“What is it, George?” his wife whispered. “What do you think happened?”
The pastor held his car keys in his hand and led his family carefully through the unlit house to the front door. “I don’t know. Let’s get down to the church and see if the lights are off there, too.”
* * *
Herb Kipf had finished dinner and was working on a letter he was writing to the secretary of another Baptist church across town. He often helped out with paperwork in the church office and that included writing letters.
At age twenty-nine, Herb was a machinist and a bachelor who lived at home with his parents. He often worked long hours and nearly every day volunteered some of this time down at West Side Baptist Church. He’d been a member of the congregation all his life, and he’d sung in the choir since he was twelve. In fact, most of the choir was made up of a core of people who had sung together for the past seventeen years. “Herb, aren’t you going to be late for choir?” his mother called to him that evening. “It’s ten after seven.”
Herb glanced at the clock in his bedroom and was surprised to see that the time had slipped by so quickly. He had planned to be at practice by seven-fifteen so he could visit with Theodore Charles and his other friends. But now he’d be doing well to get there by seven-thirty. He wrote more quickly, and by seven-twenty-five he sealed the envelope, stamped it, and stood up to leave.
Racing down the stairs of his parents’ home, Herb shouted good-bye to his family and ran outside to his car. But just before he drove away, his mother burst through the front door and motioned for him to roll down his car window.
“What is it, Mom? I’m in a hurry,” he yelled.
She jogged to the car, and Herb could see that she looked deeply distressed. “Herb,” she said breathlessly. “Gladys just called and it’s the church. It blew up! Just a minute ago, at seven-twenty-seven.”
Herb’s face fell and his stomach turned over. If the church had blown up at seven-twenty-seven, it could mean only one thing. Many of his closest friends had been inside. He nodded to his mother and headed for the church, praying as he drove that at least some members of the West Side Baptist Church choir had somehow survived the explosion.
As he approached the church, Herb could see numerous fire trucks and police officers and dozens of people gathering on the sidewalk to see what had happened. He stared at where the church should have been and was horrified. The building had been leveled and was nothing but a smoldering pile of splintered wood and crumbled bricks. He moved his car slowly around the emergency vehicles and saw the towering white steeple. The twenty-foot-high section of the building had been severed from the church in the explosion and now lay exactly where he and the other singers usually parked their cars.
“Dear God, who was inside?” Herb whispered in horror as he made his way quickly from his car to the fire chief.
“Ernie!” Herb called frantically. He could hear people screaming and crying as they stared at the flattened church, and he tried not to imagine how many of his friends had been inside the building when it exploded. Sirens wailed through the night, and the air was filled with heavy smoke and settling debris. It had been dark for a couple of hours, and it was difficult to see clearly.
“Thank God,” the fire chief said as he made his way to Herb and put a hand on his shoulder. “I thought you must have been inside. Don’t you have choir practice tonight?”
Tears filled Herb’s eyes as he nodded. “Yes, I was late. But the others ...Ernie, they must be inside. It’s after seven-thirty. What happened?”
“The whole thing just blew up. Probably a natural gas leak. The steeple sliced through the power lines, knocked out power all over town. Windows are blown out, too. Up and down the block.” Ernie bowed his head a moment. “I hate to tell you this, but if anyone was inside they didn’t have a chance.”
“Have they looked?” Herb strained to see the area where the church had stood. “Someone might need help.”
Ernie shook his head. “They’ve given a quick check, Herb. There wouldn’t be any bodies to identify. It looks like a bomb went off. And anything in the basement is buried under tons of rubble.”
The fire chief looked intently at his friend, not sure if he was up to the task he was about to give him.
“Herb, there’s a lot of frantic people standing around, and they need some answers. Please, walk around and gather all the choir members you can find. We need to know who’s missing.”
It was the most frightening task Herb had ever attempted. He took a deep breath and headed toward the church looking desperately into the night for the faces of choir members among the crowd. Debris cluttered the area and Herb had to step over piles of shattered church pews and roof tiles as he began to search.
Just then he saw the three teenagers who had planned to join them that night, Donna, Rowena, and Sadie. He was filled with relief as he reached them and pulled them into a group hug.
“Thank God,” he said.
Donna was crying too hard to talk, and Rowena seemed stunned. “We got mixed up about who was driving,” she said, staring at the flattened church. “We were ten minutes late. Just ten minutes!”
Herb pointed the girls toward the fire chief and told them they needed to wait there. “We have to find out who was inside,” he said.
At that Rowena began to sob.
“Rowena, keep hold of yourself,” Herb said. There was no time for hysterics, not with so many people still unaccounted for.
