Prior to February 15, McDowell County, West Virginia, had already faced significant challenges. Heavy snows had begun to melt off the frozen Appalachian Mountains, but with the mountains’ little soil saturated, a deep freeze returned, turning the melting snow into a thick sheet of ice connected to the thin — and now frozen — layer of top soil. Then a warm front rushed in, and the rain began.
What happens when you pour water on an ice-covered mountain of rock and clay? Pastor Charlie Rose of Jolo Family Worship Center, located in southwest McDowell County — the state’s southernmost region — knows all too well.
“It was still sub-zero when that warm storm came in from the south and dumped seven or eight inches of rain on us,” he jokes. “The rain came pouring down, and these mountains, they’re so high and close together, the rain had nowhere to go but down these hillsides, melting the ice as it came . . . small streams became raging rivers rushing down these mountains.”
The rushing waters cascaded off the mountains and into the frozen valleys, where rain had no place to go, creating a torrent of churning, debris-laden waters racing downstream. Those whose homes were in the path of the overflowing rivers were forced to seek shelter elsewhere, hoping that the waters would not submerge or carry away their homes.
Tragically, five McDowell County residents died in the flooding, including a grandmother who was caring for her 2- and 13-year-old granddaughters and attempting to drive to safety.
“The car was surrounded by floodwaters,” Rose explains quietly. “A young man heroically waded and swam out and was able to pull the teenager to safety, but before he could go back for the others, the flood waters washed the car away . . . .”
According to Rose, many Jolo residents and mountain dwellers live in trailers and doublewides. He describes how, in a trailer park with 20 homes, the home on the highest ground had three feet of water inside it. McDowell County has since been declared a major disaster area by the Trump administration, joining four other counties in West Virginia.
“People now are trying to go in and save their homes,” Rose informs me. “But most of these homes’ floors are made out of that pressed sawdust . . . and in just a few months, those floors are literally going to fall apart — my guess is that FEMA is going to condemn them all . . . and these people have no place to go.”
Small church, big impact
Rose, 71, was born in McDowell county. He has led the Jolo Family Worship Center congregation for the past 35 years, and few people in the county are unaware of the church or its pastor.
“We average on Sunday mornings about 70 to 80 people, which may not seem like many to most people, but we are one of the largest churches in the county,” Rose tells me. “McDowell County used to have a population of around 100,000, with the majority working in coal mines. Today, there are fewer than 18,000 people, with approximately 3,000 incarcerated in the federal penitentiary.
Despite its small size, Rose describes the church as full of compassionate, caring people who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty or volunteer their time to make a difference in people’s lives.
According to Rose, the Dry Fork River flooding has caused significant damage to the area’s infrastructure, with many roads closed and water lines destroyed.
“I called Convoy of Hope and [Appalachian Ministry] Network Superintendent Dave Dillon did also,” Rose told me. “I tell you, my friend, they were here within two days, set up in our parking lot!”
Rose says it’s amazing that the Convoy drivers arrived so quickly, if at all, given that they had to take a roundabout route to Jolo due to road closures.
With the arrival of Convoy of Hope, church volunteers — and even a few people from outside the church — stepped in to help load cars with food, water, cleaning supplies, clothing from the church’s clothing bank, and any other relief supplies people required.
Following another phone call from a church member who previously worked with Christ in Action, Christ in Action arrived with a much-needed blessing: a 12-shower shower trailer with a 6,000-gallon hot water tank. Thankful doesn’t begin to describe people’s reactions.
“We were three weeks without running water,” Rose tells me. “It also became extremely cold immediately following the flooding; we received six inches of ice and snow. We took food into the hollers and to people who couldn’t get out, and we hand-carried propane bottles to people, even into the mountains, going as far as a four-wheeler could go and then walking them the rest of the way around the mountainside to those in need.”
History of hope
Rose explains that, due to a lack of industry, McDowell County not only has a depressed economy, but many people are also carrying heavy emotional loads, resulting in heartbreaking statistics.
“It has been reported that we are among the top in the country for high school dropouts, suicides, teen pregnancies, and drug abuse and we have among the lowest of life expectancy rates,” Rose tells me. “We also have a record number of grandparents raising their grandchildren.”
Rose can tell story after story about conducting funerals for people who died as a result of drugs or suicide, but that darkness only motivates him and the members of Family Worship Center to be a brighter light in their community and county.
