Hundreds of people gathered at the North Preston Community Centre on Sunday afternoon for a “healing service” hosted by St. Thomas United Baptist Church.
The service was originally intended to honour the men whose lives were lost to violence in the past year. It was scheduled to take place at the church itself, but due to a fire last week, that became impossible.
“The families are still mourning, still hurting,” St. Thomas’s reverend, Wallace Smith, said.
“I thought that this would be a good time to try and bring the families together and try and do a little bit of healing. Because a lot of them haven’t been at church for a while. So, hopefully this will get them out and start the healing process so they can move on.”
READ MORE: Pastor planning healing service after North Preston, NS church damaged in fire
Instead of cancelling the service altogether, organizers decided to move things across the street to the community centre so that people could not only heal from the loss of some of their community members, but also from the loss of their beloved church.
“When we got news that the church was on fire, this sort of fit right into what we had planned, rather than having to do this at another time. This is the right time for that — not for the fire — but for this here to happen.”
Damage to the church was estimated at nearly $200,000. On Sunday, the church’s trustee, Ernest Simmonds, confirmed to the congregation that it will be covered by insurance.
However, it will take months before things are back to normal. Anyone wishing to donate to restoration costs may contact the church directly.