church members rallied together by emptying out all furniture and other items from the newly-renovated church facility and parsonage into dry storage and a moving truck.
Ownby took to social media to show a deep gratitude for those who served the church, despite their own homes being at risk.
“So many to thank, so many feelings that cannot be expressed, nor even words that can describe the gratitude I feel for those who helped move both church and parsonage furniture before the arrival of this storm,” Ownby said. “They sacrificed their own needs to care for mine.”
With the church furniture and other movable items deemed safe from the hurricane’s fury, the sanctuary and parsonage felt the storm’s full impact.
Today, the interior of the sanctuary, home to life’s joys and sorrows for many years, is an empty water-logged shell.
Still, hanging on the wall of the church fellowship hall, draped in purple, is the cross of Christ, unscathed by the storm.
Outside, as a testimony to God’s faithfulness for the entire community, the church steeple still rises high into the now-blue skies.
The cross and the steeple energize and inspire the people.
The heartbeat of the congregation, the only church within a 20-mile radius, is to be laser-focused on rebuilding and continuing to be a lighthouse for the community, the pastor said.
“We will rebuild,” said Ownby. “We may be cast down, but we will not be defeated. God is able.”
See a video about the devastation in Horseshoe Beach here.
Hopeful help
Although Lake City, located about 70 miles east of Horseshoe Beach, may have been spared the brunt of Hurricane Helene’s record-setting storm surge and fierce winds, the storm still forced many in the community to search for basic needs.
That’s when Hopeful Baptist Church, in partnership with One More Child, stepped in to meet those needs.
The One More Child truck, fully stocked with basic relief supplies, rolls into the parking lot of Hopeful Baptist Church in Lake City.
On Friday afternoon, following Hurricane Helene’s Thursday night landfall, the church received a phone call from One More Child offering the church a truckload of supplies. Members of the church immediately sprang into action to serve hundreds in their community.
After the One More Child truck arrived fully stocked in the church parking lot, Hopeful Baptist Church members began to unload water, ready-to-eat meals, diapers and wipes, and then the members began to offer those much-needed supplies to more than 600 people in a drive-thru distribution line on Saturday morning.
“I am so grateful for our members and volunteers who really came through and showed up,” said Billy Young, pastor of the church since September 2020. “We were able to meet a need when it mattered the most, directly after the storm.”
One More Child, which partners with Florida Baptist churches to meet a variety of needs on an ongoing basis, expressed its thankfulness for the partnership in a social media post: “As we mobilize teams in the wake of Hurricane Helene, we are thankful for partners like Hopeful Baptist Church in Lake City. By working alongside churches and community partners, we are able to reach those who need help the most.”
Since the distribution on Saturday, the church has spent a great part of this week mobilizing small teams to serve and meet the needs of widows and shut-ins among the church family. Now, one week removed from Hurricane Helene, the church is getting back to a normal routine, while also looking for ways to serve other communities that suffered greater impact from the storm.
“Now we’re asking ourselves, ‘How do we mobilize our people and be a part of the greater relief effort in those harder-hit areas?” said Young. “We want to do what we did here, in a matter of hours, in other places. We want to continue to think outside the four walls of our church.”
The pastor reiterated just how grateful he is for the rapid response and cooperation of Florida Baptists when people need it the most.
“I’m just so grateful to be part of a bigger, cooperative and collaborative effort among churches, organizations and our Florida Baptist Convention,” Young said.
These articles originally appeared at flbaptist.org here and here.
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