A wonderful story of hope about a congregation in Tennessee that split and how God sustained the faithful remnant.
Michael Williams, the volunteer manager of the farm, believes God used the farm and the refugees to save All Saints.
"It's a classic example of the Advent story," Williams said. "We could not find God, but God found us. In this case, he appeared to us in the form of 70 people who came from Myanmar."
Eight months ago, the future of All Saints looked grim.
All Saints had been limping along since a 2006 church split, when the rector and most of the congregation left to join the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, one of several conservative rivals to the Episcopal Church.
The remaining 20 or so church members left behind couldn't afford to pay the mortgage on their building.
After 18 months, All Saints Episcopal Church was on the verge of closing, selling the property and trying to start over elsewhere. It was a discouraging time, said the Rev. Michael Spurlock, All Saints' new rector.
"We were about to lose everything that we knew of the church here," Spurlock said. "It was like we were going down into the pit."
Then, some of the refugees who had once attended All Saints returned. Soon after, others from Thailand joined them.
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20081201/NEWS06/812010343/1006/NEWS01
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