Prayer, Harlan County–style

Part 2: At day’s end, students join a unique congregation

By Vicky Waltz

This spring break, hundreds of Boston University students once again chose to make a difference, volunteering in disaster zones and troubled communities across the country, joining Alternative Spring Break trips organized by BU’s Community Service Center.

Last year, BU Today’s Vicky Waltz chaperoned students who reached Dupree, S.D., to work with Native American children at a Sioux YMCA. This year, she revisited her role, in a very different part of the country:

Cranks Holiness Church in Harlan County, Kentucky, has only 13 members, but every Monday, Friday, and Saturday night, the small chapel rings with dozens of voices raised in song.

Ministered by retired coal miner Brother James Fee, the church is a place of worship for volunteers from Cranks Creek Survival Center, a nonprofit organization founded in 1977 by Becky and Bobby Simpson. On any given week, the church — hardly bigger than a double-wide trailer — has upwards of 50 visitors.

Mining company executives maintain that coal is still king in Harlan County, but the members of Cranks Holiness Church disagree. There’s only one king in town, and His name is Jesus Christ. “If you want to get to heaven, the only way is through Jesus, our Lord and Savior,” Fee says.

On a balmy spring evening in March, 11 Boston University student volunteers gather in the sanctuary. The group had spent half the day constructing a roof over the church’s outdoor wheelchair ramp, as well as enclosing a bathroom in the back of the building. By seven o’clock they are weary but eager to meet the church’s congregation.

“We met Brother James and his wife at the supermarket on our first day in Kentucky,” recalls Ali Halprin (CAS’11). “When they found out we were working at Cranks Creek Survival Center, they invited us to their church. The next day we learned that this was our work site, so coming here for service is extra-special.”

Halprin, who is Jewish and from the Bronx, says she hesitated before attending services. “I was worried that I would stand out,” she says, “but everyone was warm and welcoming.”

Fee stands behind the pulpit, in front of three black-velvet paintings of Jesus and a copy of the Ten Commandments. “Are there any aspiring preachers here tonight?” he asks. “We always invite anyone who has the calling to come up and preach for us.”

Several moments later, members of the congregation are kneeling, their heads in their hands, handkerchiefs clutched tightly in their fists, praying aloud. As minutes pass, the gentle murmurs intensify until members are all but shouting prayers to the heavens. Their supplications end just as quickly as they began, and three men take up guitars and begin a rousing rendition of the gospel song “I’ll Fly Away.”

After several songs, music major Angela Spignese (CFA’12) takes the microphone and sings an a cappella version of “Amazing Grace” while members of the congregation hum along. “To me, music and singing are prayers in and of themselves,” she says. “So I felt right at home.” The music lasts nearly 90 minutes, and almost every member of the congregation takes up the microphone at least once.

Caroline Whitehead (CAS’11) says the service was very different from those she attends in a Lutheran church in an affluent Chicago suburb. “I think that when you don’t have everything you want or need in this life, you want to think that there’s something better coming up in the afterlife,” she says. “So naturally, faith is very important to many of the people we met here.”

“They don’t have a lot of material wealth,” Halprin says, “so their faith completely dictates their lifestyle, and that’s something that I found to be really special.”

To read part one of this year’s ABS trip series, click here. Check back on Friday, March 27, to read part three.

Vicky Waltz can be reached at vwaltz@bu.edu.

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