ROCHESTER, N.Y. — While many neighborhoods in Rochester made it out of Wednesday night’s water main break, the Greater Bethlehem Temple was left underwater.

“One of our oldest members said, ‘Pastor Beverly, I just feel like crying,’” Pastor Beverly Renford recalls from one of the church’s original members back in the 1960s.

Their church sits on Favor Street in the West Side of Rochester, where the line hit the city hardest. Pastor Renford spent her afternoon sifting through the destruction throughout the basement, noticing large freezers turned upside down, and tables stacked on top of each other across the room.

“I never could imagine this and I really can’t wrap my mind around it,” the pastor says. She’s been leading the church for the past 10 years, ever since her parents passed away.

She and her own team are known for taking money from their own pockets to provide the community with free meals, arts and crafts for children and a safe place to worship.

“We just try to be a outreach,” said Renford. “Give clothes, food, money, gift cards on a regular and it all comes from our pockets.”

But as she looks at the place she and many others call home destroyed, her hands are tied just before the holidays.

“So this is really a lot that you cannot be prepared for,” said Renford. “There is no training, no schooling, nothing that can get you prepared to deal with this. It looks like a lot of this would be going to the garbage.”

The pastor says with a heavy heart and commitment to try to work something out.

“Even the services, although the upstairs is alright, I can’t allow them to come in,” she said. “So we’re back to Zoom.”

Reverting to the method they used throughout the pandemic to find a way to connect with the community during this special time of the year.

“When disaster happens, it leaves room for a miracle,” said Renford.

She says she’s hoping for more than just a visit from Santa.