Insurance dispute over wrecked church

HOUSTON (FOX 26) - You may not believe in miracles, but Darryl Hawkins does whenever he looks at the wreckage of his church.

“It looks like an air strike and I sit in a pew in the middle and that whole structure is on the pew,” says Hawkins as he peers into a window.

The roof to True Life Missionary Baptist Church gave up the ghost on June 13. That was a Monday when nobody was in the building at the time. The pastor had just left the building five minutes earlier. Since then, he says he has been fighting with the insurance company to make the repairs, even though he says he was up to date with the premiums. As a result, he says membership has decreased.

“A lot of people understand that we probably might not get it," says Pastor J. J. Boudreaux. "I told them that we  are going to get it. I don't care how long it takes. We are  going to get it.”  

The pastor also says it looks like it might develop into a court battle.

Pastor Boudreaux is a fighter -- literally. Back in the 1970s, he was a professional boxer. He says he has been reaching out to his contacts in the sports world to summon help. He also says he is prepared to move the fight to court. Church members are not giving up either. They know that there are not that many of them and they are not exactly wealthy, but they are determined.

While the pastor dukes it out with the insurance company, church members have started a GoFundMe crowdsourcing campaign to raise the money to either rebuild the structure or demolish it, through preferably rebuild it.

The process is progressing slowly, but it is progressing.

“It's hard to look at right now, but with the help of the city of Houston, we can get it fixed,”  says Hawkins

After all, the church and its members have already experienced one miracle.