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CLEBURNE—Five weeks after Pastor Wade Yarbro and Chisholm Trail Church, a church plant located between Cleburne and Rio Vista, held their first services, the tent in which they worshiped blew away.
Tornadoes sweeping through North Texas and Johnson County on April 26 carried off the 30’ by 40’ commercial tent a local business had loaned Chisholm Trail when the cowboy church congregation outgrew the small barn it had used for worship.
Now eleven weeks old, Chisholm Trail is enjoying a new tent partly purchased with funds contributed by the SBTC.
“The SBTC called the day after the storms and asked if the church had sustained any damages,” Yarbro said, recalling his reply: “We are a brand new church. We had a tent. We don’t have a tent anymore.”
SBTC DR director Scottie Stice and his wife, Judy, “went to work and found us a tent,” Yarbro said, noting that Chisholm Trail paid $500 toward the purchase. “It’s really great. We are so proud of that tent!”
The new tent, measuring 58’ x 36’, will provide more room for the growing congregation, now numbering more than 60.
Yarbro and his wife, Pamela, had their own harrowing encounter with one of the 19 reported North Texas tornadoes on April 26. The Yarbros thought they had moved their four younger children to safety that evening when they drove south to Hillsboro rather than returning to their home near Woodbury.
Believing they had waited out the storm in Hillsboro, the Yarbros headed home. Within 30 minutes, disaster struck.
“We had put the youngest children to bed when we were alerted that the storm had turned in our direction,” Yarbro said.
The family “grabbed the babies” and sought shelter in Yarbro’s study, a pier and beam addition attached to the family’s mobile home. They pushed mattresses against the room’s window and prayed for the Lord’s protection.
“The tornado lifted our home off the blocks on one end. It is anchored so the entire home did not move, but the storm shook it around. It sounded like a train,” Yarbro recalled.
Yarbro said his neighbor saw the tornado. The Yarbros lost part of their roof and their home suffered siding and water damage.
A bivocational pastor who shoes horses and performs ranch work, Yarbro said his shop suffered damage as well, its 12’ by 12’ metal door blown off and found mangled in a cow pasture 150 yards away. The family also lost trees, a barn and a chicken house.
“All the chickens made it, though,” Yarbro added, good-naturedly.
Yarbro expressed gratitude to the SBTC for the recent help. “I love our state convention. We are proud to be a part of it.”
