‘We see the hand of God’: San Angelo Apostolic Church speaks out after fire, remains hopeful

SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) — After a fire in the early morning hours of Oct. 5, the San Angelo Apostolic Church is speaking out.

The Church, which has been on Bell St. in San Angelo since the early 2000s, has had a dedicated congregation and a fruitful history since being there.

“So back in 1998, the church was in a storefront over on Beauregard, and we were there for, I think, about two years,” Tammi Clevenger, the Treasurer of the church, said. “Then, they sold the building out from underneath us and told us. I think we had a week to get out of that building. So we went looking for a building. My pastor and his wife were able to find the building that we’re in now. They contacted the guy, and he had to give him some earnest money. Now, we didn’t know that at the time, and he made a deal with my pastor that if he did not make it a bar, he would sell it to him for $25,000 less than what he was originally going to sell it for. So we were able to secure the money and get the loan.”

The fire is currently under investigation by authorities, but members of the church started to notice some oddities and irregularities that some kind of criminal activity might be at play.

“Well, what I will say is it’s under investigation, but a week leading up to the burning down of the church, there were several events that took place that were sinister,” Clevenger said. “They were just not normal. One of them was a sign placed in the window where the fire was the hottest that said ‘fire connection’. Now, the fire marshal told us, when he came and spoke to us, that the sign is actually for a sprinkler system of another building. So, we could look across the street and see that it’s probably for the building catty-cornered to the church. So that’s one thing that took place. Another thing that happened was they took all of the light bulbs out of our sign and off of the front door lights, and they shattered them in front of the church. Another thing that happened was something that was extremely peculiar. We do not have an account with the food bank. Well, at the very front of our door, there was a box of food that had come from the food bank, and then along the building and two other places, there were boxes of food that were just placed there, and you can tell they were very strategically placed. When the fire started, that [food] caught on fire, and it exploded. That’s not normal.”

Clevenger further spoke about the odd things happening around the church.

“We had a rose bush that we just planted those rose bushes a few months ago, and they took those rose bushes, and they just took all the bricks that were around it, and they just slammed it all over and totally destroyed the rose bush,” Clevenger said. “Another thing that we’ve seen was, there was like a crucifix on the door handle of the church, and then a gold snake that was placed at the door of the church, like on the carpet. There were three different days, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then, I don’t know, Friday. I can’t remember if something happened on Friday, but then she actually filed a police report on Thursday, because it wasn’t just a normal situation, right? It was escalating. One of the things was on the front of the church. Somebody had placed a cigarette there, and they used the ashes of the cigarette and placed an ‘X’ on the door. One of the most disturbing ones to me was that they had taken a Dollar Tree or Dollar General receipt, taken a fishhook, and they hooked it through the carpet, and there was a twig and a fake fingernail that had been connected underneath the fishhook. These are things that some people might blow off as just adolescents, just trying to have fun, but when it escalates to the point where our church is burned down, I just questioned some of the things. I think there are a lot of questions that our church members have had.”

According to Clevenger, depending on the circumstances of the crime, it could be investigated as a “cultural religious attack”, depending on the evidence.

“I think they’re trying to be very wise with it, because if they do rule it arson, they’re going to have the feds are going to come in,” Clevenger said. “It’s no longer going to be the San Angelo Fire Department. I think they’re trying to be very wise about what is being said and what’s not being said. I think as a congregation, we want to be wise about what we say, especially in an interview, because, number one, our church is just grieving. I obviously would not want to say anything that would bring any shame or any more hurt to everybody than what we’re already facing.”

Clevenger, even though the tragedy is still recent, gave insight into the future plans for the congregation.

“I think at the moment, there are a lot of things that are completely uncertain,” Clevenger said. “So we’ve got some very short-term goals. We’re looking at like two months. This Friday, all the men of the church are planning to get in there, and we’ve got to remove all the debris, the pews, everything that is left in there, because it’s no good. We’ve got to haul it off to the dump. Once we do that, from my understanding, the fire marshal is going to come back and is going to examine it and see whether they’re going to condemn it, and we’ll have to build from the ground up. Or whether there is integrity in some of the structure, and we’re able to actually rebuild, hopefully, at least, from the fellowship hall, which would be that second petition. So on the other side of that petition is our fellowship hall, and most of the fire was contained in the sanctuary. That’s where it was the hottest. As you go around the building, heat rises, and so the whole roof is going to have to come down because there’s fire that came out from the soffit all around. There are so many things that we don’t have answers to yet, and it’s not going to be until they’re able to get in there, the fire marshal, and rule it one way or another, that we even know what we’re going to do.”

Clevenger emphasized that faith will get the congregation through these tough times.

“No matter what, the church is going to move forward, right?” Clevenger said. “God gave us that building. We are a very resilient congregation, and we don’t have time to look back and focus on everything that’s negative. Our goal is to move forward because there are great things ahead of us, and we’re going to do that, obviously, with the strength and the grace of God. I believe that the community is going to come around us, and assist us in whatever is laid on their heart, or whether whatever they feel led to do in, whether it’s praying, prayer is powerful, or coming, putting their hands to use if they want to come and assist us that way, If they feel led financially to do anything, we just are praying that God will just get the glory out of everything that has gone on.”

Clevenger wanted to thank the community for what they have done for the church in such a short amount of time.

“We don’t even have a place to worship at the moment,” Clevenger said. “There have been other congregations that have invited us and opened their doors. My pastor’s being prayerful and trying to get his bearings, to figure out what we’re going to do. Buttercup Cafe downtown offered its facilities. The First Baptist Church has offered us to use their facilities. We’ve had restaurants that have donated. I reached out to several people in the community. You make friends, you make connections, you have relationships with people in the community. Luigi’s is going to pay for 60 men. He’s going to provide the food for that on Friday. Double Dave’s is going to give me a really good deal on Friday evening for meals. Los Gallos is providing breakfast. Starbucks is providing coffee. We see the hand of God. We see the community coming together. It’s just very uplifting and encouraging.”

A gallery of the church is available below.