When Houston Northwest Church recently welcomed children and their families to the congregation’s newly constructed HNW Kids Building, it marked a milepost in recovery and rebuilding after Hurricane Harvey.
Harvey hit the Texas Gulf Coast in August 2017, flooding almost every building on the Houston Northwest Church campus and causing $14.5 million in property damage.
“Our worship center was the only one that didn’t take on three to four feet of water,” said Karen Stamps, director of connections and communication at the church.
In the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, the worship center became the staging area for mud-out disaster relief teams and a distribution hub for supplies and assistance in the community.
The floodwaters caused extensive damage to the church’s adult and student facilities, but its children’s building was most severely affected.
Years earlier, the church’s original sanctuary had been converted into the building that housed the congregation’s children’s ministry. The 40-year-old building had not been constructed with reinforced steel beams designed to withstand severe storm damage. Structural damage was so severe, the building had to be demolished.
“The area where the kids’ building stood was repurposed as green space for community use,” Stamps said.
For more than two years, Houston Northwest Church offered limited children’s activities in temporary space on campus. Students relocated to a nearby YMCA. Adult Bible study groups either met in homes or temporarily suspended operation until the renovated adult building reopened in January 2019.
In mid-December, the church held a ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the completion of its newly construction HNW Kids Building. The facility includes several worship venues, classrooms and multiple play areas.
Source: Baptist Standard
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