Community and the Church
Jim DuBois came to Waldo in 1999 to become the pastor at First Baptist Church Waldo. Although the church is financially stable, it is struggling to build membership because the number of families in the city has declined. Besides First Baptist Church Waldo, Philadelphia Baptist Church is the only other church that still meets regularly.
Families started to move away after the Waldo Police Department closed in 2014 and a year later, the Waldo Community School. DuBois says parents were faced with the struggle of putting their child on a bus to Hawthorne for an hour every morning or moving closer to schools outside of Waldo. With no school and no young children, the membership of the church may decline as older members leave. But DuBois still has a positive outlook. “The uniqueness of Waldo in the community is the good folks who call it home,” he said. “We care about one another. We look out for one another.” |
Story and photos by Victoria Vargas
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