A Baptist congregation in Ohio is without a place to worship after a fire swept through its building in the early hours of Thursday, October 29 — just hours after the pastor and his wife found signs that someone may have broken into the church the day before.

According to Charisma Magazine Online, reporting from ABC 6 On Your Side, firefighters were called to Columbus United Baptist Church near Taylor Road at about 12:30 a.m. on Thursday. Crews spent nearly two hours battling the blaze, which devastated a building that had stood since 1974.

The fire came after a troubling visit on Wednesday afternoon. Pastor Jimmy Thompson and his wife, Beverly, had gone to the church to install a water softener when they noticed a broken window and water running down the front steps. Inside, they found the lights on and empty soda cans scattered across the floor.

The Thompsons contacted police about what they had found. Hours later, they received the call no pastor wants to receive: their church was on fire. Thompson told ABC 6 that he had to ask the caller to repeat herself, because at first the news simply would not register.

The Charisma report does not state a cause for the fire, and it does not say that investigators have linked the blaze to the apparent break-in. What is known is the sequence the pastor described — signs of an intrusion on Wednesday afternoon, followed by a devastating fire in the night — and the loss the congregation now faces.

With the building severely damaged, Thompson said it could take a year before the congregation can return to its own sanctuary. In the meantime, the church must find somewhere else to gather for worship.

Yet even amid the charred remains, Beverly Thompson noticed something small and striking: a single white flower blooming outside the church. While similar flowers grew elsewhere on the property, she said this one stood out to her as a sign that life remained there.

"I thought, okay, that is a sign there is life here. God is sending us that this is where we are supposed to stay," she told ABC 6.

For a congregation that has lost its building but not its faith, that flower became a quiet emblem of hope — a reminder that the church is not ultimately a structure of brick and wood, but a people gathered in the name of Christ, and that God is present even in the ashes.