With 21 dead, churches respond to tornado damage amid personal tragedies

ROLLING FORK, Miss. (BP) – Pastor Bob Gilliland’s son Roger called and told him to turn on the weather; a tornado was approaching.

“I was getting ready to go to bed and she was watching her Hallmark,” the 81-year-old Gilliland said of himself and his wife Betty, 79. “We turned on the weather and they were showing pictures of the tornado and said it was heading towards us. She got in the bathroom and I stood in the hall. The tornado came through and shook the house but neither one of us got a scratch.