The church is constructed in a unique and intentional manner. A gym/sanctuary accounts for slightly more than half of the church, with the remainder being a two-story dormitory designed to house teams of workers (or those in need of short-term emergency housing). Rose organizes annual work teams to benefit the community through their Hope for McDowell ministry.
“Over the years, we’ve put on probably 100 new roofs, built 15 houses for low-income families, and made all kinds of house repairs, including building at least 150 wheelchair ramps,” Rose tells me. “And through our clothing and food bank, we are feeding 40 widows each month.”
Dillon, the network superintendent, has nothing but praise for Rose and the Family Worship Centre congregation.
“Pastor Charlie and the congregation of Jolo Family Worship Center have been doing and are doing incredible work to bless the McDowell County area of southern West Virginia,” he claims. “Charlie is an amazing man for sure, and an incredible pastor, not only to the church he serves and leads, but also to his community and the surrounding area.”
As impressive as the church’s proactive, meet-the-need outreach efforts are, the widows’ housing ministry may be the most amazing.
“We’ve built five cottages on our church property for low-income widows — many of them surviving on less than $1,000 a month — who live in the homes rent-free,” Rose told me. “All we ask is that they pay their utilities. We are currently working on our sixth home and have teams lined up to complete it this summer.”
Rose explains that when a widow dies, relatives take any personal belongings, and the church cleans and prepares the cottage for another widow to enjoy.
All this from a church with an average attendance of less than 90 on Sundays!
Planting seeds of faith
It’s easy to imagine the kind of reputation Rose and Family Worship Center have earned among community and county leaders and citizens. Rose believes that because the church is known as a place of hope and help, God did not cause the flooding, but is using it for His glory.
“I have gotten the opportunity to pray with people that I never would have had the chance to pray with before,” Rose tells me. “I’ve been here 35 years, I’ve done so many funerals, and so many people have never let me pray with them . . . but now, I’ve had at least three people saved in our parking lot!”
Rose recounts an incident a few weeks ago when a man who had recently been released from prison for murder attended the distribution.
“He was standing in the parking lot with tears in his eyes, and I told him, ‘I think I need to pray for you.'” He only said, ‘OK, preacher.’ So I began praying, and he was saved right away!”
Opportunities to pray for previously hardened individuals arose repeatedly, with Rose noting that three new people attended Sunday service just this past Sunday.
And, with so much going on, Rose admits it can be difficult to keep things straight, but by delegating responsibilities and relying heavily on his wife, Sharon, and the church secretary, Wendy Adams, the church’s many ministries touch more lives than he ever imagined.
“I was talking to a guy in the parking lot, he had lost nearly everything, but now he wanted to talk about God,” Rose shares. “I told him, ‘You know, sometimes the Lord allows the bottom of the boat to be kicked out so we can turn to Him.'” And he stated, “I believe the bottom of my boat has been kicked out.” “Then we prayed.”
Next steps
Although it appears that Rose and Family Worship Center members have gone above and beyond the call of duty, they are already working to raise funds for what many families will require once their homes are deemed safe.
“Families are going to need things like stoves, refrigerators, washers, dryers — all the appliances ruined by the flooding,” Rose tells CNN. “Of course, building materials — everything from insulation to plywood — are also needed, but it isn’t easy to bring it in here without a tractor trailer.”
And Rose recently received a call from a couple in Kentucky, which shares a border with West Virginia and owns a used appliance store. When they learned about Rose and the church’s efforts, they offered to sell them all of the appliances they needed for $100 each — a fraction of the price of new units (and many used appliances).
“We already have several teams lined up to come in to help with clean-up, rebuilding, and repairs, but we can always use more,” Rose tells me. “We can comfortably accommodate up to 32 teams in the Life Center. We’ve also established a flood relief fund to assist with the purchase of appliances and other necessary supplies.”
The list of ways Rose and Family Worship Center help their community, as well as the impact they have on people’s lives, could go on and on, because, as Rose so aptly puts it, “If you have the time, I have the stories.”
However, it is Dillon who provides perhaps the most insight into this remote but powerful ministry, stating that, “Charlie’s heart for the people of this impoverished and recently flood-ravaged portion of our network is immeasurable, as demonstrated by his and the members of Family Worship Center’s non-stop efforts to help those in need through tangible expressions of the love of Jesus Christ. “He is a true Matthew 25 pastor!”
