Residents still re-building

Johnny Allen, Timothy Welsh, Kenny Patrick, B.B. Burroughs, Mitchell Tyler, David Johnson, Giles Edge, Edward Allen, Michael Shelley and Randy Haney from Jamestown Baptist Church in Conway, S.C.; Buckshot Saint from Franklin County; and Bobby Parker from East Franklin posed for a picture outside the home the men are rebuilding for Parker and his family.

When East Franklin resident Bobby Parker emerged from what was left of his home on April 27 after the deadly EF5 tornado tore it to pieces, he had no idea that nearly four months later he would be standing in the same spot watching complete strangers rebuild his home piece by piece.

Parker was at home the afternoon of April 27 with his wife, Carolyn, and his two grandchildren, when they heard on the news that a tornado had been spotted in Hackleburg.

“We were thinking that even if there was a tornado in Hackleburg, it surely wasn’t going to come our way,” Parker said. “We were getting ready to go to a church supper and my wife was baking a cake. But about that time it got really dark and the TV station went black.

“Me and my grandson went outside and the tornado was funneling towards us from the west. We got everybody together and got in the bathroom, all four of us. We could hear everything crashing and when it was all over, the only thing left standing was that bathroom and one bedroom. Everything else was gone.”

Parker said he was thankful he and his family had survived the 200 mph winds that smashed his home and threw his thousand-pound farm equipment across the road.

“I made my living raising cattle and baling hay in the summer and when the tornado came through, it killed most of my cattle and destroyed every bit of my farm equipment,” Parker said. “We didn’t know what we were going to do or where we were going to live.”

In stepped Johnny Allen, a carpenter from Conway, S.C., whose heart was broken when he found out about the destruction in Alabama.

“My baby brother is a Baptist minister and his church goes to

Lynch, Ky., every year on a mission trip. Oak Grove Missionary Baptist Church, which is the church Bobby [Parker] goes to, also goes there every year and when they didn’t show up this year, my brother learned about the destruction to their communities and their members homes.”

Allen’s brother got in touch with Billy Pierce, a deacon at Oak Grove, who gave him Parker’s name. Allen said he got in touch with the Parkers, who had already talked to Franklin County carpenter Buckshot Saint, and worked out the details of when and how they would rebuild the Parkers’ home.

Allen corresponded with Parker and Saint for several weeks before he and a group of nine other men from Jamestown Baptist Church in Conway, S.C., showed up this past Thursday with a trailer of supplies ready to provide free labor under Saint’s supervision to get the Parker’s house rebuilt.

In three days, Saint and the group of men had raised walls on the home and garage and had as much work as they could fit in planned before they left out this week.

“I’m glad to do this for Bobby and his family and I know the other men are too,” Allen said. “This is what you do for brothers in Christ.”

Parker said he was absolutely overwhelmed by how much work the men had done in just three short days.

“This is such a blessing,” Parker said. “All of these men are a God-send because we took all the money we had from insurance and from selling the rest of my cattle but we still didn’t know how we’d build a house.

“We never would have been able to do this without these men and I appreciate every one of them.”