Pastor Michael Marcela and the Rev. Robert Hartmans check in with each other on a Sunday morning. Photo: Kyla Willoughby
[Faith & Leadership] It was raining hard in Valle Crucis, North Carolina, as the Rev. Robert Hartmans unloaded boxes and hauled furniture into the parsonage that would be home for the next year for him, his wife, their 5-week-old baby and 3-year-old son.
Rain continued as they unpacked and organized the house that sits just up the hill from the century-old stone sanctuary of the Church of the Holy Cross. In two days, the young Episcopal priest was scheduled to begin his interim pastorate.
About a mile away, the Rev. Michael Marcela was wrapping up his Wednesday administrative council meeting at Valle Crucis United Methodist Church.
“Before we left, we went ahead and moved the hymnals and Bibles and some of the pews up higher on the altar and tied up the picnic tables under the back shed,” said Marcela, a licensed local pastor. He had been serving as a Methodist pastor in Valle Crucis for a year and a half and had been a member for some 15 years before that.
He’d been through this drill before. Before going into ministry, Marcela, who holds a doctorate in special education and administration, had served as exceptional children’s program director for Watauga County Schools for 13 years. But he had no idea how damaging the storm was going to become by Friday, Sept. 27 – the day Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina.
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