March 8 was a day of celebration at Mount Hermon Baptist Church in Lanett, Alabama. Three years earlier, Rev. Lamar D. Johnson had taken over the pulpit in the handsome brick church on Magnolia Road.

That Sunday had been set aside to celebrate his pastor’s anniversary with two services – one in the morning and another at 3 p.m.

Members crowded the wood-paneled sanctuary under beams curved like the ribs of an ark. The men dressed in dark suits and the women had on hats and pearls. Many pinned red flowers to their chests.

Sprays of long-stemmed roses framed the pulpit. Singers overflowed the choir loft. Then, in a video posted to Facebook, Rev. Jonathan Carter of the Siloam Church International in Atlanta stepped to the mic.

“Look at somebody and tell ’em it’s good to be in the Lord’s house,” Carter said. “Now I know we’ve been hearing all this stuff about the corona. But I want to let you know something, that no weapon formed against us … So if y’all covered in the blood, go on and high five someone and say ‘I’ve got the blood on me.’ Amen.”

Cherith Beth Slaughter is a pastor in Lee County. She and her father traveled to Lanett that day to celebrate with the pastor.

“I sat near the back,” Slaughter said. “That’s the crazy thing. The church was completely packed.”

An undetected outbreak

Coronavirus hadn’t officially arrived in Alabama yet. Officials announced March 13 the state’s first confirmed case of COVID-19, five days after Johnson’s celebration.

Both Slaughter and April Ross, who covers news in Chambers County for the online outlet BeeTV, said they think the virus was in church that day, smoldering like a fuse.

“The anniversary was the date on which it really snowballed,” Ross said. “Two weeks later, he went on Facebook Live to announce that 10 members have been infected.”

10 Church Members Confirmed Of COVID 19 Pastor Lamar D. Johnson MT Hermon Baptist Church Lanett Al Posted by April Ross Beetv on Thursday, March 26, 2020

Lanett sits in Chambers County, a rural area of just 34,000 that has more cases of COVID-19 than all but a handful of the state’s largest counties. Even more alarming are the five confirmed deaths, among the highest of any county in the state.

Ross said parishioners had symptoms of coronavirus before state officials first told people to avoid large crowds. On March 11, President Trump ended flights to Europe and the NBA cancelled its season. On March 12, Alabama State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris recommended avoiding groups larger than 500.

Days late r, Johnson cancelled all but one service for a small part of his flock.

Then he got the phone calls: six of the 10 people he invited had gotten sick, he told Ross.

Fever and unbearable pain

“I said, ‘Woah, what do you mean sick?’ So I picked up my phone, and asked if they had food poisoning,” Johnson told Ross in a video interview. “They said no, we have the virus.”

Johnson did not respond to requests for comment, but he has addressed coronavirus in several videos on his personal and church Facebook page.

Slaughter heard about the cases coming out of Mount Hermon. Then she began feeling dizzy around March 20 and had two seizures. Her father’s heart started racing.

She went to the hospital, but no one tested her for coronavirus, she said, even after her fever spiked to 103. Slaughter went to her father’s house, where both quarantined. She fought nightly fevers, weakness and persistent cough.

“On Tuesday I got to the point where I couldn’t walk to the bathroom, my legs were shaking so bad,” Slaughter said.

Her family called an ambulance, and at the hospital, she tested positive for COVID-19. Her father did too.

Cared for by her mother and sister, the two began a slow recovery. Between coughs, Slaughter described the illness.

“I’ve never experienced this kind of pain in my life,” Slaughter said. “I would have three kids three times over before I went through this again. It gets worst at night. You don’t have any energy and your bones feel so fragile.”

Just when she thought it couldn’t get any worse, her mother got sick. She said the paramedics, who had been to the house multiple times, didn’t want to come in.

“They were completely afraid,” Slaughter said. “They didn’t even bring in a stretcher. They dragged her out on a sheet.”

The role of the church

Mount Hermon serves a predominantly African American congregation in a county where they make up about 40 percent of the population. Alabama does not publish data about the race of people diagnosed with COVID-19, but in cities and states that do, African Americans have shown higher rates of infection and death.

