CABOT — When Juanita and David Waltrip watched the news last week, they saw that several churches had been heavily damaged or destroyed by the storms that moved through the state and the rest of the South.
The images brought them back to a year ago when their own church was destroyed by a tornado that ripped through Lonoke County on April 30, 2010.
“We absolutely both cried when we saw it,” Juanita Waltrip said. “It reminded us of everything that we’ve been through and we prayed for them.”
The Waltrips and thegrowing congregation of the Destiny Cowboy Church in Cabot gathered Saturday on the one-year anniversary of the tornado. The church had a four-person team competing in a statewide cowboy church rodeo in Saline County. They reflected on where they’ve been the past year, the struggle they’ve gone through, and the blessings they’ve encountered.
“This week’s sermon is going to be about what happens when the wheels come off your wagon,” said David Waltrip, the pastor at the church. “Do you make a raft or do you give up? You trust that God has a plan and you work hard to get moving again.”
The concept of cowboy churches has been growing both in Arkansas and across the country. The first church started more than a decade ago in Texas and the movement has spread across the South.
Destiny Cowboy Church was the 15th cowboy church formed in Arkansas, and Waltrip said two more have been founded since then. The American Fellowship of Cowboy Churches listed more than 200 churches in the U.S. in its 2010 directory.
Members show up on Sundays for Mass in cowboy boots and hats. They drink coffee and talk about their horses or cattle or about howwell their children are doing. And they sing.
A songbook full of more than 70 country-style gospel and spiritual songs ranging from “The Baptism of Jesse Taylor” to “Lord Build Me a Cabin in the Corner of Glory Land” is placed on everyone’s chair - chairs that face a stage adorned with homemade crosses made of wood, wrought iron and even horseshoes. The one thing that remains the same, David Waltrip said, is the Gospel.
“We are affiliated with the Baptist Association, but we stay away from the more conventional practices,” he said.
“We’re a place where people who live a cowboy lifestyle can go to worship and feel at home. There was a definite need for this church in this community because there are some folks who love God, but just didn’t feel comfortable in a traditional church. We try to make everyone feel comfortable.”
The church was planted at the end of January 2010 and the first formal service was held a month later. Membership was slowly building, and about 10 people had made the church their home before April 30, 2010.
“We got a call from one of the members at about 11 p.m. that night and he said, ‘David, the church is gone,’” Waltrip said. “I asked what he meant and he said, ‘The church building, it’s just not there anymore.’”
David and Juanita got dressed and rushed to the site on Arkansas 321. It was a small building, wood framed, sitting on a concrete slab onrented property. There hadn’t been heat or air-conditioning, but it had been home for the people who made crosses and artwork and donated their time to building it and the small congregation.
David Waltrip said the building had been lifted and carried a mile from its foundation and then just dropped. The big metal trough the congregation used to baptize new members had been wrapped around a tree.
“You couldn’t hardly recognize that’s what it was,” he said, his voice breaking as he recounted the loss.
Steve Hambrick and his wife, Sandy, had started attending the church a week before the storm. The couple decided to donate the warehouse of their saddle and supplies store for churchmeetings, clearing out inventory to make room.
“I told David that the building might be gone, but the church was still there,” Hambrick said. “You can rebuild the church and put all the stuff back in it, but the people, who really make up the church, were safe and they still needed a place to meet.”
“It was hot in there, boy,” David Waltrip said. “It was generous of them to let us meet there because we had just started building a following and we didn’t want to have to miss any services.We wanted to keep open and give people that place to worship.”
The group eventually moved inside the store where there was air-conditioning, and they stayed there while they continued to build members, many of them customers of the store. Then, the church was dealt another blow when Hambrick and his family decided to sell the store.
“We were thrown back in. We looked and looked and could not find a place or a building that felt right,” David Waltrip said.
The congregation prayed for a home. After one of their last services at the saddlery store, the young grandson of one of the members walked up to Waltrip and told him there was a building near hismother’s house that he had seen for rent. Waltrip took a chance on the boy’s advice, and the church found a new home.
The little white building used to have gas pumps out front. It’s nestled near an office and some other buildings on the property, but there is a large sign in the window, orange, red and black with a picture of a cowboy kneeling before a cross and the words “Destiny Cowboy Church” written in black letters.
Inside is a different story.
The cinderblock walls are adorned with handmade signs asking God to bless cowgirls and silhouettes of leaning cowboys. There is a wall of crosses donated by families who belong to the church and a new silver trough for baptizing. A curtain full of tiny cowboys on bucking broncos blocks the streetlight from the glass door.
The small, white buildingon Arkansas 89 has become home for now to the congregation of 33.
“We’ve finally gotten a lot of things sort of settled,” David Waltrip said. “I told everyone at the last churchbusiness meeting that the next thing we’re going to have to do is start a newbuilding fund. The way we’re growing, I don’t think it’ll be too long before we need to start thinking about it.”
The congregation spread out around the arena Saturday finding vantage points to cheer for team No. 13, the four men representing Destiny Cowboy Church at the rodeo.
Meanwhile, Waltrip took stock of the entire crowd.
“This means a lot,” he said. “To see all these people come out today. To see that the churches are growing and to see so many people who live the cowboy lifestyle find a place they can worship. It means a lot.”
Arkansas, Pages 17 on 05/01/2011