CANTON, S.D. (AP) — As churches in rural communities in South Dakota approach this year’s Christmas season, church announcements are marked not with parties and performances, but with deaths.
Churches in Canton, South Dakota, are grappling with how to approach an Advent filled with quiet mourning after a series of coronavirus deaths in the community.
Yet congregations are also finding new significance in the season when Christians mark the long, dark nights leading up to Christmas by preparing to celebrate the hope of Jesus Christ’s birth.
The Rev. Tim Thies of Canton Lutheran says, “We’re a people hurting for hope.”
(By the Associated Press.)
