By Emily Ham Price
The future of Westminster Presbyterian Church looks bright to the Rev. Steve Ramp — and it’s not because of the church’s additional windows and skylights.
A year and a half after an EF4 tornado left Westminster devastated and broken, Ramp said the Hattiesburg church is on the mend, and he hopes his congregation can return to its updated church home by Christmas Eve.
“We’ve had such strong support from the community in rebuilding,” he said. “When this gets rebuilt, this isn’t just going to be a victory for Presbyterians — this is going to be a victory for the entire Hattiesburg community.”
Ramp said early on, Westminster’s congregation decided to look for a silver lining after the storm and found it in the form of structural changes, additions and repairs that could be made while recovering from the tornado.
“Ironically, the tornado has given us the opportunity to do what we never could have done,” he said. “We were talking about expanding and remodeling, and we’ve had to do an extreme makeover. This is going to be a much better final product.”
Read more at http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/story/news/local/2014/08/15/westminster-looks-bright-future/14140451/