“Pray, Rowena,” he said. “Just pray.”
The girls followed Herb’s orders, and he continued through the crowd, which was growing constantly. Just then he saw Theodore Charles with his two young sons huddled next to him. The men were such good friends that Herb began crying unashamedly in relief.
“Theodore!” Herb yelled. “Over here!”
Theodore spotted Herb and with his sons in tow walked quickly to meet him. “We were late,” Theodore said. “Mrs. McKinter talked too long.” He looked at his friend intently. “Otherwise we’d be dead.”
“I was late, too,” Herb said. “Writing a letter; time just got away from me.” He paused a moment. For the first time he considered the truth. He should have been inside the church when it exploded. Every other Wednesday night as far back as he could remember, he had arrived at choir practice fifteen minutes early. He hugged his friend tightly and sent him toward the fire chief.
For fifteen minutes Herb maneuvered frantically through the crowd. He found Pastor Nubert, his wife, and their daughter, Susan. There were quick hugs exchanged, and Herb pointed them toward the fire captain with the others. A few minutes later he found Mary Jones and Agnes O’Shaugnessy, and three retired women, each of whom had come separately and who had a different reason for being late to practice that evening. Soon afterward he found a young couple who had only joined the choir the year before. They had received a long-distance phone call, which had made them late that evening.
Finally Herb came upon the choir director, Martha, and her daughter, Marilyn.
“Martha!” Herb hugged the crying woman and let her rest on his shoulder for a moment. “I thought for sure you’d be inside.”
“Marilyn couldn’t wake up,” she sobbed. “I tried and tried to get her up, but she just kept sleeping.” She looked up at Herb, her eyes red and her face tear-stained. “Do you know that in sixteen years I’ve never been here later than seven-twenty?” she asked, her eyes filled with awe.
“The church blew at seven-twenty-seven,” Herb said gravely, pointing Martha and Marilyn toward the others. “Let’s go join the others. We need to know who’s still missing.”
Herb felt as though he were in the middle of a strange and twisted dream. First there was the horror of seeing the church leveled by an explosion, and then the miracles, one after another, of finding each choir member alive. How was it possible that so many people had been late for so many different reasons?
There were fourteen choir members, three teenage singe
rs, and three children who should have been at choir that night. After a quick count, Herb was stunned to learn that only one person was missing.
“Gina Hicks?” he yelled so that the other choir members could hear him. “Anyone seen Gina?”
“She couldn’t come tonight,” Agnes said happily, wiping tears from her eyes. “She called and said she had to help her mother.”
That made twenty people. Every choir member was accounted for.
Just then Erma Rimrock, a retired woman who had been a member of the church for forty years, approached the huddled choir.
“Thank God, you’re all alive,” she said. Then she turned to Pastor Nubert. “Pastor, last week my brother and I purchased the old closed-down Methodist church down the street as an investment. I want you to know you can hold services there as long as you need to. The Christmas cantata will work out just fine there. We’ll all be here tomorrow to salvage what we can from the mess. And with a little cleaning at the other building we should be able to meet this Sunday.”
The pastor was stunned. There was no explanation for anything that had happened that night, including Erma’s offer. He hugged her and thanked her, and then turned back to Herb.
“We’re all accounted for?” he asked, still amazed.
Herb nodded and looked at the faces in front of him, each struggling with the nearness of disaster as they stood silent and shivering in the freezing winter night. For nearly a minute no one said a word as they realized the certainty of the miracle they had been a part of.
“I think we should join hands,” Herb said softly. The choir separated itself from the milling crowd and found a spot in the middle of Court Street where they formed a circle.
“Do you understand this?” he asked them. “Every one of us was late tonight. Every single one of us.”
“Let’s pray,” Pastor Nubert suggested, and instantly everyone in the circle bowed their heads.
“Dear Lord—” The pastor’s voice cracked with emotion and he struggled to continue. “Lord, we know that you saved us tonight from certain death. By delaying each of us ten minutes, you have proved yourself beyond a doubt, and we thank you.”
The pastor squeezed the hands of his wife and daughter and looked at the other faces around him. Then looking upward, he spoke in a voice that was barely audible. “Thank you, God. We will not forget this.”
Then, with the townspeople looking on, the West Side Baptist Choir held hands and sang “Silent Night” in a performance Beatrice, Nebraska, remembers to this day.
About the Author
KAREN KINGSBURY lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and six children. She is most known for her best-selling inspirational fiction titles, including Where Yesterday Lives, Waiting for Morning, A Moment of Weakness, When Joy Came to Stay, A Time to Dance, and On Every Side.
Karen Kingsbury, A Treasury of Christmas Miracles
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