LAURINBURG, N.C. (WBTW) — Multiple fire stations spent part of Sunday night battling heavy flames at Woodville Pentecostal Holiness Church on Sneadtown Road in the Laurel Hill community of Scotland County, according to fire officials with Laurinburg Fire Department.
According the fire officials, the fire started around 11:05 Sunday night and started to clear around 2:00 a.m. Monday.
Monday morning, Pastor Gerald Goins said faulty wiring was the reason the fire started. Goins also said the fire apparently started in the ceiling.
“Everything is gone inside. It’s just devastating just to look through the front doors,” says church member Nicole Jacobs.
It’s been almost 40 years since part of Woodville Pentecostal holiness Church was built, but it took only minutes for the blaze to destroy nearly all of the worship center.
“We come in about quarter to 11 at night. He went to his trailer and I went to the house, set down and [was] getting ready to read something and he knocked on my door about two minutes after 11 and said ‘smokes coming out of the church’,” recalls Pastor Gerald Goins.
The church hosted a revival service Sunday night, and although the thought of rebuilding is daunting, the pastor knows the fire could have been much worse.
“Lord, I don’t understand this but I thank God nobody was in there, and I don’t even need to know the reason. There’s a purpose for everything,” states Goins.
Everything from plaques to pictures inside the church are now ashes sorted on the floor. Despite the material items lost in the blaze, church members say the memories they carry cannot be destroyed.
“You can’t take away the memory that God gives us, and we’ll just have to start again and go from where we are at,” says Goins.
Multiple stations were called in, including every station from Scotland County, two stations from Robeson County and two stations from Hoke County.
Church services will move next door to the fellowship hall as the congregation looks to rebuild.
The fire remains under investigation.
