Epworth United Methodist Church

09/06/2026

07/13/2026

The young lady that was “missing” has been safely found according to LMPD and the family.

07/10/2026

This is the final word I will have to say in this venue concerning the young lady that fled to our church to escape an assault.

-After speaking to Kayla's mother on July 7th, I reached out to LMPD to share with them the footage our security cameras had of Kayla, her father, as well as unknown vehicles in our parking lot on July 4. Officers Russell and Hughes came to the church and had no knowledge of the case or the assault. They did not want to see the footage and told me to hang onto it. The problem? Our cameras will eventually overwrite older footage.

-On July 9, I took the Lead Team Chair from our church, who is a retired Federal parole officer, with me to LMPD 3rd Division to proactively ask them to come and get our footage. I am tired of worrying something happening to this footage. From the very beginning of this, we have actively attempted to help both LMPD and the family.

At the division, we spoke to Sergeant Barone. I detailed everything we had on our cameras, the account provided by our cleaning lady, our interactions with LMPD, and the family. I made clear to him that I wanted them to come and get the footage off the camera. I had even taken the step of purchasing a flash drive to accommodate this.

Sergeant Barone, like the previous officers had no knowledge of anything that I had just shared. He took down the parents' numbers from the flyer on my phone. He asked if we would give him "a minute" to go and do some checking.

He returned after several minutes and his first words to us were, "I don't think we're going to need your footage."

My response was, "What?"

"We don't need your footage. There is a report of contact."

I responded, "With the girl?"

"Yes."

After our conversation with Sergeant Barone and we were parting ways, I took the extra step of stopping him and asked him, "Is anything you just shared confidential?"

"I would not tell you anything I was not allowed to tell you."

I then shared with the mother what had been shared with us.

To be clear, we have been very open and proactive since this ordeal began. On two occasions we have actively sought LMPD out to ask them to come and get our security footage. I have made myself available to answer any questions, as has the two folks who encountered Kayla when she fled from her father's home for safety.

We will continue to cooperate with LMPD and the family in any way that we can. It is our sincerest hope and prayer first and foremost that Kayla is confirmed to be safe and secondly that this confusion can be cleared up. This has not been fair to the family, nor has it been to myself or my church.

07/09/2026

Update and this is a doozie…

I got really tired of reading some of the things I was reading. I also got tired of worrying about protecting the recordings on our security system. So, I decided to be proactive and pushy. I went and bought a flash drive with the intent of going to 3rd Division to come and get all the footage.

I grabbed our lead team chair at Epworth and we made our way to 3rd Division. Since this started I have talked to four officers and not a one has known what I was talking about. The officer today? Same thing. He listened to our story and said, “Can you give me a minute to do some checking?” We waited about 20.

The officer came back and his words were, “We’re not going to need your footage.”

“What?”

“Yeah, we don’t need it. She’s not missing, we’ve had contact with her.”

I am happy and relieved the kid is apparently safe, but holy cow.

07/09/2026

Friends, Pastor Corey here. I want to address a situation that arose at Epworth United Methodist Church on Friday July 3, 2026 since I'm getting so many messages and texts. Let me be clear on a couple of points. First? This had absolutely nothing to do with Epworth or Grace Kids. This was a domestic situation in the neighborhood near the church, where a young girl fled to the church to escape an alleged assault from a family member. Secondly, this is not a member or Grace Kids or Epworth. We are not familiar with the family in question. The church was closed on both Friday and Saturday for the holiday. What follows is a post I made in another page to address some of the inaccuracies.
*****
I would prefer not commenting on the issues of other folks, but with some of what has been posted on here, I felt the need to address the inaccuracies of the young lady reported missing in the Iroquois area.

-Friday, July 3, I took the day off for the holiday weekend.
I received a text from our cleaning lady at the church 12:24pm, which is attached.

-From home, I pulled up our security cameras to see that the
police were indeed on the property. Given their presence, I assumed the situation was handled. It did not involve our church or anyone at the church, therefore it did not warrant my presence. When I looked at the camera, I did not see the young lady in question. I am sure she was there obviously, just not
where I could see.

-Periodically throughout the day, a young woman would set the cameras off. My assumption was that it was the young lady in question. However, I had no way to know this for certain. I did question why she would still be lingering after the police had been there.

-Friday night at 9:06 a dark car pulled in the parking lot. A
man got out and hugged the girl and left. This struck me as peculiar simply because if this person is camped out in a parking lot and you know them well enough to hug them, why not take them with you? This footage was provided to the family.

-Saturday morning, July 4, I woke up to more camera
notifications that showed her wandering around. At that point, I decided pastorally I had an obligation to try and help. I called another member of the church and had them meet me at the church. We did not find her on the property.

-She did not show back up on camera until 2:06. She popped up
periodically until the final notification at 7:05; also provided to the family.

-Sunday morning, July 5, I was at church early to rehearse
for service. I was leaving to get coffee when a car resembling the one from the footage Friday pulled in the lot. I drove over to him and introduced myself as the pastor of the church. I then asked him if he was the one I had seen on my security camera with the girl hanging around since Friday. He shared that he was her father and that "it's all good, it's under control". I responded that I just wanted to check because of the police involvement from
Friday and he repeated, "it's all good, it's under control". After
which he pointed out where he lived.

-At that point, I determined to make the church leadership
aware if there were any young girls seen wandering around the property to immediately call LMPD. After the encounter with our cleaning lady on Friday, no one at the church had any contact or encounters with the young lady. The church was closed Friday and Saturday for the holiday.

-It is our sincerest hope and prayer that the young lady is found quickly and safely. We have offered all of our security footage to LMPD and the family.

06/02/2026

Here is the video I spoke of on Sunday. It's a fun/funny illustration of the complexities and difficulties of articulating Trinitarian theology.

The problem with using analogies to explain the Holy Trinity is that you always end up confessing some ancient heresy.Let the patron saint of the Irish show ...