An Alabama pastor is emphasizing joy and community after his house went up in flames roughly a week ago. Eric Foxx of Home Church in Mobile says that he has felt the peace of God despite the fact that his home has been deemed a total loss.
On Saturday, Oct. 12, Foxx received a call that his house was on fire.
“I turned the corner and it was just like, there it is. All the hard work, all the time, all the blood and sweat and tears you’ve put into it, it is absolutely the saying: down in flames and up in smoke,” Foxx told WALA. “If the fire don’t get it, the smoke gets it. If the smoke don’t get it, the water does. So just absolutely everything is just toast.”
Following the fire, Foxx’s church has rallied to support him—something church members know that he would do for them.
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In fact, according to Brandon Badon, who attends Home Church, Foxx has “been incredibly supportive and even supportive even through this tragedy.”
“He’s been to every event, every funeral, everything that’s been going on with other people. He’s still made it in spite of something as tragic as this,” said Badon.
In an email to ChurchLeaders, Foxx said that he planted the church to be a place in the community that people “to call home.”
“Home represents family, and we are called to be family to one another as a part of the body of Christ,” he said. “We are brothers and sisters meant to love, serve, encourage, and be there for one another in both good, and bad times.”
“I’ve had a peace in all of this,” Foxx told WALA. “And God was like, ‘People need to see what happens when the faith family—when things happen, when things are not perfect, when things go wrong in our lives—how people of faith respond.”
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“I have joy, because happiness is something that is happenstance. It’s something that happened and now it makes me happy,” Foxx added. “But joy is constant.”