Church services for the Nunapitchuk Moravian Church resumed this week after the building toppled off its pilings last month. Half of the Kuskokwim-area village attends the church and have moved to a temporary donated space while they raise money to rebuild.
The Moravian Church in Nunapitchuk looks like the victim of an earthquake. As the city’s annual carnival was winding down outside, the pilings that held up the building cracked and the large red structure crashed to the ground. No one was inside. The collapse happened three weeks ago on a Saturday.
“It made a big sound,” James Berlin, a lay pastor in the church and the town’s mayor, said.
Berlin was at his home across town, preparing his reading for the next day’s services, when the boom reverberated through the village.
“July 17 Watchword for the week: Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? Genesis 18:14,” Berlin read aloud from his book of Moravian daily texts.
He never got to do the sermon.
“I couldn’t believe that it’d happened,” he said. “It was all the way down when we checked it.”
The church had fallen backwards, five feet to the ground. The back walls had bucked and cracked. Insulation, reddish and wispy, spewed out. Some pilings had collapsed, and the ones still standing had torn gaping crevices through the floor.
The church was built in the early 1970's; the village had leveled the building just three years ago.
About 600 people live in the village. Half of them attend the Moravian church.
After discussions between the city, IRA, and village corporation, the town lent the community building to the church to use indefinitely and rent-free.
Eli Wassillee is the church treasurer. He says after the go-ahead, the church’s trustees fit what they could into the new space.
“Chairs, pews, the sermon thing, the organ, piano - they were all taken out, including the rug,” Wassillee said.
Last Sunday, three weeks after the crash, services resumed.
Wassillee is raising money and asking people to donate labor to rebuild the church. So far, the people of Nunapitchuk have raised $28,000. They need $200,000 for a new church.
To contribute, contact Eli Wassillee at 907-527-5705.
