September 19, 2024
WAYNESBORO, Ga. — One of Georgia’s oldest churches, founded in 1773, was vandalized on Sunday morning, Aug. 4, several hours before the church’s regular Bible study hour and worship service.
Broken beer bottles were found inside Botsford Baptist Church. Shards of glass were embedded in multiple cushioned chairs. Bullet holes were found in the windows, and .22 caliber cartridges were scattered around the church grounds. The church’s roadside marquee was also riddled with gunfire. Damages were estimated to be $15,000 according to a church representative.
Historical records show Botsford Baptist to be the second oldest Baptist church remaining in Georgia. Nearby Kiokee Baptist Church was chartered a few months earlier.
Police found a wallet during their search of the area, which along with a review of video surveillance footage, led them to Joshua Dalton Jarrell, 26.
The Burke County Sheriff’s Office reported on its Facebook page that Jarrell was arrested Monday morning and charged with possession of a firearm by a felon, possession of marijuana, second-degree criminal damage to property, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime.
He was transported to and booked at the Burke County Detention Center. Police say the investigation remains active, and additional details will be released as they become available.
Not to be deterred by the wreckage and defacement of the building, Pastor Mike Dann and some of his church members got to the church just after the breaking of dawn and began to prepare the gymnasium for the morning worship service.
More than 300 people gathered in the gym only hours later. Dann said, “I am fighting carnality because I am torn between Jesus and justice. I want Jesus to be glorified through this vandalism, but I also want justice to be enacted.”
“Do we really believe the book we preach and declare to be the blueprint for our lives?” Dann asked the congregation, “Do we believe in the power of prayer? Do we believe God will do what He says He will do in His Word?”
Dann then asked the church to pray for Jarrell. He later posted a photo of Jarrell on the church’s Facebook, saying he was praying that “not only will he experience salvation but that he will be baptized in the church he once vandalized.”
In a subsequent conversation with the Botsford pastor, Dann compared Jarrell’s situation to that of the Apostle Paul. Saul, as he was then known, was initially a persecutor of the church, a witness to the stoning of Stephen who sought out and arrested members of the early Christian church.
Dann remarked, “I can just imagine that many of the believers who saw Saul at the stoning of Stephen and continuing to do violence to the early Christians, made him the object of their prayers. I have an idea that they were praying for the conversion of Saul even though he was an enemy of the church.”
He concluded, “And of course, we know what happened to Saul of Tarsus. He was converted on the Damascus Road, and became the Apostle Paul, one of the greatest champions of the Christian faith in history.”
Dann is praying for a similar conversion for Jarrell. “Earnest prayer is effectual,” Dann said, “and God has the power to change lives.”
