Drew Hamilton stared out his bedroom window in shock at the burned ruins that had once been his local chapel.
It was the morning of April 28, 2023, and the 15-year-old Latter-day Saint in Cherry Grove, Alberta, Canada, had woken to his mother telling him that their church building was no longer standing.
Later, Cherry Grove residents would learn that the fire broke out around 3:30 a.m., with fire trucks from surrounding towns arriving to assist by 4 a.m. Despite the best efforts of first responders, the building was declared a total loss, Alberta news site Lakeland Connect reported.
Almost a week later, a local man was arrested in connection with the fire and charged with arson, CTV News reported. But in the weeks that followed, Drew and his neighbors were still left with only the ashes of the church that had been, in many ways, the heart and soul of their community. Drew’s own ancestors had helped build that chapel. How could he help rectify this loss?
His opportunity came over a year later, after the August 2024 groundbreaking for a new church building. Drew had recently been laid off from his job at a butcher shop, and looking both for work and a chance to help Cherry Grove, he messaged the construction company in charge of rebuilding efforts to ask how he could get involved. The company’s reply was short: “Bring your boots and gloves, be here Monday.”
Drew spent the next three months laboring at the construction site. Now, with the new chapel nearly finished, he can reflect proudly on his experience helping build a church for his community, just like his ancestors did.
The now 17-year-old hopes the new church will stand for many generations to come. But more important than the building itself is “the ward and the Spirit that comes with it. ... [Building the church] felt like a youth activity on some days when it was hard.”
Cherry Grove Ward Bishop Stephen Wille added that Drew, who belongs to Bishop Wille’s priests’ quorum, set an example of hard work for his peers — many days, Drew would go to the site right after school and work until dark.
“I think for him, it was a real opportunity to be able to carry out family history or family tradition,” Bishop Wille said.
‘Beauty for ashes’
Bishop Wille said the new chapel is slated for completion this August, and many Cherry Grove residents are looking forward to bringing friends to the open house.
The small Cherry Grove community was partially settled by Latter-day Saints in the 1930s, he continued. Many of Bishop Wille’s ward members are descendants of those early founders who built the original chapel, he said.
Further, many locals who aren’t Latter-day Saints considered that chapel their church, Bishop Wille said. So the building’s loss had “quite an impact. ... This place that [the town] had become very comfortable with and had attended for years was suddenly gone.”
Church members in Cherry Grove turned to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ as they grappled with this trial. In a Facebook post made shortly after the fire, Bishop Wille expressed faith in the Savior: “We trust in the Lord and His timing and take solace in the words of comfort He spoke to His disciples: ‘In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world’ (John 16:33).”
Before long, the community rallied to rebuild. Church members were especially involved, Bishop Wille said, with local Latter-day Saints doing all the framing and concrete work, and a number of other ward members joining construction crews.
In the meantime, church services moved to the Cherry Grove Community Hall. Bishop Wille recalled a talk given by a young woman shortly after the fire, in which she explored the scriptural idea of “beauty for ashes” (Isaiah 61:3).
“Even in times when [things are] just ugly, and when there’s violence or illness or who knows what, there can be beauty... that grows from it,” he said. “So often in life, something has to get a little worse before it gets better. And this will be a beautiful thing for us when it’s all said and done.”