Officials at East Alabama Medical Center said church attendance has been linked to the early burst of cases of cases in the county.

"Not at one church, or churches in one town, but at church in general,” according to a March 26 release from the hospital. “While many churches have moved to online services only—or cancelled church services altogether in the interim—there are reports that some still met as recently as last Sunday.”

Churches have played a pivotal role in spreading coronavirus all over the world. Research tracked more than 5,000 church-linked cases associated with an outbreak in South Korea. Health officials in California said 70 cases have been connected to a Russian-language church in Sacramento. And a choir practice in Washington State was deemed a “super-spreading event” after dozens fell ill.

One of the reasons coronavirus spreads so quickly in churches is due to the kinds of interactions that happen there. In the interview with Ross, Johnson described how difficult it was to change behavior among his parishioners.

“I went to Walmart today and one my 70-year-old members, I tried to give her a fist bump, but she said, 'No, pastor, I want a hug,'” Johnson said.

Many churches around the state have scrambled to adapt to the threat of COVID-19, including Johnson’s. He suspended in-person worship around the same time Alabama’s Catholic bishop announced the end of regular mass, and before public health orders prohibited large groups of people.

Johnson has urged his congregation to take the virus seriously. On March 21, he closed the sanctuary and encouraged those with symptoms to seek testing. In Facebook videos, Johnson said 10 of his members had been hospitalized with COVID-19.

A week after he closed his church, Johnson continued to hold online services for his members. But he also struck a defiant tone. Right now, no official investigation has linked COVID-19 to services at Mount Hermon.

“This will be my first and last time saying anything about it,” Johnson said in a Facebook video posted March 29. “They cannot prove that people got sick from Mount Hermon. Just like they can’t prove people got sick from Walmart. Take that to the bank. So far all the naysayers saying people got sick at Mount Hermon, you don’t know if they got sick at Walmart. You don’t know if they got sick at work.”

At a crossroads

Slaughter believes she and her father may have been exposed at Mount Hermon, but even she isn’t certain.

“It was the biggest gathering I’ve been to since this started,” Slaughter said. “But I don’t know. It could have been someone in my own church.”

Lanett Mayor Kyle McCoy said his community may seem rural, but actually acts as a crossroads between Montgomery and Atlanta, and as a bedroom community for some who work in Auburn. A lot of his residents work in auto manufacturing, in the Kia factory just over the border in West Point, Georgia.

“It’s a very religious community,” McCoy said.

The high number of cases caught the community off guard. McCoy said some of the numbers might be related to the availability of testing. Unlike a lot of rural communities, Lanett has a local hospital that started testing in mid-March.

“Two weeks ago, I think we had zero,” McCoy said Thursday. “Today’s number is 48.”

On Saturday it jumped to 83, a rate far outpacing other parts of the state. The deaths have hit Lanett hard.

“There is a sense of concern because being such a rural county, everybody knowns everybody,” McCoy said. “If someone here has passed away from COVID-19, you’re probably going to know who they are.”

McCoy said most churches have heeded orders to shut their doors, shifting to online services.

“We still have some that are not as proactive in protecting their members,” McCoy said. “Let’s just say there’s a few.”

Pulling through

Slaughter credits her faith for pulling her through her battle with COVID-19. After more than two weeks of symptoms, she said her strength is beginning to return, and she and her father appear to be on the mend.

“I encourage everyone to make sure they take precautions and be mindful of your faith,” she said.

Last Sunday, members of Mount Hermon did just that, meeting for a drive-in service outside the church. People stayed in their cars, observing social distancing as they fed their souls.

They welcomed a guest last Sunday too. The administrator of the local hospital, East Alabama Medical Center-Lanier, appeared with flyers. Wearing a mask and gloves, he approached cars and offered information and coronavirus and testing services offered at the local hospital, McCoy said.

“To help keep you and your family safe, EAMC needs to screen Mount Hermon Baptist Church members for COVID-19,” the flyer read, according to the Valley Times-News. “We will also give you information that helps you know how to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”

As for Slaughter, the experience has given her and her family another name not to take in vain.

“We don’t talk about ‘the corona’ around here,” she said. “It’s not something we say in this house anymore because we’ve lived it. And it is not a joke.”